Estera Boldut
Beyond Empathy: How cultivating wisdom & compassion can transform your clinical supervision
Transform your clinical supervision practice by joining Estera in this session which aims to move beyond basic “Self of the Therapist” concepts and engage with an integrated framework for cultivating wisdom and compassion as essential clinical competencies.
Beyond Empathy: How cultivating wisdom & compassion can transform your clinical supervision
About the Session
Mental health professionals are often encouraged to engage in reflective practice and develop self-awareness, yet deeper questions of wisdom and compassion cultivation are rarely explored in clinical supervision or training. This conference session will challenge participants to move beyond basic “Self of the Therapist” concepts and engage with a more integrated framework for cultivating wisdom and compassion as essential clinical competencies. Through an examination of contemporary research, philosophical traditions, and lived clinical experience, this session introduces a model of wisdom that includes cognitive, affective, and perspective-taking components. Participants will explore how wisdom and compassion intersect to create transformative therapeutic relationships and improve clinical outcomes.
Using interactive dialogue, case-based reflection, and experiential exercises, attendees will learn practical strategies for developing these capacities in themselves and their supervisees. Topics will include the role of intellectual humility, emotional regulation, perspective-taking, and ethical decision-making in fostering wise and compassionate practice. Participants will leave with concrete tools to embed wisdom and compassion cultivation in their professional practice, supervision, and personal growth.
Who should attend: Mental health professionals, clinical supervisors, educators, psychologists, counselors, social workers, and students seeking to deepen their reflective practice and enhance therapeutic effectiveness through wisdom and compassion development.
Learning Objectives:
Learn the components of clinical wisdom and their relevance to therapeutic practice
Apply reflective and experiential techniques to foster wisdom and compassion in clinical supervision and therapy
Identify the limitations of empathy in clinical practice and learn strategies for cultivating compassion without over-identification or burnout
Session Format:
90-minute interactive workshop, including:
- Didactic presentation with theoretical grounding.
- Case-based discussion and audience reflection.
- Experiential exercises
- Practical takeaway tools for supervision and therapy.
A short video:
About Estera Boldut
Estera is the Program Director of the Master of Christian Studies in Marriage and Family Therapy. She joined the Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy Program as the Clinical Coordinator in 2015 and is also a registered social worker. Before she joined Trinity Western University, she worked with adoptions in orphanages in Romania.
As a Registered Clinical Counselor and a Marriage and Family Therapist, Estera specialized in working with couples and families (adoption, disability, chronic illness). She is doing consulting work with different agencies, training staff and managers.
She holds a small private practice seeing clients, offering supervision to individuals and groups. She co-teaches a Fundamentals in Clinical Supervision course, training the new generation of clinical supervisors.