Contemporary relational psychoanalysis is an elegant blend of art and science. It is to be a skilled musician who knows her instrument well enough to play with any musician and recover from misattunements. It is to be a skilled boater who knows how to row in any waters and recover from the boat overturned. Contemporary relational psychoanalysis is to know the self enough to help others to know themselves. To know what is needed in the healing relationship and why. It is to know how to fail and how to repair. It is to know how to be curious throughout the lifespan. It is to know how to be helpful and also how to not know. It is a humble and rich way of being in the role of therapist.

My goal in supervision is to support clinicians in trusting themselves and trusting their clients. I am disinterested in being a gatekeeper or telling clinicians how they “should” work. Instead, I am interested in helping them notice what is going on in the room and within themselves and how to make decisions based on that noticing. I wish to help clinicians try and fail and try and succeed and work to understand the why. Supervision, in my mind, should mirror the organic process of relational psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy in that, while the focus is on your cases vs your mind, I trust clinicians to bring to the table what is most in need of attention. And I trust them to bring it to me in a way that is most useful to their practice.

As as supervisor I believe I have a strength in noticing patterns and imagining the childhoods that led to those patterns within the psyche. I find that supervision conversations allow for another eye to see what the themes of the treatment are and how to access those themes in the work based on each client’s resistances.

For 13 years prior to starting my own private practice I served in direct care and supervisory roles in wilderness, residential treatment, IIHS, day treatment and foster care environments. My many years of experience in these high intensity and high trauma settings set me apart from many outpatient clinicians and supervisors in that they have provided me with a unique perspective on how to navigate trauma and resistance for even very complicated clients. For the last four years I have been providing clinical supervision and consultation to outpatient therapists and have supported many of them in starting their own thriving practices.

Since being in private practice, I have received and continue to receive psychoanalytic supervision from Dr. Stephen Ellis M.S.W., B.C.D., Ph.D., NCPsy.A. Dr. Stephen Ellis is the former Executive Director of the Philadelphia School of Psychoanalysis and studied with Dr. Gerald Lucas at the Institute for Modern Psychoanalysis in New York City. He also participated in Training Groups with Dr. Hyman Spotnitz, founder of the Modern Psychoanalytic approach to psychotherapy.

It is in the tradition of contemporary relational pychoanalysis to first be student, supervisee and analysand. While an analyst may never stop being any of those things, it is an honor in the tradition to then move on to supervising, teaching and analyzing those who wish to learn this art. I provide psychoanalytically Informed supervision for those who require supervision for NC full licensure as well as those who wish to continue their supervision throughout their career.