Around the tension between person, role and position
Coaching Supervision – Supervision for Coaches
Coaching supervision is the space where you can reflect on your own practice together with someone who understands your craft. You work alone, make decisions on the spot, and have no team in the next room with whom you can briefly check whether your assessment is correct. We look at your cases, your impact, your role and the limits of your remit – not as a form of oversight or scrutiny, but to help you see more clearly and make decisions with greater confidence.
I support coaches, team coaches, in-house coaching pools and trainee coaches: individually or in groups, in Wuppertal or online, in German or English. My work is based on process-oriented psychology. I am a qualified psychologist, a coach supervisor (ESIA, EMCC), a Master Certified Coach (ICF) and a psychotherapist accredited in the UK (UKCP, UK). I document all supervision sessions in such a way that they can be used towards accreditation with the ICF and EMCC.
Key Points at a Glance
Coaching supervision combines three functions: developing your practice, supporting you as a person, and ensuring quality and ethics. The EMCC requires it for all accreditations, whilst the ICF requires it for the ACTC team coaching certification – from 2027 onwards, only with specialist supervisors. It is most effective when carried out on a regular basis, rather than as a one-off session: usually every 4 to 6 weeks, with individual sessions lasting 50 or 90 minutes and group sessions 90 to 120 minutes. The initial consultation is free of charge.
What Coaching Supervision achieves
Supervision in the professional sense has nothing to do with supervision in the sense of oversight. The EMCC puts it in no uncertain terms: it is not about monitoring someone’s work, and the supervisor is not present whilst you are working with your clients. Supervision is a dialogue about your practice – an opportunity to reflect on actual encounters with clients and to make sense of them.
Three functions work together here. In a good meeting, they interlock without the need to distinguish between them (Proctor, 2000):
- Development: You broaden your repertoire, test your assumptions and further develop your capacity for reflection – even in areas where your previous explanations no longer hold water.
- Support: You have a space where you can process the impact this work has on you: the difficult session, the doubts, the exhaustion.
- Quality: You ensure that your practice adheres to professional and ethical standards and resolve dilemmas before they lead to breaches.
ICF’s and EMCC’s Understanding of Coaching Supervision
The ICF summarises the same idea as follows: Coaching supervision is a dynamic, reflective process of collaboration, guidance and support through which coaches develop their personal, professional and ethical competence and maturity. The order is noteworthy: the person comes before the technique.
This three-part division is well-established. Brigid Proctor described it in 1986; the EMCC includes it in its competency framework; and Ashridge Business School structures its understanding of supervision into exactly the same areas. When frameworks developed independently arrive at the same conclusion, this is a useful indication.
Why Reflection is not Optional
Coaching is a lonely profession. You’re in contact with people all day long, yet you have no one with whom you can briefly check whether your perception is correct. The profession isn’t regulated, the assignments are becoming more complex, and the responsibility is growing.
The questions you ask yourself after a session do not disappear simply because you are experienced. They just become more precise.
The research is clearer than is often assumed. The first quantitative meta-analysis on the effectiveness of supervision, published in 2025, found significant effects, compared with control groups, on the competence of supervisees and on the quality of their working relationships with clients. At the same time, it shows that frequency is key: sporadic one-off sessions do not constitute effective supervision. And there is one uncomfortable finding: supervision can be professionally inadequate and, in some cases, harmful, and those affected usually do not realise this themselves.
What I take from this for your decision: Don’t just ask whether someone offers supervision, but also what approach they follow, how they ensure their own work is reflected upon, and what they are prepared to do if the collaboration does not work out. The findings in detail, with effect sizes and sources: The effectiveness of coaching supervision – a look at the research.
Who I work with
Supervision, Mentor Coaching, Intervision and Therapy
These formats are regularly conflated in the market, partly due to a lack of clarity and partly for marketing reasons. The ICF expressly requires supervisors to clarify the differences. I adhere to this because it is also the more practical approach.
Coaching
In coaching, we work on your clients’ concerns. In supervision, we work on your professional practice. Supervision is not coaching for coaches.
Mentor Coaching
Mentor coaching specifically develops your coaching skills through practical sessions based on the competency models and is a compulsory part of the ICF certification pathway. Supervision focuses on the coach’s sense of self, the impact of your work and your approach to systems. The ICF explicitly describes the relationship between the two formats as symbiotic: your skills cannot be separated from your way of being. I offer both, separately and with their own contracts – for comparison.
