Supervision is common practice in a lot of professions (counselling, coaching, social work, management) that involve supporting people in a 1-1, face-to-face relationship. It is a collaboration with a more experienced professional to talk through work with clients.

There is no comparable professional requirement in writing coaching even though it is similarly relational and often involves some emotional or mindset work e.g. dealing with imposter syndrome or lack of self-esteem, or working on memoir, autofiction or fiction that has difficult or even traumatic themes. There are definitely times when support for the supporter is beneficial in a book coaching dynamic.

🟣    Provide a safe space – to talk freely, to examine your thoughts and feelings (positive or negative) about a client or their work.

🟣    Help you hold your boundaries – having someone else hear about your practice and how you’re dealing with an author can be illuminating. Are you getting too close to them? Allowing the boundaries to blur? If you’re struggling to assert yourself with a client over deadlines, missed appointments/payments, supervision can help you process why it is an issue and help you with solutions.

🟣    Encourage professional development – the mentoring aspect of supervision is a huge help when you’re starting out; you’ll learn a lot from their experience but also from examining your own work through a different lens.

🟣   Support you and give encouragement – if you’re struggling with imposter syndrome, are questioning your methods or feel like you aren’t getting the best out of a client, your supervisor will have your back. They’ll support you while you support your clients.

I was used to supervision in my counselling role, so it was natural for me to continue with it in my coaching role. I obviously deal with very different things, but there are still clients and scenarios that can push my buttons. If I have strong feelings about a client (either positive or negative) I always bring it to supervision – it can be insignificant, but sometimes it has been that the client reminds me of someone else and I’m transferring feelings from them, or they might be boosting my ego, putting me on a pedestal because they see me as an authority figure they want to please. I also have to keep a close eye that I don’t veer into counselling.

I’ve dealt with some difficult clients who push the boundaries and as a ‘nice’ person, a bit of a people-pleaser, I have to keep an eye on this so I don’t let them manipulate me (whether consciously or not).

The two most significant things in the last couple of years have been a client who died in the process of our work and dealing with the grief of that, even as someone on the periphery of their life; the other was a client who didn’t disclose that her novel (actually autofiction) involved baby loss – I think I’ll write a case study about this client in the next few weeks so I’ll leave it at that for now.

If you’re going to stick to accountability type coaching or be very strictly only working on writing skills, you may find that you don’t need or want supervision. And like I mentioned, it isn’t a requirement for any of us, but I’d encourage you to give it a try, especially if you struggle with boundaries.

I’d love to hear your experiences if you’ve used supervision or your thoughts about it if not!

Aimee

Aimee Walker Editorial (AWE)

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