History of Supervision
Supervision, perhaps unsurprisingly, began in the United States within the field of social work. Freud later gathered students in training to discuss their client work. However, it was Max Eitingon in the late 1920s who formalised supervision within psychoanalytic training in Berlin. This period is often described as the first phase of modern supervision.
During the 1950s, supervision entered a second phase with the introduction of recorded client sessions for research and learning. This laid the early foundations for group supervision. Although initially focused on clinical material, such as the client, their difficulties, and the use of interventions, supervision gradually evolved into what is sometimes referred to as a third phase. This shift reflected a more developmental and holistic approach. It began to consider the supervisee not only as a practitioner, but as a person who is learning, growing, and being supported within the work.
What Is Supervision?
The NCPS describes supervision as “a supportive framework where counsellors can reflect on their practice, enhance their skills, ensure ethical standards are maintained, and promote personal and professional growth.”
In essence, supervision is a space in which both the therapist and their clinical practice can grow. It ensures that work remains grounded in the best interests of the client.
This feels a far cry from my own early understanding of supervision. When I first entered placement, the purpose and potential of supervision were not explored in any meaningful way. It felt more like a requirement. “You’re going to see clients; you have to get a supervisor.” It carried the sense of reporting to a teacher, checking that I had not ‘messed up’.
As my understanding has deepened, it has been reassuring to encounter reflections such as:
“Supervision should never be considered something that just has to be done to satisfy a requirement of the registering body nor is it a space to just report all the things you do well.” (NCPS Supervision Good Practice Guidance)
and Hawkins and Shohet’s reminder that “Supervision can be a place where a living profession breathes and learns.”
Why Does Supervision Matter?
My original understanding of supervision was narrow and task focused. I did not fully appreciate the depth it could offer. Working closely with people, their differences, their difficulties, their emotional complexity, and their real-world challenges, requires continual reflection. I need to ask whether my approach and interventions remain ethical, relevant, and genuinely helpful.
Supervision provides a space to bring not only the work itself, but also its impact on me. It allows room to reflect on the emotions stirred by clients’ stories. It helps ensure that I am not working in a cul-de-sac, unconsciously reinforcing clients’ self-perceptions or being influenced by my own biases.
Supervision helps illuminate blind spots, of which there are always some. It supports ongoing personal and professional development. It is far more than a tick-box exercise or a place to report what I am doing. It invites deeper inquiry. Why am I doing what I am doing? How is it helping? Is there another approach?
The work beneath the work
Supervision should be a space where I feel able to bring all my clients. It should be a space where I can pause beforehand and reflect honestly by asking myself:
• Which clients am I willing to talk about?
• Are there any clients I believe I do not need to bring?
• Do I genuinely bring all my clients into supervision?
It is a space of accountability, where my practice is held ethically and where I am encouraged to reflect on my competence with openness and curiosity. It also invites a deeper question. How open am I able to be with my supervisor?
Am I making full use of supervision as a reflective and developmental process, or am I treating it as an “opt-in” exercise, something I attend simply to say that I have had supervision?
The Digital Supervision Space
It starts with me sitting in front of my laptop. The camera light glows. I see myself framed in the window, checking that my background is tidy and my image not too blurred. I want to be as visually present as possible. Then the familiar ping sounds in my earbuds. A supervisee is waiting to enter the room.
Supervision has been an essential part of counselling practice for decades. It has evolved from early, directive exchanges of letters between Freud and his trainees into the collaborative and relational process we recognise today.
The shift to online technology, accelerated by the lockdowns of 2019 and 2020, has expanded supervision’s reach across regions and time zones. With that expansion comes complexity.
My approach to online clinical supervision draws on three core frameworks that guide and safeguard my work:
• The Seven-Eyed Model (Hawkins and Shohet, 2020)
• The Integrative Developmental Model (Stoltenberg and McNeill, 2010)
• Proctor and Inskipp’s Functional Model of Supervision (Inskipp and Proctor, 2001)
Each offers a way to deepen, clarify, and protect the supervisory relationship in an increasingly digital world.
Why Models Matter in Supervision
For me, supervision is fundamentally about relationships. It encourages growth through reflection, guidance, and ethical awareness, while nurturing emotional wellbeing for both supervisor and supervisee.
Theoretical models act as a compass rather than a cage. They offer direction and structure when sessions feel uncertain or complex. Yet it is the relationship itself, built on trust, curiosity, and a willingness to explore, that brings supervision alive.
