I found out about the ‘extensive supervision’ from a document.

The clinic’s treatment summary says my former therapist sought ‘extensive supervision’ from senior clinical psychologists, both inside and outside the clinic, and that my case was discussed ‘across multiple supervision and clinical governance consultations.’ It cites that same supervision as supporting the decision to end my care.

Nobody told me any of it was happening. Nobody told me what was discussed or decided, or what it meant for my care. I found out afterwards, from the documents.

I’ve lodged a notification about my former therapist with Ahpra, the national regulator for health practitioners.

It’s the same asymmetry I lived through in the therapy room. Decisions about me were made where I couldn’t see them. The regulatory process has it too. My former therapist will receive ‘enough information to respond to the notification.’ I get nothing back because, you know, confidentiality. I don’t get a right of reply or a chance to rebut whatever she says. That’s why I keep coming back to consent.

I signed the forms allowing therapy to proceed. Legally, I consented.

However, the Psychology Board of Australia Code of Conduct acknowledges the power imbalance in therapy. If that’s the case, how is consent ever really consent, anyway? The psychologist holds the knowledge, the structure, the records and, above all, the power. The client turns up in distress, with all the vulnerability, and trusts that they’re being given the whole picture. If the imbalance is real, a signature can’t be where consent ends. A signature proves a form was signed. It doesn’t prove a person understood what they were agreeing to. When the power sits on the other side of the room, the responsibility for making sure consent is informed sits there too.

Since December 2025, the Code has specifically required written, informed consent before a client’s information is shared in supervision, even without them being named.

The summary calls the supervision ‘name withheld.’ That meant very little in my case. My whole family has been a client at that clinic at some point, so taking my name off didn’t make me anonymous to the people in the room.

I asked the clinic for my full clinical records. It refused under APP 12.3(a) and, to date, hasn’t responded to my renewed request. What I’ve been given contains only an unsigned consent for supervision, which I can only assume no one followed up on. The supervision notes and session notes were withheld, so I can’t tell you what is or isn’t documented elsewhere. I can only tell you what is in front of me.

My own view, and it’s a view, not a Code requirement, is that a client should be told the gist of what was discussed and decided in supervision, particularly when it affects their care. Instead, it’s a process hidden from us like the fucking Wizard of Oz. You can’t consent to something you can’t see. You can’t question it or push back on it.

My other bugbear is that nobody checks. Clinics and clinicians govern their own documentation. Things only get tested when a client notices something is missing and puts it in writing. That was me, and I only looked because I’m neck-deep in regulatory processes. After I raised it, the clinic told me it had audited its records and found no supervision consent on file for my child, who is also a client. I don’t know why they audited. I do, however, know it happened after I raised it.

A rule that’s only enforced when someone complains isn’t being enforced. If nobody checks, it’s easy to treat it as paperwork that doesn’t matter. If it’s only paperwork, the person it protects is the last to find out when it hasn’t been done. If the aim is to protect the public, the simplest step I can think of is to check that every client has a signed consent for supervision on file.

It’s not rocket science.