Clinical Supervision in Oregon
Relational, trauma-informed supervision
Relational, trauma-informed supervision for therapists who want to grow with support, honesty, and depth.
Becoming a therapist is vulnerable work.
You are learning how to sit with pain, track patterns, make clinical decisions, understand ethics, manage documentation, respond to risk, hold boundaries, and stay connected to yourself while caring deeply about your clients.
And you are doing all of that while being evaluated, observed, and sometimes very aware that you are still figuring it out.
Clinical supervision should be more than checking boxes.
At Hale Counseling NW, supervision is a place to grow your clinical skill, strengthen your confidence, explore the use of self, and develop a more grounded sense of who you are as a therapist.
Supervision should help you become more yourself as a therapist.
Many early-career therapists feel pressure to perform competence before they actually feel confident.
You may wonder:
Am I doing enough?
Did I miss something important?
Was that intervention right?
Why did I freeze in that session?
How do I handle risk, rupture, documentation, ethics, or difficult client dynamics?
How do I develop my own clinical voice instead of trying to sound like someone else?
Good supervision gives you space to ask these questions honestly.
It should support your learning without shame, help you think clinically, and give you a secure enough base to take appropriate risks, reflect deeply, and keep growing.
May 25, 2010 – Sharon's first therapy client
My heart pounded as I walked with my client down to the therapy rooms in the basement. It was my first day as a therapy intern, and I felt awkward. I was incredibly anxious that my new client would see the sweat stains threatening to soak through my armpits.
I had a hunch I was WAY more nervous than she was. More than once, I caught myself fending off a panic attack, thinking I had no idea how to help her through her depression.
Despite all that, somehow, we both survived the session. My client didn’t run away screaming, so I considered that a win. But I had no clue what I was doing if you’d asked me.
Supervision was supposed to help me know what to do, right?
Thinking back over my first years doing therapy, I vividly remember hoping that supervision would help me feel better about my work.
Sometimes sessions would go well, but I don’t know how that happened. But most times, sessions felt tough, and I thought I knew why (hint: because of me). I had no idea how to make them better!
I had a handful of supervisors during those years, and while I respect each one for their work, I didn’t always feel very supported or encouraged. My experiences in school weren’t always positive, so I was afraid of being judged or told I should switch careers.
Eventually, I found a great supervisor that I loved. I felt that she cared about helping me grow and support my clients. When I felt better about my work, my clients seemed to feel better, too!
What We Can Work On Together
Building Clinical Confidence
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Early clinical work can bring up a lot of uncertainty.
Supervision helps you strengthen your ability to assess what is happening, choose interventions with more intention, and trust your growing clinical judgment without pretending you have to know everything.
Working With Rupture, Risk, and Complexity
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Therapy includes hard moments: stuck cases, ruptures, risk concerns, ethical questions, mandated reporting, documentation stress, boundary issues, and uncertainty about next steps. Supervision offers a place to slow down, think carefully, and respond with more steadiness and clarity.
Understanding Client Patterns
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We work on case conceptualization through a relational, attachment-informed, and trauma-aware lens.
This may include tracking cycles, protective strategies, shame, agency, attachment needs, nervous-system responses, and the ways clients organize around connection and protection.
Growing in Couples and Relational Work
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For therapists working with couples or relationships, supervision may focus on tracking cycles, managing escalation, staying balanced, deepening emotional engagement, and understanding what each person is protecting or longing for. We pay attention to both the relationship pattern and each partner’s internal experience.
Developing Use of Self
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Your presence matters in therapy. Supervision can help you notice what happens inside you with different clients: when you feel pulled to rescue, fix, withdraw, over-explain, avoid conflict, or prove competence. These moments can become important sources of clinical information and growth.
Becoming Your Own Kind of Therapist
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Supervision is not about turning you into a copy of your supervisor. It is about helping you develop your own clinical voice, values, strengths, and grounded presence.
The goal is for you to become more thoughtful, ethical, skillful, and authentically yourself in the work.
Our approach to play therapy
Our work with children is warm, relational, developmentally sensitive, and trauma-aware.
We believe children heal best in safe relationships. That means the relationship between the child and therapist matters, and so does the relationship between the child and their caregivers.
Depending on the child and therapist, play therapy may include child-centered play, expressive arts, games, emotional identification, storytelling, parent consultation, family support, attachment-informed work, and practical support for home routines and relationships.
We do not see children as problems to be solved. We see children as whole people whose behavior often makes more sense when we understand their developmental stage, nervous system, relationships, stressors, and emotional world.
Play therapy may be a good fit if:
- Your child seems overwhelmed by feelings
- You are seeing behavioral changes you do not fully understand
- Your child has gone through stress, loss, transition, or trauma
- You want support with anxiety, aggression, separation distress, or emotional regulation
- You want help strengthening your connection with your child
- Your child has difficulty talking directly about what is wrong
- You want a therapist who understands that behavior is communication
- Your family needs more support, not more shame
Getting Started is Easy
Book Appointment
If we are a good fit, schedule your first session…
1st Session!
Start working toward what you want for yourself in your life.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will I be involved as the parent?
Yes, in some way. Parent involvement may include check-ins, parent consultation, family sessions, or support understanding your child’s behavior and needs. The structure depends on your child’s age and goals.
Is play therapy just playing?
No. Play is the child’s natural language, and in therapy it becomes a way to express feelings, process experiences, practice regulation, and build connection. A trained therapist pays attention to themes, patterns, emotional expression, and the child’s relational needs.
Can play therapy help with behavior problems?
Often, yes. We look at behavior as communication. Therapy can help children build emotional regulation and help parents better understand and respond to what may be underneath the behavior.
How do I know which therapist to choose?
At this time, Quinlan Sitenga is our only play therapy provider. View her profile here, and request a meet and greet to see if she’s a good fit: https://halecounselingnw.com/about-quinlan/
What age is play therapy for?
Play therapy is most often used with children, especially younger children who may not yet have the words to process emotions and experiences through talk therapy alone. The best fit depends on the child, provider, and presenting concerns.
What if my child does not want to talk?
That is okay. Play therapy does not require children to sit and explain themselves like adults. Children can communicate through play, art, movement, stories, and relationship.
Do you work with neurodivergent children?
Some providers may work with neurodivergent children or families navigating ADHD, autism, sensory needs, emotional regulation, or related concerns. If this is important to you, let us know when you reach out so we can help determine fit.
Do you offer online play therapy?
Play therapy is usually best suited to in-person work, especially for younger children. Some parent support or family consultation may be available online depending on provider availability and fit.