Why your ‘good’ clients need more of your attention and supervision time
What do you bring with you to your supervision? Your difficult clients? The ones that mess you about? Cancel at the last minute? Question your approach? Give you a hard time?
Or the good ones? The no-trouble-at-all clients? Attentive, appreciative and undemanding?
It’s worth thinking about. Supervision is a useful space for dealing with difficult client issues, but it’s invaluable for finding ways of helping quieter clients who need your help just as much.
Let me explain.
Supervision is a word when used in the business of therapy is so hard to define. After all, I’m not actually there, present in the room (both physical and virtual) supervising what is happening, moment by moment, between my supervisee and the client. And indeed, I don’t need or want to be an interloper in that hallowed space which exists between client and supervisee. I don’t want to invade the therapeutic alliance which Carl Rogers knew so well was one of the cornerstones of good therapy.
One definition of supervision which I very much like is A Creative Learning Partnership. But at face value this definition appears to contradict the literal meaning of the word supervision. How can it be a partnership when one partner is supervising?
A few days ago a supervisee came to supervision with nothing prepared. Just as in the parallel process clients can say ‘I’ve got nothing to talk about today’, my supervisee said ‘Allan, I don’t have anything to discuss today’.
I just LOVE supervising sessions like this, 90 minutes of pure unplanned FA. FA? Not that FA! I’m referring to Free Association, seeing what emerges from the wellspring of the unconscious. And not one unconscious but two. So we’re back to that Creative Learning Partnership.
In one of those moments of inspiration I thought and responded
“Okay , how about discussing your ‘good’ clients today, just for a change? Are you up for that?”
My supervisee had brought me a nugget. What happens to our good clients?
So who are these ‘good clients’?
They are the ones who show up on time, never ask to reschedule, never cancel, never challenge you and sometimes even compliment you. They never make a fuss when you need to re-schedule. They understand completely when you take your breaks and they make no fuss at all when you increase your fee. They are the ideal clients who have never suggested ending therapy.
So, what’s not to like?
Why waste your time, energy and money by bringing these good clients to supervision, after all, there’s nothing to talk about?
What’s more you’ve got lots of ‘difficult’ ones who you’re desperate to bring to supervision. Their issues are far more serious than your good clients’. They give you a hard time before and after your breaks. They cancel sessions, fail to attend, pitch late and there are lots of reasons why they would prefer to come fortnightly or even monthly and not weekly.
So why on earth bring your good clients when you’ve got so many difficult ones?
Think back to your school days. In the primary school classroom, there were the ‘good’ children and the ‘naughty’ ones. The good children were as good as gold. Teacher loves them but the naughty children make the teacher's life hell and take up so much of her time.
So what happens to the good children and what happens to the good clients? Simple. They can easily get left behind, forgotten, abandoned. Neither reach their potential.
So why is your good client coming to therapy? She’s so good, lovely to work with, no trouble, in fact she’s your perfect client.
How to help your good clients
There could be many reasons why your good client is coming to see you. Is she compliant, adaptive, colluding? Does she struggle to find her voice? Does she know her authentic voice? Is she fed up with being the good girl, good student, good wife, good client? Does she yearn to break out, feel free, uninhibited, liberated? Is she bored, unsatisfied and unfulfilled?
With good clients like this it’s a good idea to have frequent reviews. Questions like ‘What’s going well for you in therapy? How is therapy helping you? What changes are you noticing in your life?’
And ‘So what’s not going so well for you in therapy? What could be better for you in our work? What haven’t we talked about? What would be the most difficult thing for you to talk to me about here today?’
And it’s so easy to be fobbed off with responses such as ‘No everything’s fine, I love coming to see you every week, you’ve helped me so much’.
A possible response to this could be something like
‘Thanks for that, but if there were even one small thing which I could do which would make our sessions even better, what would that be?’
Why good clients need more of your supervision time
In my view our good clients can be a bigger challenge than the difficult ones. Good clients can lack the emotional language to give expression to what is happening in their internal worlds. In fact, some may be completely unaware of, out of touch with, that deeper part of themselves. Clients like this can appear outwardly happy but often they don’t feel ‘quite right’. That is why they’re coming to therapy. It’s so easy to repeat in therapy what is happening in the rest of their lives.
Our challenge as therapists with our good clients is to help them unlock the door to their internal worlds, to help them decide what changes they want to make in their lives and to feel more content, satisfied and fulfilled. And that’s by no means an easy job.
And that’s why, especially for these good clients it’s great to have a ‘good’ experienced supervisor working alongside you.
And that’s why our good clients need to be presented in supervision too.