AAMFT Supervisor Mentoring With Karen Lee, LMFT, LPCC
Develop your confidence and your voice as a clinical supervisor
Are you working toward the AAMFT Approved Supervisor designation and looking for a supervisor mentor? Perhaps you are preparing to supervise your first therapist, integrating your Fundamentals of MFT Supervision coursework, or looking for guidance with a challenging supervisory relationship.
Being an experienced therapist does not mean every part of supervising comes naturally. How do you offer feedback that is supportive and direct? What do you do when a supervisee is struggling? How do you recognize when your own reactions are shaping the conversation?
At Esse Counseling, Karen Lee, LMFT, LPCC, offers AAMFT supervision mentoring to help supervisor candidates develop their skills, think systemically, and put their supervision philosophy into practice.
Based in Santa Clarita, California, Esse Counseling also offers clinical supervision for associate therapists and consultation for clinicians seeking support with Imago and couples therapy. View Karen Lee’s AAMFT supervisor profile.
What Is AAMFT Supervision Mentoring?
Supervision mentoring, also called supervision of supervision, focuses on your development as a supervisor while you supervise MFTs or therapists in training.
The central question shifts from “How can I help this client?” to “How can I help this therapist develop the understanding, skills, and judgment to work effectively with clients?”
AAMFT supervisor candidate mentoring creates space to examine your supervisory decisions, review your work, and receive feedback. Client care remains important, while the primary focus is how you guide and evaluate another therapist.
An AAMFT Approved Supervisor has met AAMFT’s requirements for the supervision designation. Serving as a supervisor mentor also requires qualifying membership and sufficient post-designation supervision experience.
How Can Mentoring Help Me Become a Stronger Supervisor?
You may know what you would do in a therapy session and still find it difficult to help another clinician discover their next step. Mentoring offers a place to slow down and understand that process.
Work with Karen can focus on:
Moving from therapist to supervisor: Helping supervisees develop judgment while recognizing when direct instruction is needed.
Systemic thinking: Exploring patterns within therapy, supervision, and the larger training setting.
Useful feedback: Naming strengths and concerns clearly, with specific steps for growth.
Supervisee development: Adjusting your approach to a therapist’s experience and learning needs.
Evaluation and remediation: Discussing progress, documenting concerns, and addressing difficulties early.
The person of the supervisor: Recognizing how your history, assumptions, and emotional responses influence your work.
Culture and power: Attending to identity, privilege, and the authority involved in supervision.
Ethics and boundaries: Thinking through confidentiality, responsibilities, and the supervisory relationship.
Bring the moments that are hard to discuss elsewhere: feeling unsure how to challenge a supervisee, wondering whether you are doing too much, or noticing that an important conversation keeps getting avoided.
Connecting Your Supervision Philosophy With Your Practice
What Does the Mentoring Process Involve?
Begin by discussing your training pathway, current supervision work, and goals. A mentoring agreement establishes expectations for meetings, responsibilities, fees, evaluation, and documentation.
The process can include:
A training plan: Identifying skills to develop and how progress will be reviewed.
Review of your supervision: Using live observation or recordings, with appropriate permissions, to examine actual supervisory conversations.
Ongoing feedback: Discussing strengths, areas for development, and next steps.
Reflection between meetings: Bringing questions from your supervision practice into the next conversation.
Progress evaluation: Reviewing your development and, when appropriate, readiness for the designation.
AAMFT requires ongoing mentoring during the candidate’s supervision training. Mentoring continues until the Approved Supervisor designation is awarded, even after minimum hours have been completed.
Understanding the AAMFT Approved Supervisor Requirements
The handbook’s Regular Track includes these minimum requirements, alongside membership, evaluation, and other application criteria:
18 months of supervision training.
180 hours supervising MFTs or MFT trainees.
At least two supervisees, followed long enough to assess their development.
36 hours of supervision mentoring spread across the training period.
A 30-hour Fundamentals of MFT Supervision course meeting AAMFT requirements.
