Clinical Supervision

---

Redtail Mental Health LLC is a teaching practice with the goal of building the capacities of mental health clinicians in Montana. Our clinicians engage in intensive ongoing supervision, reading, and external trainings to ensure the highest quality of care. In addition to evidence-based clinical skill, we believe that the best therapy is grounded in philosophy, neuroscience, curiosity, and a good sense of humor.

To incorporate the latest generation of clinical research in generalist practice, our work is built around common-factors therapies. This idea examines the enduring efficacy of psychotherapy across various models and identifies the core components of effective practice. Through clinical supervision, we engage with several expressions of this tradition.

Unified Protocol Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (UP) offers a transdiagnostic and approach for building foundational clinical skills for treating emotional disturbances. UP offers a pragmatic evidence-based framework for building the skills associated with cognitive behavioral approaches (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT). This model fits well with the clients we serve at Redtail Mental Health who are in a skill building phase and is fairly easy to learn and incorporate into a more eclectic approach. 

The principles of trauma-focused care, built on the work of  Herman, Van Der Kolk, Shapiro, and many others offers a generalist approach to addressing traumatic material and the related symptomology often categorized as Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD). The work here is heavily influenced by EMDR training collaborations with Jamie Marich Phd, Michael Kuffel, and the Institute for Creative Mindfulness, and is especially useful for presentations that include dissociation and the effects of developmental trauma. 

Relational Psychoanalysis, as presented by Dr. Roy Barsness, offers a lens for working with the transferential and counter-transferential elements inherent in the integration process and a model for incorporating the 150 year analytic tradition in the modern clinical setting. The attachment lens provided by David J. Wallin and others offers a crucial perspective for tracking both intersubjective dynamics in the office and understanding the nuances of developmental trauma. More recent research by Howard Steele (and many others) around such factors as reflective functioning is also incorporated into the clinical frame. 

The synthesis of these ideas has been strongly influenced and supported by the work of Andrew Laue, LCSW and his STAR-T resiliency model, which has been a major local resource for clinicians and frontline workers across Montana. 

In combination, along with a good dose of humility and empathetic curiosity, these models offer early career clinicians a strong foundation from which to build their clinical presence and careers. Supervision is administered both in bi-weekly closed groups and in the individual setting, under the framework of Schulman’s Interactional Supervision and supports the development of the Self as the primary instrument of the clinician. In addition to addressing case material, supervisees are encouraged to apply the principles of deliberate practice and feedback-informed treatment to ensure steady progress towards a broadly effective, resilient, and fulfilling clinical practice. 

If you are interested in engaging in this supervision model, either as an employee of Redtail Mental Health or as an independent practitioner, please contact us.