Clinical supervision is often centred on dialogue, reflection, and case discussion. Yet for creative arts therapists, important dimensions of clinical work may emerge more fully through image, metaphor, movement, and the creative process itself. Art-based supervision brings the language of the arts into supervision, offering another way to explore therapeutic relationships, countertransference, uncertainty, professional identity, and experiences that may be difficult to articulate verbally.
Barbara Fish (2012) describes response art as a means through which art therapists can reflect upon and process their clinical experiences. Image-making can similarly function as a form of thinking within supervision, making visible aspects of therapeutic relationships that may remain outside immediate verbal awareness (Brown et al., 2003).
Another important contribution is Abbe Miller’s El Duende Process Painting, a sustained art-based method that places the creative process itself at the centre of reflection and supervision. Miller developed El Duende as a way of engaging deeply with image-making, uncertainty, emergence, and the artist’s internal process over time. The approach later informed the El Duende One-Canvas Process Painting (EDPP) supervision model, which has been studied by Lis-Ron, Gavron, and Bat Or (2025). Their research suggests that sustained creative work within supervision can strengthen the art-working alliance, openness to experience, and aspects of professional identity and practice.
Art-based supervision can also extend beyond reflecting on a particular client or clinical encounter. It can become a space for asking larger, even existential questions about ourselves as practitioners: Who am I in this work? What keeps me grounded? What am I carrying? Where do I feel stuck? What gives meaning to my practice? What happens when my values meet those of another person?
Barbara Fish (2012) describes response art as a means through which art therapists can reflect upon and process their clinical experiences. Image-making can similarly function as a form of thinking within supervision, making visible aspects of therapeutic relationships that may remain outside immediate verbal awareness (Brown et al., 2003).
Another important contribution is Abbe Miller’s El Duende Process Painting, a sustained art-based method that places the creative process itself at the centre of reflection and supervision. Miller developed El Duende as a way of engaging deeply with image-making, uncertainty, emergence, and the artist’s internal process over time. The approach later informed the El Duende One-Canvas Process Painting (EDPP) supervision model, which has been studied by Lis-Ron, Gavron, and Bat Or (2025). Their research suggests that sustained creative work within supervision can strengthen the art-working alliance, openness to experience, and aspects of professional identity and practice.
Art-based supervision can also extend beyond reflecting on a particular client or clinical encounter. It can become a space for asking larger, even existential questions about ourselves as practitioners: Who am I in this work? What keeps me grounded? What am I carrying? Where do I feel stuck? What gives meaning to my practice? What happens when my values meet those of another person?
Art-based supervision can also extend beyond reflecting on a particular client or clinical encounter. It can become a space for asking larger, even existential questions about ourselves as practitioners: Who am I in this work? What keeps me grounded? What am I carrying? Where do I feel stuck? What gives meaning to my practice? What happens when my values meet those of another person?
This broader orientation can be seen in the art-based supervision work developed by Lindsay Clarke and Carmen Oprea. Across their supervision series, art-making, metaphor, embodied reflection, and collaborative dialogue are used to explore themes such as rootedness, movement and stuckness, resources, professional identity, values, and relational presence. Their current work, Meeting in the Space Between, invites practitioners to creatively explore the tensions between our values and those of others, helplessness and capacity, and scarcity and abundance, rather than rushing to resolve one side of the tension.
From this perspective, art-based supervision is not simply about using art to understand a case. It can create a reflective and existential space in which therapists encounter themselves, their practice, and the wider systems and realities in which therapeutic work takes place.
If the arts are central to how we invite clients to discover meaning, perhaps they should also be central to how we discover ourselves as practitioners.
References
Brown, C., Meyerowitz-Katz, J., & Ryde, J. (2003). Thinking with image making in supervision. Inscape, 8(2).
Fish, B. J. (2012). Response art: The art of the art therapist. Art Therapy, 29(3), 138–143.
Lis-Ron, V., Gavron, T., & Bat Or, M. (2025). Experienced art therapists’ perceptions of the EDPP supervision model and its impact on their professional work and identity. The Clinical Supervisor, 44(1), 99–123.
Lis-Ron, V., Gavron, T., & Bat Or, M. (2025). Impact of EDPP supervision on creative arts therapists’ professional development, art-working alliance, and openness to experience. Art Therapy, 42(4), 263–274.
Miller, A. El Duende Process Painting [Art-based process and supervision method].
Creative Arts Therapies Events. (2026). Meeting in the Space Between: An Art-Based Supervision Series [Professional supervision series developed by Lindsay Clarke and Carmen Oprea].
This broader orientation can be seen in the art-based supervision work developed by Lindsay Clarke and Carmen Oprea. Across their supervision series, art-making, metaphor, embodied reflection, and collaborative dialogue are used to explore themes such as rootedness, movement and stuckness, resources, professional identity, values, and relational presence. Their current work, Meeting in the Space Between, invites practitioners to creatively explore the tensions between our values and those of others, helplessness and capacity, and scarcity and abundance, rather than rushing to resolve one side of the tension.
From this perspective, art-based supervision is not simply about using art to understand a case. It can create a reflective and existential space in which therapists encounter themselves, their practice, and the wider systems and realities in which therapeutic work takes place.
If the arts are central to how we invite clients to discover meaning, perhaps they should also be central to how we discover ourselves as practitioners.
References
Brown, C., Meyerowitz-Katz, J., & Ryde, J. (2003). Thinking with image making in supervision. Inscape, 8(2).
Fish, B. J. (2012). Response art: The art of the art therapist. Art Therapy, 29(3), 138–143.
Lis-Ron, V., Gavron, T., & Bat Or, M. (2025). Experienced art therapists’ perceptions of the EDPP supervision model and its impact on their professional work and identity. The Clinical Supervisor, 44(1), 99–123.
Lis-Ron, V., Gavron, T., & Bat Or, M. (2025). Impact of EDPP supervision on creative arts therapists’ professional development, art-working alliance, and openness to experience. Art Therapy, 42(4), 263–274.
Miller, A. El Duende Process Painting [Art-based process and supervision method].
Creative Arts Therapies Events. (2026). Meeting in the Space Between: An Art-Based Supervision Series [Professional supervision series developed by Lindsay Clarke and Carmen Oprea].
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