Supervision Group

The inspiration for Your Life as a Therapist came from my own urgent moments as a therapist and about the relief that came when my colleagues and I spoke on an experiential level - not only about clinical dilemmas but also from our lives as therapist. How do we therapists "hold the inner worlds of our clients, as well as ourselves, as we live professionally and privately? Clinical situations that get under our skin can become part of the daily (and nightly?) fabric of our lives.

Experiencing does not make the distinction between professional and private selves.  Yet in therapy we maintain a frame that protects both client and therapist. How can we best integrate these fundamental opposites? 

My solution to this dilemma has always been forming a safe learning community.  Using experiential moments,  sharing clinical material augmented by readings, we will create our own  "therapeutic community " to refresh our lives- personally and professionally - as therapists.

Joan Lavender, Psy. D. is a focusing oriented relational psychotherapist.

Her work is committed to integrating the philosophy and practice of Eugene Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing, a highly regarded and researched psychotherapy process that has been shown to correlate with positive life change, enhanced self-esteem, and the experience of integration and wholeness. She is a graduate of The Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy in New York. City.  She holds a Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology and is a past Fellow in psychotherapy research.  Joan is in practice in New York City (hybrid) and Granby Connecticut (online only).

Her publications include clinical research on the process of symbolization in psychotherapy, eating disorders, envy, loneliness in women and aging.