As mentioned by another poster, supervision and consultation is essentially the same thing. When someone is working toward getting their "clinical hours", they have to pay for supervision. That means that they find a senior psychologist, MSW, mental health counselor and pay that person a fee to meet with them on a regular/weekly basis to discuss and consult on their caseload. This "supervisor" signs off on the person's "application" for licensing, indicating that the individual has met the requirements for hours in the harness and has received proper supervision. Once a person is licensed in the U.S., he/she is not obligated to document or turn in the hours that they have received supervision. He/she is only obligated to document the correct number of hours of continuing education hours on a yearly basis. However, most well-trained and ethical therapists I know and have gone to continue to participate in weekly or bi-weekly peer supervision/consultation groups. They bring to the group issues they are struggling with and seek the assistance and analysis of their peers. The nice thing about peer supervision is that it is a cooperative group and the participants are equals and no one has to pay for it

I've known very experienced therapists who have reached a point in their career that they are changing their focus and need more experienced help in a particular area of therapeutic intervention and he/she has sought out paid supervision again. An example of this is a therapist who is interested in learning to provide DBT or Schema Therapy or Transference focused Therapy. He/she would enroll in an institute, learn the techniques and then pay for a length of time for professional supervision using the techniques he/she has learned. A therapist who decides that he/she would like to become certified in psychoanalysis would do the same thing. It's costly but worthwhile if one wants to add to his/her repertoire of skills.

I wouldn't pooh pooh peer supervision/consultation groups. I think a cross range of therapeutic intervention and advice from a variety of practicing clinicians can be healthy and enlightening for a therapist. The only therapist I'd stir clear of is one who is practicing in total isolation, never seeking out other therapists assistance--after all, we all know that we can be our own worst enemies and can get so blinded that we can't see the forest from the tress!