Written for psychologists rather than clients. Most of us choose our first supervisor on availability, because we need someone and the list is short. It usually works out. But supervision is the main place your practice gets shaped, and it is worth choosing on something better than who answered the phone.

The formal requirements first

If you are a registrar working towards an area of practice endorsement, or a provisional psychologist in an internship, your supervisor must be board-approved by the Psychology Board of Australia, and for registrar programmes must hold the endorsement you are working towards.

Check that before anything else, because a supervision relationship that does not count towards your requirements is an expensive mistake to discover late. Board approval is verifiable on the AHPRA register.

If you are already generally registered and seeking supervision for your own development or for peer consultation, you have far more latitude, and the questions below matter more than the credential does.

Match the caseload, not the reputation

The most common mismatch I see is someone choosing an eminent supervisor whose clinical work bears little resemblance to their own.

If half your week is adolescents with eating disorders, a supervisor whose practice is organisational consulting will give you thoughtful, general guidance that does not help you at four o'clock on a Thursday with a family in crisis. Ask what their actual caseload looks like now, not what they have published on.

Ask how they handle being disagreed with

This is the question I would put near the top, and almost nobody asks it.

Supervision only works if you bring the sessions that went badly. The ones where you said the wrong thing, missed something obvious, or felt something about a client you would rather not have felt. If you are managing your supervisor's impression of you, you will bring the polished material, and the supervision will be worthless while appearing fine.

So ask directly how they respond when a supervisee disagrees with them, or brings a mistake. Listen to how the question lands as much as to the answer.

Clarify the evaluative bit

If your supervisor also signs off on your progression, there is a power dynamic in the room and pretending otherwise helps nobody. It is not a problem in itself. Unnamed, it can quietly shape what you disclose.

Good supervisors name it early and make explicit what is developmental feedback and what is assessment.

Practical things worth settling up front

Frequency and duration, and what happens when one of you is on leave. Whether sessions can be by telehealth, which for regional psychologists is often the difference between having a real choice of supervisor and having none.

Fees and who pays. Note that if you are in private practice, supervision is generally a deductible professional expense, which people sometimes do not realise.

How urgent between-session contact works, and what counts as urgent. Worth agreeing before the first time you need it.

Do not stay somewhere that is not working

Supervision relationships can go stale, or can be a poor fit from the start. Both are common and neither is a scandal.

Changing supervisor is a normal professional decision, not a betrayal. If you have spent six months getting reassurance rather than being usefully challenged, you are paying for something you are not getting.

My own supervision practice

I am a board-approved supervisor with the Psychology Board of Australia. My clinical work is weighted towards eating disorders, personality disorders and emotional dysregulation, with training in DBT and Schema Therapy, and I supervise most usefully where that overlaps with a supervisee's caseload.

Supervision is available in person in Ballarat or by telehealth, at $225 per session. You can see current rates on the fees page and read more about my background and training.

If you would like to talk about whether it is a sensible fit, get in touch. I would rather have that conversation than sign up a supervisee whose work sits well outside what I can usefully speak to.