Intervision and Peer Case Consultation
In intervision, a group supervises itself without formal leadership. Whilst this is valuable, it does not replace supervision: there is no one standing outside the group dynamics who can point out what the group as a whole fails to see. The EMCC offers peer supervision as a separate format and expressly requires individual supervision for accreditation.
Psychotherapy
Supervision focuses on your professional practice, not on your personal history. Personal issues may arise, as they form part of your professional toolkit – but they are only addressed here insofar as they relate to your practice. The boundary is not defined by the subject matter, but by the purpose: the guiding principle is always what benefits your clients and what enhances your professional competence. As a psychotherapist accredited in the UK, I am professionally qualified to draw this boundary.
How I work
Prozessorientierte Coaching-Supervision
I work on the basis of Arnold Mindell’s Process-Oriented Psychology. The starting point is not a framework imposed on your situation, but rather what actually emerges from your account and from the interaction between us. What initially appears to be a disruption – a situation that has stalled, a sense of fatigue, impatience – we treat as information, not as a mishap.
Solution-focused and systemic models have been incorporated over the years, but the core remains process-oriented. I use Peter Hawkins and Robin Shohet’s ‘7-Eyes Model’ as a guide, with its seven perspectives: your client, your interventions, the relationship between the two of you, yourself, our relationship here, my own reactions, and the wider context. This reveals which perspective has been missing from a case so far.
The seventh – the organisational context – becomes particularly important when you are working as an internal coach and roles, loyalties and mandates overlap.
Two points make the process-oriented approach particularly useful for supervision. Both relate to what coaches often find unsatisfactory about supervision.
The absent client. Your account of a situation is always, by its very nature, a processed version of that situation, and what is left out is often the crucial point. We rely on the dynamics of the case re-emerging here in the room: you describe a client who is evasive, and in doing so, you yourself become evasive. This parallel process has been empirically proven; the EMCC recognises working with it as a distinct area of expertise.
The Person and the Profession are Inseparable. The clear distinction between supervision and personal development is the reason why supervision often remains at a cognitive level and has little impact. To ensure that this does not turn into therapy disguised as supervision, I pose a probing question: How would it be helpful for your client if you had more or less of this ‘X’? Personal work always has a specific focus here.
In practical terms, this means that we don’t just discuss things, but we practise different roles and approaches and make sure you understand what this means for your next meeting. This includes your ‘anti-style’ – the practised opposite of your usual approach, for those moments when your tried-and-tested way of doing things is actually the wrong one.
My offers
Individual Coaching Supervision
Usually every 4 to 6 weeks, in Wuppertal or online. We work on your cases, your role and decisions that you do not currently wish to make on your own. This is the required format for all EMCC accreditation pathways.
Group Coaching Supervision
4 to 6 coaches, a fixed group, monthly or fortnightly, online. You benefit in two ways: from working on your own issues and from what you learn from the other participants’ cases. For many, the group is the easiest way to get started – and a remedy for loneliness at work.
Training, Monitoring and Live Supervision
For candidates on training programmes in coaching, supervision, organisational development and psychotherapy. You will contribute your own cases in the form of a report, audio recording or transcript. Live supervision with a client during a session is also possible – this is the most intensive format.
Supervision for In-house Coaching Teams and Organisations
Ongoing supervision, either one-to-one or in a group, including clarification of the supervisory triangle: which issues should be addressed in supervision, what information is shared with whom, and where confidentiality ends. This should be set out in writing before the first session takes place. More information: here.
Supervision Following Critical Situations
Short-term support when something has happened: a breach of boundaries, a termination accompanied by accusations, a crisis on the client’s part, or a suspected breach of ethics. Available within a few days upon request.
For your Safety
Confidentiality, Contracts and Ethics
Whatever you share during supervision remains between us. This assurance has two clearly defined limits, and I prefer to mention them in advance rather than when an emergency arises: a legal obligation to disclose information or take action, and a serious ethical breach that cannot be avoided and which would cause harm to third parties. In the latter case, I will first discuss with you what steps can be taken. We will only process recordings of your sessions with the documented consent of your clients and will delete them once they have been processed.
We begin with a contract that sets out the purpose, key areas of focus, frequency, duration, fee, the scope of confidentiality and the terms of termination, and we review it as the process progresses. If an organisation or an educational institution is involved, a third agreement is added: who receives what information, in what form and for what purpose. I do not begin without this clarification.
