MENTORING/SUPERVISION
for ACUPUNCTURISTS

MENTORING/SUPERVISION
for ACUPUNCTURISTS

About

What is offered in a mentoring session, and in a supervision group?

Most important of all it means that you do not feel alone or isolated in your practice.

In a group you will have the support, encouragement and regular contact with 4,5 or more peers. You will meet and discuss a wide range of practice and professional issues, Stay in touch between sessions online, in an app or by skype, Facebook or phone. You will be part of and feel connected to a network of local acupuncturists.

In a one to one Mentoring session as a new graduate you will be able to talk through how to grow the practice you yourself want. As a more experienced practitioner you can talk through, in a confidential setting, an issue which you need [for the time being] to keep to a private session. Later if you wish you can move on to join a group. Or you may just prefer one to one work.

Both mentoring and supervision sessions help to relieve the tensions of working with patients in a clinical setting. All of us find that there may be difficult symptoms, diagnosis and treatment principles to work through, and some problem behaviours to manage in our working lives. The sessions ask you to take responsibility for what you say and how you behave with clients. They also provide a confidential space where issues are facilitated and worked through by a practitioner fully trained in supervisory and mentoring skills. This person will be an acupuncturist, with years of clinical experience, who knows how to recognise early signs of burnout and how to discuss appropriate changes to your practice.

Most important of all the mentor/supervisor will discourage you from making self critical judgements, will reinforce feelings of self confidence and therefore enhance our self esteem. Mentoring and supervision refreshes and inspires our practices and provides us with an opportunity to satisfy our professional needs.

The practice of Chinese medicine makes many demands on us and we face a variety of challenges as practitioners. When practising, we discover there are often particular situations to contend with when working with people of any age, who may be troubled or having problems. Some of us work with clients with complex issues, or with very ill clients, with the bereaved or the dying. Frequently in our professional role we form important, and sometimes long lasting, relationships with our clients.