Nature of Supervision

I provide individual supervision and group supervision from a Christian perspective. Each supervision will  include “raw data from clinical work which is made available to the supervisor through such means as direct (live) observation, co-therapy, audio and video recordings, and live supervision” (21 NCAC 53 .0208). Several goals are to be accomplished in supervision:

  • To develop confidence and competence in understanding patterns of relational behavior, underlining motivations, and best practice of treatment modalities that will be beneficial for the client.
  • To develop good ethical boundaries, which include discussion of ethics, case studies, research, consultation, scope of practice, and referral.
  • To develop clinical skills in assessment, treatment planning, implementation, and documentation.
  • To model and help supervisee to develop their own style of counseling which fits their personality, gifts and abilities.
  • To develop the counselor’s self awareness and/or need for personal therapy about one’s own life story, which may cause counter transference in the therapy. While clinical supervision is not therapy, in these instances it may brush up against that boundary as we discern which issues need to be discussed in supervision and which would best be addressed within the supervisee’s own therapy.

I will evaluate on an ongoing basis. My goal is to provide verbal feedback focused on the above as well as to help supervisees obtains their long-term personal learning goals.  I will provide evaluative feedback, teaching concepts for learning and challenging you toward professional growth and helping you identify your next steps toward becoming a highly ethical, healthy, and competent professional.

Counseling Background and Philosophy

I am the owner of and counselor at Grace Roads Counseling Center.  In partnership with two churches, I counsel from a grace-centered perspective focusing on how one relates to God, self, and others. My areas of counseling include individuals (teens through adults) in the areas of grief, loss, depression, anxiety, anger management, and emotional and sexual abuse healing. I am work with families who are struggling through addiction which includes 12-step recovery, relapse, family roles, boundaries, and other issues related to the addicted family.  I also counsel marriage and family related issues such as parenting, personality, communication, conflict management, defense mechanisms, boundaries, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

My style of counseling is educationally focused on identifying patterns of how people relates to others through understanding the narrative of their own stories.  The goal is to help clients learn how to change their inner motivations in the way they relate to themselves, others, and God.   I use techniques such as narrative therapy, which includes genograms, cognitive- behavioral therapy, family systems, attachment theory, process theory, and a DBT skills-based approach.  All of the above techniques integrate these through the grid of a Christian world view of creation, fall, and redemption.  This world view is briefly defined as, “We are created in the image of God and therefore have worth, dignity, and individuality. We are designed to live in relational harmony with God, others, and ourselves. Secondly, because of the fall, we live self-protected and broken lives in how we relate to this world. We turn toward many other substitutes and substances in order to find fulfillment and hide from intimate, honest, and open relationships. Lastly, God redeems all things through the workings of grace of the gospel. Through the power of grace, we can learn how to live contented and whole lives.”