Peer Supervision
Peer supervision puts a group of coaches or practitioners together as equals to work one person's live case, using structured turns of description, questions and reflection rather than a single supervisor's authority.
Follow the arrow round a circle of six phases, each one returning to the start with a fresh case in the presenter's chair.
Reach for this when…
- You're a coach or facilitator with no formal supervisor and need a second pair of eyes.
- A group of practitioners wants ongoing development without hiring in expertise.
- A tricky case keeps replaying in your head and you need it out of your own view.
How to run it
- Casting: each member states a concern in a sentence, and the leaderless group of four to eight agrees whose case to take.
- Case presentation: the presenter describes the situation and its context, without interpreting it yet.
- Key question: the presenter names the specific question they want help with.
- Method choice: the group agrees the consultation approach that best fits the question.
- Consultation: peers share ideas and hypotheses while the presenter only listens.
- Conclusion: the presenter draws their own conclusion and decides what to take from the session.
A worked example
Situation. Kenji Nakamura led a small coaching collective in Osaka, Japan, and had been carrying the same stuck client relationship alone for three months.
Applied. He brought it to the group's peer supervision session. Casting picked his case, he named his key question - how do I get this client to stay engaged instead of going quiet - and the group chose a straightforward consultation round; it was only when peers shared their observations that another member named the pattern: Kenji was avoiding a direct conversation his client actually needed.
Result. Kenji had that conversation the following week. The client relationship, and his own pattern of avoidance, both became visible in a way solo reflection hadn't managed in three months.
The catch
It depends entirely on the group holding the discipline of the phases, especially not rushing to advice before the key question is named; without a facilitator, that pull is strong and hard to self-police. A group that's too comfortable with each other can go soft rather than genuinely challenge. It surfaces patterns, it doesn't replace the harder work of formal clinical supervision for serious cases.
If the group reaches for advice before the key question is even named, the structure has already broken.
Origin: Kim-Oliver Tietze