A personal philosophy of supervision paper, mentor reports, and final evaluation.
At least 90 supervision hours and 18 mentoring hours must fall within the two years before application. The handbook also describes a Doctoral Track and a Credit Experience Track with different provisions. These are planning highlights.
Why Work With Karen Lee?
Choosing a supervisor mentor is a professional relationship that deserves attention. You need room to ask questions and a willingness to look closely at your work.
Karen Lee is a California Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor who has practiced psychotherapy since 1997. Her background includes work with individuals, couples, and families.
Her clinical approach includes Imago Relationship Therapy, the Gottman Method, emotionally focused therapy, attachment and object relations approaches, and experiential therapy. This relational background offers a starting point for exploring how therapeutic models connect with supervisory practice.
An initial conversation is a chance to discuss your goals, ask how Karen works, and consider the fit.
Clinical Supervision for Associate Therapists
If you are an associate therapist seeking clinical supervision, you may want help organizing treatment, understanding relationship patterns, or responding to difficult moments in sessions.
Contact Karen to discuss:
Systemic case conceptualization and treatment planning.
Clinical decisions and the person of the therapist.
Couples and family therapy skills.
Professional boundaries, documentation, and ethical questions.
Your registration, workplace, and supervision requirements.
Discuss the arrangement before beginning so that responsibilities and any eligibility for licensure hours are clear.
Imago and Couples Therapy Consultation
Licensed clinicians can inquire about consultation focused on relationship work. You might want to think through a recurring couple conflict, engagement with both partners, or how to introduce an Imago intervention.
Consultation provides a focused opportunity to examine clinical questions. It serves a different purpose from formal clinical supervision or AAMFT supervision mentoring. Describe your goals when you reach out so you can discuss the appropriate service.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Start with the AAMFT Approved Supervisor directory and look for a mentor whose experience and approach fit your learning goals. Confirm the additional mentoring qualifications. View Karen’s AAMFT profile and contact her to discuss working together.
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Clinical supervision focuses on a therapist’s clinical work and development. Supervision of supervision focuses on how a supervisor candidate guides, trains, and evaluates therapists. These services address different professional roles and learning goals.
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The handbook encourages taking the course early in training. Discuss your prerequisites, readiness, and course timing with your mentor. The training period begins when you provide clinical supervision while receiving supervision mentoring.
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The Regular Track requires at least 36 mentoring hours over a minimum 18-month training period. Other pathways may have different provisions. Your mentoring plan should reflect your pathway, experience, and development.
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No. The handbook requires mentoring until AAMFT awards the designation. It specifies mentoring at least monthly while candidates are actively supervising MFTs or MFT trainees.
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The handbook allows more than one mentor, with pathway-specific limits. Keep signed reports from prior mentors and discuss your training history with Karen. The final mentor must provide at least 10 mentoring hours and have enough information to evaluate your readiness.
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Mentoring helps connect your philosophy with supervisory practice and refine it as you develop. The final mentor reviews the paper during evaluation. The paper remains your own work and must meet the applicable course and AAMFT requirements.
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The handbook permits real-time technology-assisted mentoring with secure audio and video, subject to ethics and law. Email and telephone discussions do not count as mentoring. Contact Karen about current meeting formats and eligibility for your location.
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The handbook excludes time spent discussing designation requirements or completing the application packet. Qualifying mentoring hours focus on supervision case discussion and development of your supervisory skills.
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AAMFT makes the designation decision. Minimum hours alone do not establish readiness. The final mentor evaluates supervisory competence and provides a recommendation when appropriate.
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Contact Karen for current fees, meeting frequency, and availability. Ask about individual or group arrangements and discuss which format fits your learning goals.
Take the Next Step Toward Becoming an AAMFT Approved Supervisor
Whether you are preparing to begin or looking for support during training, start with a conversation about where you are and what you want to develop.
Share your training pathway if known, whether you currently supervise, and what you are looking for in a mentor.