Supervision Through Art: A Creative and Reflective Space

Supervision is more than a professional requirement—it is a space for creative exploration, deep reflection, and personal transformation. As an Art Psychotherapist, I integrate traditional supervision methods with art-based approaches, helping supervisees access unconscious material, gain fresh perspectives, and develop a deeper awareness of their practice.

Therapy is a relational and often intense emotional process, where unconscious dynamics—both our own and our clients’—shape the work in profound ways. Supervision offers a safe, reflective space to explore these complexities. Hawkins & McMahon (2020) emphasize that the self is the most important tool in therapy, thus making regular supervision essential for clarity, ethical practice, and self-care.

Why Use Art in Supervision?

Words can sometimes feel limiting when trying to process complex therapeutic encounters. Art, on the other hand, allows us to step outside of verbal constraints and engage with symbols, metaphors, and the unconscious. It provides a mirror to hidden dynamics, helping supervisees uncover patterns, emotions, and insights that might otherwise remain elusive.

By incorporating creative processes, supervision becomes a space where intuition, emotion, and cognition meet. Whether through drawing, painting, sculpting, or free-form mark-making, art in supervision allows therapists to:

• Externalize emotions and unconscious material

• Explore client dynamics through imagery

• Process countertransference in a non-verbal way

• Gain distance and new perspectives on complex cases

• Engage playfully with professional challenges

A Framework for Creative Supervision: The Seven-Eyed Model

To support my art-based supervision, I draw on Hawkins & McMahon’s (2020) Seven-Eyed Model, which explores different layers of the therapeutic process:

1. The Client’s Presentation – How does the client appear in therapy? How might we represent them visually?

2. The Supervisee’s Interventions – What creative tools can the therapist use to enhance their work? How can we consider the breadth of available interventions through creative expression?

3. The Client-Therapist Relationship – What metaphors or images arise when reflecting on this dynamic?

4. The Supervisee’s Inner World – What feelings does the client evoke? What might these feelings reveal? How can we use the creative process to explore these feelings?

5. The Supervisory Relationship – What parallels exist between supervision and the therapy process?

6. The Supervisor’s Experience – What reactions do I, as a supervisor, bring into the space?

7. The Wider Context – How do systemic and cultural factors influence the work?

By combining creative expression with structured reflection, supervision becomes an engaging, insightful, and deeply personal process—one that nurtures both professional growth and emotional resilience.

Is Art-Based Supervision Right for You?

If you are looking for a dynamic, experiential, and deeply reflective supervision space, an art-based approach could be the perfect fit. Whether you are already comfortable with creative methods or completely new to them, art-based supervision offers a unique, hands-on way to:

• Process challenging client work with greater depth

• Understand unconscious patterns shaping your practice

• Develop a richer, more embodied understanding of therapy

• Feel supported, seen, and creatively inspired

Supervision should be a nourishing, insightful, and empowering experience—one that not only enhances your clinical work but also helps you stay connected to your creativity, intuition, and passion as a therapist.

If you’re interested in exploring art-based supervision, I’d love to hear from you. Let’s create a space where reflection, creativity, and professional growth go hand in hand.