Accounts of Supervision & Consultation
I have consulted regularly with Dr. Kate Donohue as a student, trainee, intern, and licensed MFT since 2002. In every phase of my professional and personal development as a clinician she has met my questions and struggles with warmth, wisdom, intuition and a wealth of concrete knowledge, grounded in years of experience. Via words and the arts we have engaged richly and relationally with each other and with my clients in a way that has continued to spur and nurture my growth, creativity and confidence.
— Karin Shola von Daler, MA, MFT, REAT
Kate was my individual supervisor from my first practicum site through getting my license. Emotionally, she provided a safe and nurturing environment for me as the supervisee to develop and grow my own voice. Always consistent, she was guiding, but not controlling. She helped me to manage my own anxiety about being a new therapist. With sweet words, she mirrored back the skills I had and gently guided me as a grew as a clinician. She reminded me of self care issues and help me develop techniques for taking care of myself both in and out of the office. When I became caught in my own shame complex and felt like a bad therapist, she shared her experience about similar situations. Always she encouraged me to use arts processes to understand myself better and allowing the images to guide me in my personal and professional life.
Clinically, I was blessed to have such a strong supervisor. She had been in the field for 30 years. Yet , I never felt talked down to or put on a level less than her. She was always present and punctual, teaching me about the frame by holding a strong one herself. She helped me learn to value my own clinical evaluation of a client. Theoretically, she embodies Jungian concepts and Expressive Arts Therapy. She’s knowledgeable yet always encouraging me to think clinically before providing an answer. She helped me strategically come up with interventions to bring back into the clinical hour. We discussed the clinical impressions and how they fit in with DSM diagnoses. She taught me about Jungian terminology and how to see a client through that lens. She offered readings and loaned me books to study or deepen issues I wanted to learn. She worked with me using Object Relations to understand issues that arose from wounding during the developmental process of individuals. She helped me understand a person’s defense structure and respect it. Yet, in the right time confront those problems that keep a person from becoming all they want to be. We looked at Expressive Arts modalities and used them for both interventions and countertransferenial information.
Practically, she is an amazing business woman. She helped to begin to understand how to manage my practice from that standpoint. She helped me first envision my ideal practice. She encouraged me to be real with who I want to work with. When I worked for too little fee, she named that. She helped me see that the services I offered were worth the fee I was asking.
She helped me with my marketing letter, suggesting target groups of my specialty. She has given me suggestions for starting a women’s group. She also told me when I was working too much and helped me with taking breaks and creating space. My private practice is full and rich. She was able to teach me on all these levels, including the most important gift of being myself as a clinician.
I must not leave out her office. She has created a temenous for the work she does. Anything creative you would like to do, you can do in her office.
She has it full of materials to express yourself using art, movement, drama, play, sandtray, and music.
I have been in group supervision with Kate. The group experience was wonderful in a different way. In the group setting, I was immersed in the Marriage of Expressive Arts and Jungian Psychotherapy. In group, we had readings and discussed theory. We had case presentations and used the arts to give aesthetic response prior to using our language. It was a rich process where we learned form each other and about ourselves. Kate also has a flair for ritual. She would always begin each new cycle with an arts process we would bring in to mark where we were in our development as a clinician both emotionally and clinically. In our endings, she would gift us with little ditties for our sandtray collection. We would share food and drink and celebrate our growth and the work we do.
— Syntha Lorenz, M.A., MFT, REAT