I work in accordance with the ethical standards to which I am bound by my accreditations, including those of the ICF, the EMCC, the EAP and the UKCP, and I regularly have my own supervision work supervised. If I reach the limits of my expertise, I will say so and recommend an alternative approach.
Supervision and Your Accreditation
|
Association |
What applies |
|---|---|
|
EMCC Global |
Supervision is a prerequisite for professional practice. A minimum of four hours of individual supervision per year, spread evenly over twelve months. The minimum ratio is 35 hours of practice to one hour of supervision. Those who carry out several types of work, such as coaching, mentoring, team coaching, supervision or organisational development, require at least eight hours per year. Individual supervision is required on the path to Global Individual Accreditation. |
|
ICF |
For ACC, PCC and MCC, ten hours of mentor coaching over a period of at least three months are required, not supervision. For the ACTC team coaching certification, a minimum of five hours of supervision is required. Upon re-accreditation after three years, up to ten hours of supervision are recognised as continuing professional development. |
|
ICF from January 2027 |
Supervision hours for ACTC and for renewal must be completed with individuals who hold the new Coaching Supervisor Specialisation. If you are planning to do this during this period, please bear this in mind now |
|
Association for Coaching |
Supervision is considered essential for all applicants, with no set number of hours |
|
APECS |
12 months’ supervision with the same supervisor prior to submitting the application, and on an ongoing basis thereafter |
|
bso Switzerland |
A minimum of 18 hours of peer supervision or 9 hours of individual supervision is required. |
|
DBVC |
Target standard: regular supervision, with no set number of hours. |
My ualifications as a Supervisor
I hold a degree in psychology with a clinical specialisation (Ruhr University Bochum), am a Coach Supervisor (ESIA) with the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, a Master Certified Coach (MCC) with the International Coaching Federation, a Team Coach (ITCA, EMCC) and a Senior Practitioner (EIA).
I completed my supervision training with a Diploma in Coaching and Mentor Supervision from Bluesky International, alongside faculty training in supervision within Process-Oriented Psychology. In addition, I undertook a five-year specialist psychotherapy training programme in Process-Oriented Psychology in London, accredited by the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, leading to the European Certificate in Psychotherapy from the EAP. As a lecturer, I teach on the Master’s programme in Coaching at Vinzenz Pallotti University.
In my 37 years of professional practice, I have been offering supervision to colleagues for the past 15 years – and I continue to have my own work supervised on an ongoing basis. All my qualifications, accreditations and professional memberships can be found under ‘About me’.
Procedure and General Conditions
Initial Consultation
Thirty minutes, free of charge and with no obligation. We’ll discuss your situation, work out which format is best suited to it – and see if we’re a good fit. This isn’t just a polite formality: the EMCC expressly recommends selecting supervisors on the basis of their experience, accreditation, their own supervision and a clear theoretical framework. Please feel free to ask me about this.
Contract
A written agreement setting out the purpose, key areas, frequency, duration, fee, confidentiality and termination. Where an organisation is involved, a tripartite agreement is also required.
Rhythm and duration
Individual supervision: 60 or 90 minutes, usually every four to six weeks. Group supervision: 90 to 120 minutes, monthly or every two months, as a fixed group over at least five sessions. Both research and my own experience show that continuity is effective, whereas one-off sessions are hardly so. You should allow for at least three sessions – preferably seven to ten – before forming an opinion on its benefits.
Confidentiality
Whatever you share with me will remain between us. There are two exceptions to this promise, and I would rather mention them now than wait until a serious situation arises: a legal obligation to disclose information or take action, and a serious ethical breach that cannot be avoided and which would cause harm to third parties. In such cases, I will first discuss with you what steps can be taken. We only process recordings with the documented consent of your clients.
Location, Language, Proof
At my practice at 55 Friedrich-Ebert-Straße in Wuppertal, online or by telephone. Group sessions are usually held online. In German or English.
Analysis and Verification
Practice at Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 55 in Wuppertal, online or by telephone; group sessions are usually held online, in German or English. I work in accordance with the ethical standards of the ICF, EMCC, EAP and UKCP. I record all sessions in a format suitable for accreditation purposes.
Frequently Asked Questions
References
Proctor, B. (2000). Group Supervision: A Guide to Creative Practice. London: Sage
