I am an experienced clinician working with individuals and families, and a  special focus on working with couples.  I am currently on track to earn my certification for Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy in 2022. 

Professional Credentials: Temporary Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (Iowa #100432; Effective through 09/2023)

I am currently on track to initiate my AAMFT Supervisor Certification in January 2023.  

My philosophy of supervision is built on a foundation of my personal, business, therapeutic, and teaching experience, blended with the goal of creating a safe and accepting learning environment for supervisees. I consider supervision a professional relationship between supervisor and supervisee with an intent to develop clinical skills in the supervisee, while also protecting the public during the crucial developmental stages of new therapists (Honda, 2017).  

Good supervision is more than case consultation because it has a specific purpose with an aim to develop therapists who can perform self-supervision throughout their career (Todd & Storm, 1997).  A good supervisor balances a warm, confidence-building environment, with adherence to a timeline and a contractual structure so both parties know what to expect throughout the supervision process.  As a couple & family therapist I guide supervisees to conceptualize cases through a systemic lens, giving consideration to relationships, patterns, and interconnections.  Given my therapeutic style which involves an experiential and postmodern influence, I believe it is critical for supervisees to recognize the vital role that context serves in providing clarity and understanding of the world as perceived through a client’s eyes. 

 Being a new therapist can be scary, especially at the beginning of the supervisees' professional journey, so my first goal is to create a safe environment where supervisees feel valued and can be themselves without shame or judgment. Research suggests that supervisors can have a positive effect on client outcomes (Callahan et al., 2009) so fostering a relationship where supervisees can be curious, vulnerable, and open allows the supervisor to collaboratively teach, correct, model, uplift, encourage, and engage supervisees in a way that makes a difference for them and their clients.  

Supervisory goals and objectives are important because supervisees are usually on a path toward earning a state license and professional credentials, so understanding how supervision fits into their unique professional objectives allows them to measure personal progress.  While it may feel formal, memorializing the relationship through a supervisory contract is an important foundation for everything that happens after the first supervisory session. It builds a solid foundation where expectations are clearly defined for both parties and identifies co-created goals, defines the professional relationship, outlines supervisory methods, evaluation procedures, and adherence with compliance requirements, and ethical standards (Todd & Storm, 1997).  

Another important goal is to continually touch base with the supervisee in terms of how their clinical abilities are changing, the progress of clients, and areas where they need future development.  It is important to provide flexibility throughout the supervisory process which allows me to meet the various needs of supervisees. This includes meeting individually and in groups, virtually and in-person, and reviewing session video or discussing a case conceptualization.  Throughout the entire process of supervision, I encourage collaborative hypothesizing, planning, conversing, and feedback (Breunlin, et al., 1995).  

Just as supervisees are encouraged to take risks, examine themselves with an eye toward growth and change, and to be open and collaborative with their cohort, clients, and supervisors, I expect the same of myself.  Being a supervisor is not the end of the road, it is only a different path requiring specialized skills, tasks, and responsibilities. As a clinical supervisor I will manage my personal development through education and certifications which are based in family systems, trauma-informed, and reflect unique context and culture of supervisees and clients, and are trauma informed.  

 As a supervisor I serve multiple roles and as each of these roles are clearly identified and consistently met, it provides a secure base from which the supervisee can work, clearly defining boundaries and expectations. Each of the supervisory roles plays an important part in the professional development of the supervisee and can be grouped by relationship building, public safeguarding, skill building, and guiding roles (Honda, 2017).  

The relationship role of alliance-builder between supervisor and supervisee is a lot like the therapeutic alliance between clinician and client where safety and respect are valued and upheld.  Another component of this role is to be a listener, with an ability to hear perspective in order to gain insight into the context of the supervisee, with consideration of their culture, gender, ethnicity, and economic background.  The roles of supporter and advocate are also critical for the supervisory relationship, where new clinicians know they are accepted, validated, provided with empathy, and have someone who will plead their case when necessary. Another relationship role is acting as a mentor. This provides trust and guidance from a supervisor with experience and perspective that the clinician may not have yet considered. 

 Public safeguarding roles include the individual role of monitoring client welfare.  Supervisors maintain the legal responsibility and ethical burden for client welfare. As a supervisor does not usually have contact with the supervisee’s clients, it is critical to preserve a relationship where issues are conveyed quickly and openly.  Another role is that of gatekeeper, where supervisors must prevent harm to clients by monitoring behavior, competency, and skill levels of the clinician, verifying the supervisee gets the help they need to improve clinical skills and abilities, or find another professional path.  Additional components of the administrator role include verifying: 

 Skill building and guiding roles include the ability for supervisees to situate themselves in a position of self-supervision.  These roles help hone the individual skills and abilities to eventually operate without a supervisor.  These roles involve evaluation of strengths and opportunities for growth. Important roles are teacher, advisor, modeler and roleplay participant, and the role of ethics resource manager, knowing the questions to ask for ethical decision making for unique scenarios. For guiding roles I assume the role of case reviewer considering the details of case conceptualization, diagnosis, and treatment plan. Directing supervisees toward self-awareness of their unique context, or identifying the parts of themselves that are activated by clients, can ignite a new way of thinking about cases and spark personal development. Self of the therapist work is important for all clinicians, and involves a supervisory role of guiding supervisees to challenge their self-judgments, perform self-reflection, identify their personal view of self and other, building their strengths in support of self-supervision. 

As a clinical supervisor I bring my whole self into the supervisory relationship.  This means that my many years of corporate experience, systems-based clinical practice, education, and training ground me with a unique perspective. I value my individual insight while also strongly valuing the unique voice and perspective that each supervisee brings into the supervisor relationship. I have experienced many fabulous supervisors throughout my professional and academic careers, and I hope to pass on the wisdom and insight that each of them have shared. 

As a therapist I strive for client outcomes to involve a higher-level order of change. This type of change goes beyond simply trying something new, but instead involves a transformational shift in how a person perceives their world, along with new foundational rules that govern how they interact within their unique systems.  My theoretical philosophy of change is based on attachment theory and the role that emotions play in bridging old paradigms to new ones. My therapeutic style is based in family systems theory and is integrative in that I intentionally apply interventions that meet the unique needs of each client.  My go-to model is Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT).  This is an integrative model based on systems and attachment theory, as well as experiential, postmodern and feminist family therapy models.  Internal Family Systems Therapy is another model I often employ that focuses on the ability of the client’s Self to harmonize the parts of themselves that are born out of trauma.  

My supervisory model integrates a broad set of tools to meet unique relational, conceptual, perceptual and executive needs of supervisees (Todd & Storm, 1997).  A meta framework supervisory perspective developed by Breunlin et al. (1995) posits that integrative supervision “requires supervisors not only to facilitate a therapist’s work with individuals, families and their larger systems, but also how to move among these units and the various therapy orientations that apply to each” (p. 553).  The goal of supervision is to “help therapists balance action-oriented interventions and those that help families integrate new meaning and effect” (Todd & Storm, 1997, p. 199), thereby creating that higher-order change.