This page tells you more about what I can offer as a clinical supervisor and as a research supervisor.
This section provides information for counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, other health professionals and students who are looking for a clinical supervisor.
Who do you offer supervision to?
I offer supervision to qualified therapists, counsellors or Clinical Psychologists and other healthcare professionals.
I can supervise practitioners working with any theoretical approach, although I practise from a person-centred perspective.
How do you approach supervision?
My aim in supervision is to focus on the person of the supervisee and to facilitate your growth as a counsellor and as a person. My focus is on your self-understanding, particularly with respect to values and ethics and why we make the decisions we do in therapy relationships, both with respect to personal values and counselling theory.
I am passionate about values, ethics and the politics of therapy and have a comprehensive knowledge base of person centred theory, within the context of psychological and philosophical theory.
I aim in supervision to respond to your particular needs and offer my reflections on my experience in the supervisory relationship. I am open to respond to questions both personally and professionally and believe that who I am in all aspects of my identity is relevant.
I believe that an authentic supervisory relationship is the key for supervision to be a useful process where you can share experiences without fear of judgment and develop self-understanding through acceptance. My philosophy will tell you more.
I believe therapy and supervision are relationship, and my priority is always to encounter the other, to be authentically engaged in relationship and to reflect jointly on our perceptions and experiences of this relationship. The model I have for this is that of encounter, and facilitating encounter groups is one of my passions.
What supervisory experience do you have?
I have been offering supervision since 1998. I have taken psychologists in clinical training and counsellors on placement and offered supervision to a diverse range of health care professionals working in the NHS. I have also been part of peer supervision arrangements and a member of supervision groups.
What are your fees for supervision?
I am happy to discuss this and can sometimes negotiate. My fees are usually £85 per hour face to face or online or phone.
"I have known Gillian for the past 10 years as a valued colleague and supervisor. She supervised me on many occasions, sometimes in a peer arrangement. I have no hesitation in recommending Gillian as a supervisor.
I experience her as having a high level of empathy and offering a skilful balance of support and challenge when necessary. She is highly astute as well as sensitive. In my experience, she has demonstrated a person centred approach and upholds high standards to support the client within a firm ethical framework."
Francesca Glenn, Lead psychological therapist, Bradford District Care Trust.
"I received supervision from Gillian Proctor for around 3 years. I found her person-centred approach married with her clinical psychologist training was stimulating. Ethical consideration and sensitivity to difference were very much part of supervision.
Gillian was a thoughtful and supportive supervisor who was interested in supporting my personal development. She balanced support with challenge and her integrity as a practitioner, supervisor and person stood out. I feel my practice benefitted from her approach."
Lisa Milne, Lead Psychological Therapist, Bradford District Care Trust
This section is for students or researchers looking for research supervision.
What kind of research do you offer supervision for?
I have most experience in qualitative research, although have a basic knowledge of quantitative methods for students wishing to used mixed methods.
My particular interest is in power in research, ethics of research and in reflexivity. I also prioritise the philosophical underpinning of methodologies and the importance of rigour to justify choosing any particular method.
What is your approach to research supervision?
I really enjoy research supervision and work collaboratively with students to check out what feedback is useful and follow the student’s lead on what they believe will be helpful to them. I can offer research supervision via email, skype and face-to-face.
What experience do you have of research supervision?
I am a lecturer offering research supervision to counselling students at the University of Leeds.
I have also been a research supervisor for several training institutes (Metanoia and NSPC) and hold honorary research fellow/honorary lecturer positions at several universities (University of Nottingham, Leeds and Bradford).
I offer research supervision for Doctorate and Master’s degree theses and work-based research projects. I have supervised students completing PhDs and professional doctorates including Doctorates in Clinical Psychology, Doctorates in Counselling Psychology and Doctorates in Psychotherapy.
I can offer ongoing supervision, in collaboration with other supervisors, or independently, and I also offer one-off consultations to researchers who have other regular research supervision but want to further explore a topic that I have a particular interest in.
What other experience do you have which informs your research supervision?
I have extensive experience of writing and editing papers for publication, which helps me to offer guidance in structuring theses and provide in-depth feedback on structure and style.
I offer training in ethics and particularly power in research. For example, I facilitated a training day for the research ethics committee of Metanoia Institute on power in research in 2011.
I was the editor for Self & Society from 2017-2019 and co-editor (counselling) for the British Journal of Guidance and Counselling (BJGC) from 2010 until the end of 2013. This involved sending out submitted articles which cover a wide range of research methodologies for peer review and making an editorial decision to accept or reject articles based on these reviews.
These positions kept me well informed of current research and application of methodologies in the area of counselling.
I now review papers for several journals (BJGC, Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, Feminism and Psychology, Person-centred and Experiential Psychotherapies and the European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling).
What experience do you have of doing research?
My most recent research is qualitative research on the ethical conflicts faced by counsellors in IAPT, the results of which have been published in a book chapter, an article for Therapy Today and have been submitted to a journal.
As a Clinical Psychologist in the NHS, part of my role always involved research and service evaluation.
I was responsible for evaluation of the primary care mental health teams in Bradford District Care Trust. Prior to IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies), this involved setting up a system for monitoring and analysing outcomes of therapy using both therapist and client feedback, and involving qualitative and quantitative data (specifically the CORE outcome measure).
Since IAPT, I supplemented their systems of outcome measurement to obtain more qualitative data relevant to counselling and psychotherapy and better data on equity of access to therapy.
The self-injury service that I set up involved an evaluation of the pilot service. The results of this provided evidence of the service effectiveness, service user satisfaction and health economic benefits.
My interest in research led me to upgrade my Clinical Psychology qualification from a Masters degree to a Doctorate. This involved completing a thesis, for which I chose a theoretical subject, power in therapy. I later rewrote this thesis to produce a book on this subject.
This professional doctorate also involved a service oriented research project, which involved qualitative interviews of women with dementia and their views of their services.
Finally, an experimental case study was required, for which I wrote a paper with a client, describing our therapy relationship from both sides and her description of how she had changed. This later was published in several journals and then expanded to become a book chapter.
My M.Sc thesis also involved both qualitative and quantitative methodology.
What are your fees?
I charge £70 per hour for research supervision, which can include feedback on drafts via email or skype or face-to-face meetings.