Working online offers new opportunities. It allows for greater accessibility, flexible scheduling, and a broader cultural reach. While geographical barriers have lessened, ethical and relational responsibilities must grow stronger.
The Seven-Eyed Model (Hawkins and Shohet)
One of the strengths of the Seven-Eyed Model lies in its ability to open dialogue across a full view of the therapeutic process. The seven “eyes”, or modes, help both supervisor and supervisee attend to relational dynamics between client, therapist, supervisor, and the wider context.
In online work, this systemic lens becomes particularly valuable. A client who appears distracted or disengaged on screen may be expressing discomfort, avoidance, or digital fatigue. Exploring this in supervision can reveal how the medium itself shapes the therapeutic relationship, including experiences of disinhibition, delay, or disconnection.
The model shifts supervision away from problem solving and towards system seeing. It supports noticing parallel processes, unspoken influences, and relational patterns that are mediated by technology.
The Integrative Developmental Model
The Integrative Developmental Model offers a way to understand how supervisees evolve. This includes movement from early dependence on guidance, through increasing autonomy, towards an integrated and confident professional identity.
In online supervision, I often see this reflected in growing confidence around digital ethics, online presence, and relational attunement. Supervisees become more aware of phenomena such as the online disinhibition effect, parallel process, and transference within digital clinical work.
The model also helps me calibrate my supervisory stance. At times this means offering structure. At others, it means stepping back as autonomy grows. This balance fosters the development of the internal supervisor, the reflective inner voice that guides counsellors towards competence, confidence, and self-awareness, including confidence in their digital identity and presence.
Proctor and Inskipp’s Functional Model
Proctor and Inskipp’s Functional Model outlines three interconnected functions of supervision.
The formative function focuses on learning, skills, theory, and interventions.
The normative function maintains safe, ethical, and accountable practice.
The restorative function offers emotional support and normalises the challenges of clinical work.
Balancing these functions is essential, particularly online. Supervision must remain warm and boundaried. It needs to offer high support alongside appropriate challenge, with accountability at the centre of reflective practice.
Through this lens, supervision becomes a collaborative ethical partnership that supports both professional growth and emotional resilience.
Bringing the Models Together
Together, these models form both a map and a mirror for my supervision practice. Proctor and Inskipp provide the ethical container. The Integrative Developmental Model supports awareness of developmental needs. Hawkins and Shohet deepen relational and systemic reflection.
Within this integration, supervision becomes a space where supervisees feel seen, supported, and appropriately challenged. It allows exploration of how personal history, culture, and technology shape therapeutic work.
In practice, this might involve noticing how a client’s withdrawal online mirrors a therapist’s uncertainty, or reflecting on how cultural assumptions interact with digital communication styles. Supervision becomes both grounding and freeing. It offers a holding space for awareness and growth.
Supervision in the Digital Age
Online supervision offers flexibility and accessibility. It also demands heightened awareness of presence, boundaries, and fatigue. Attention to disinhibition, both our own and that of our supervisees, is essential if reflective distance is to be maintained.
Screen fatigue and emotional balance are recurring themes. I often encourage supervisees to reflect on how digital caseloads affect them, and to create intentional space for rest, boundaries, and self-care.
The principles that guide ethical online therapy apply equally to supervision. Transparency, accountability, and relational authenticity remain central, even when connection is mediated through a screen.
Reflection – Holding Stillness Online
For me, supervision is where relationships, ethics, and reflection meet and grow. It is a framework that protects both counsellor and client while supporting the practitioner’s development.
I often think of Tony Stark’s attempt to build a protective suit around the world, a metaphor from Iron Man. Supervision functions in a similar way. It provides a protective layer, not of armour, but of integrity and care surrounding the counselling profession.
Even through the lens of a camera, supervision can be as deep and connected as face-to-face work. Though we meet through screens, the essence remains unchanged. Authenticity, truth, openness, and a shared commitment to growth.
References and Further Reading
Hawkins, P., and Shohet, R. (2020). Supervision in the Helping Professions (5th ed.). Routledge.
Inskipp, F., and Proctor, B. (2001). Making the Most of Supervision. Cascade Publications.
Stoltenberg, C. D., and McNeill, B. W. (2010). IDM Supervision: An Integrative Developmental Model for Supervising Counsellors and Therapists (3rd ed.). Routledge.
NCPS. Supervision Good Practice Guidance.
Transparency notice: This post was developed with the assistance of AI and carefully reviewed, edited, and approved by the author.