Trauma-Informed Group Supervision: Finding Collective Care as Clinicians

Sep 2

When I moved from Florida to Boston and then soon after to Montreal, I left behind a professional network and a community where I felt understood and supported. Suddenly, I was navigating a new city, a new language, and a professional landscape that felt totally foreign. The transition was disorienting. The loss of community, of support, and even of fluency in the language of my work left me feeling deeply alone.

What ended up helping me rebuild was supervision and training. That might sound dry on paper, but it was actually life-giving. In those spaces, I found other clinicians who gathered not just to “level up skills,” but to reflect, swap stories, and hold each other up. It wasn’t just professional development. It was a lifeline. Supervision gave me a renewed sense of community and belonging, and it honestly changed the course of my professional and personal life.

Here’s the thing: supervision is often imagined as this stiff, top-down relationship where the supervisor is the “expert” and the supervisee just soaks it up. At Clinic Altera, we don’t buy into that. We see supervision as a relational process that must itself be trauma-informed.

Because let’s be real. Clinicians carry a lot. Not just our clients’ trauma, but our own. Without structures of care, that weight can creep into vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and burnout. Trauma-informed supervision says: let’s not add more overwhelm. Let’s make this a place of safety, empowerment, and restoration. That means grounding and containment, but also trust, empowerment, and a little nervous system TLC. Supervision can be a space where you exhale, reset, and remember why you’re here.

And then there’s relational posture. I know, it sounds like we’re talking about slouching at the dinner table, but in psychotherapy it’s everything. Relational posture is how we hold ourselves with clients — not just physically, but emotionally. Too much leaning in and we’re enmeshed. Too much pulling back and we’re disconnected. The sweet spot is being grounded, open, attuned. At Altera, we reflect a lot on this balance: how do you stay connected without losing your center? It’s a game-changer when it comes to co-regulation, containment, and keeping therapy a safe place.

Now, take all of that and put it in a group setting, and something pretty magical happens. Group supervision lets clinicians witness each other’s struggles and wins, normalize the messiness of the work, and borrow wisdom from each other’s different perspectives. It’s solidarity in action. You stop feeling like you’re on a lonely island and remember you’re part of a bigger collective.

I often think of Deborah MacNamara’s line in Rest, Play, Grow: growth doesn’t come from endless grind, it comes from cycles of rest, safety, and connection. Therapists are no different. We need places to rest from holding so much, to play with new ideas, to grow into steadier versions of ourselves. Group supervision can be exactly that.

At Altera, this is how we hold supervision: bilingual and bicultural (English and French), always trauma-informed, always weaving in grounding and relational awareness, always centering community as much as clinical skill. It’s less about “checking the supervision box” and more about being part of a container that keeps you learning, supported, and connected.

When I first landed in Montreal, what I craved wasn’t just professional guidance. I wanted connection, a sense of belonging. That’s what trauma-informed group supervision gave me, and it’s the heartbeat of what we offer at Clinic Altera today.

Supervision here isn’t just a professional requirement. It’s a collaborative practice of care. For clinicians. For their clients. And, really, for the communities we’re all working to hold.