hands-on Clinical support from pittsburgh's best therapists
The Center for Clinical Supervision
The Center for Clinical Supervision aims to provide outstanding & research-informed clinical supervision to therapists across the world. Our supervisors are trained and supported to provide the most comprehensive, ethical, and adaptable supervision possible. In an increasingly virtual environment, eager and talented therapists can be left feeling under-supervised or even isolated. We are here to solve this problem so that therapists can get back to doing what they love most: counseling their clients with a sense of passion, fulfillment, and curiosity.
As the Program Manager of the Center for Clinical Supervision, Alexander Antonucci has a direct hand in the innovation, development, and maintenance of center services. He also facilitates monthly group supervision for supervisors and oversees the counseling internship training program.
Services:
- Internal clinical supervision and training to practicum, intern and pre-licensed therapists and psychologists
- External virtual Individual and small group clinical supervision and consultation to licensed and pre-licensed clinicians
Please fill out this form(opens in a new tab) for interest in supervision/consultation services.
Quality therapy does not happen in a vacuum and therapists should not be expected to provide high level services on their own. Cognitive Behavior Institute’s Center for Clinical Supervision - We've got your back.
LMFT Supervision & AAMFT Mentoring
In Western PA, there are very few AAMFT-Approved Supervisors which means if you want to become a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, it is quite difficult to locate a qualified supervisor. At CBI, we have a thriving Center for Couple and Family staffed by AAMFT-Approved Supervisors and AAMFT-Approved Candidates. These team members offer individual and group supervision for MFT licensure. Our AAMFT-Approved Supervisors also offer AAMFT mentoring to individuals interested in becoming AAMFT-Approved Supervisors. If you are interested in establishing an initial consult, please contact our front office at (724) 609-5002.
Jonathan Impellizzeri, PhD, LMFT, LPC, ACS
AAMFT-Approved Supervisor
I’d like to share a bit about my work and how I can help you to advance as a leader in the MFT profession. As a mental health professional, my meta-framework for engaging therapy, supervision, and mentoring integrates systems theory, attachment science, and a developmental perspective. The Gottman method provides a research-informed framework for understanding the differences between the “masters” and “disasters” of couple relationships and a very clear road map for helping couples to develop healthier relationships. Given its emotion and attachment focus, it is highly compatible with my meta-framework. While I find Gottman’s structured interventions to be particularly helpful in rekindling a friendship, unraveling gridlocked conflicts and facilitating meaning-making,
I also find Johnson’s conceptualization of couple distress through an attachment lens to be a complementary way to understand the therapy alliance and the couple’s dance. When I work with families, my primary map is structural family therapy (SFT) on whose shoulders EFT stands. Mapping the family structure and assessing their relationships, rules & roles, hierarchy, and boundaries sets the table well for systemic interventions. As a supervisor and mentor, I am often thinking about the developmental level of the trainee and I attempt to customize interventions accordingly. Skovolt & Ronnestad (1992) describe various counselor stages across the professional lifespan which helps me to consider which levers to pull and what role I try to play with a particular supervisee. SFT also influences the way I think and act as a supervisor and mentor. In SFT, strengths are not so much conferred but elicited from families because all families are seen as having internal, untapped resources.
This competency-based perspective helps me to de-focus on self and trainee flaws and instead see possibilities and untapped potential in clients, supervisees, and supervisors. Attachment science helps me to understand the secret sauce of wellness across the professional lifespan. As a result, my relational goal is for the supervision alliance to serve as both safe base and launch pad for supervisees to receive support and empowerment to take risks and explore their professional world. If you would like to learn how to better integrate a systems, attachment, and developmental perspective to therapy and supervision, then let’s start a conversation.
Courtney Sonntag, LMFT
AAMFT Approved Supervisor Candidate
Since beginning my career in the field of Marriage and Family Therapy, I have been trained to work with individuals within the contexts of their relationships. The unit of treatment isn’t just the one person, even if only a single person is present in the room, but rather the set of relationships in which the person is embedded. Using this approach, it’s important to stress the belief that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, meaning individuals are most influenced by the systems they are in, such as family, career, and neighborhood. Each person has a unique history and relationships, which serve as the basis of therapeutic growth and development.
My approach draws on the principles of Emotionally Focused Therapy and Solution-Focused Therapy. However, as a therapist and supervisor, I have found that theories and interventions are simply the tools we use. We, as clinicians, are the craftsmen in how these theories are applied and our abilities to connect with clients allows us to be most effective in the room. In my supervision and mentoring, I support you in refining your clinical identity while exploring your own personal vulnerabilities. This allows the whole self of the therapist to come through, providing the most authentic version of you be present in the room. I welcome the opportunity to work with you.
*I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Pennsylvania and Virginia. I also serve as a Virginia Board Approved Supervisor, able to supervise Virginia LPC Residents and LMFT Residents.