Susan Osborne

I will be taking a sabbatical Monday 2 February until Monday 13 April 2026, when I will be back at my desk and with availability for new clients.

I offer sessions Monday to Thursday 9.00 - 1.00 and Tuesdays 5.30 -7.

I offer pastoral supervision to priests and ministers of religion, pastoral workers and those who work for charities.  Sessions take  the form of planned, regular  conversations  providing:

Space to bring your unanswered questions and talk frankly about your work.

Restoring space to address your growing edges, and your own needs as a practitioner.

Growing space to enhance psychological insight and develop better practice.

Challenging space where you can consider safeguarding and the ethical dimension of your work.

Celebratory space where you can acknowledge your achievements.

Reflective space where you can consider your work and your vocation within the context of your faith or spiritual understanding.

Playful space where you can work creatively and access your hidden wisdom.

Safe space defined by an agreed confidentiality contract.

At present, work is conducted by zoom.  I also offer supervision via telephone.

'Out beyond right-doing and wrong-doing ... I'll meet you there' (Rumi).  

I approach pastoral supervision  in a spirit of respect and collaboration.  Colleagues can take a step back and reflect on their work.  Where relevant, I refer supervisees to books, ideas and research. When appropriate, I find that  working with poetry can be fruitful, enjoyable and enlightening.

 I believe that  burdens are lighter when they are shared.  Supervisees often find it a relief to talk confidentially through practice issues with a trusted other. 

In preparation for our first session, I email my pastoral supervision agreement, my data protection statement and my on-line working statement.  This gives potential supervisees some information which will form the basis of our first contracting conversation.  

Firstly, we will talk over the supervisee's issues and priorities for supervision.  Then we will cover practical issues like confidentiality, contact arrangements, frequency of meeting and costs.  We will check for any overlapping relationships and consider any possible impact on our work.    I will explain what it means in my practice to work to the BACP Ethical Framework.

Finally I will emphasise my intention to honour the supervisee's trust and always to treat the supervisee with respect as an adult capable of taking responsibility for her/his work.

I am taking a sabbatical Monday 2 February until Monday 13 April 2026 when I will be back at my desk with availability for new clients.

I offer sessions Monday to Thursday mornings 9.00 - 1.00.  I  can also  evening meetings  5-  7 on Tuesdays.

I see therapy as a process of unfolding self-diagnosis.  So, I will invite you to talk about the issues which are troubling you.  Listening carefully, I will try to ask  helpful questions so we can get a clearer understanding of the challenges you face.    The sessions are designed to get you thinking.  My experience is that, as the weeks go by, you can uncover strengths and possibilities.  These were often there with you already but perhaps you hadn’t seen them.

Through this practice of patient exploration, you will discover new resources in yourself.  You will be in a better position to make changes.  Either in terms of what you do, or how you look at things.

Part of therapy is helping people to shine the light on what they are already doing to help themselves.  It is also about helping them to find new helping strategies or practices.  For example, depending on the client, I find it can be helpful to offer poems which relate to their experience, or to develop with them a practice of reflective writing; or to encourage them in a habit of noticing and attending to the natural world.

Before we meet, I will send you a copy of my client/counsellor agreement  and my data protection statement.  This is so you have some information before we start work together, and it forms starting point for our first conversation about how we will work together.  

We begin by finding out what you are hoping to address in your therapy.  What would you like to change in your life? What is causing you difficulty or disturbing your thoughts?   We will talk a little bit about any previous experiences of counselling, and what you found helpful (or unhelpful).  Importantly, we will talk also about confidentiality, contact arrangements, frequency of meeting and fees.  I will explain that I hold to the BACP's framework for ethical practice.

Continuing, we will look at how the issue you are bringing fits into your wider life and past history and current relationships.  We consider any self-care practices or helping strategies you might already already have tried.

If it is helpful, we talk about your spirituality and how it relates to the issue you are bringing.

I explain a little how talking therapy works. I introduce the possibility of working creatively with your own writing, or with poetry and we decide whether or not you like the sound of that!  Throughout, we respect your priorities.

We end with a little review: we consider briefly our work together during this first session and ask ourselves whether we felt comfortable working together?   Could we imagine doing some good work together?  If so, we arrange to meet again.