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The Seven-Eyed Model of Supervision: A Guide for Coaches

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The seven eyes of the Hawkins and Shohet supervision model

The seven-eyed model of supervision gets mentioned constantly in coach training, then quietly skipped over the moment a coach sits in a real supervision session and cannot remember what eye four is meant to be looking at.

The seven-eyed model of supervision, developed by Peter Hawkins and Robin Shohet, structures a supervision conversation around seven distinct viewpoints: the client, the coach's interventions, the coach-client relationship, the coach's own process, the supervisory relationship, the supervisor's own process, and the wider context.

This guide walks through what each of the seven eyes looks at and how a supervisor moves between them in a live session. It sits alongside TPC Coaching Academy's broader guide to coaching supervision.

Where does the seven-eyed model of supervision come from?

Peter Hawkins and Robin Shohet first published the seven-eyed model in Supervision in the Helping Professions in 1985, developing it from close observation of what happens inside a supervision conversation across therapy, counselling and coaching. It has since become one of the standard frameworks taught on supervision training across the helping professions.

A later observational study of the model in practice found supervisors moving fluidly between the seven eyes rather than working through them in a fixed order, which matches how most experienced supervisors describe using it.

What are the seven eyes of supervision?

Each eye offers a different viewpoint on the same coaching relationship. A supervisor draws on all seven across an ongoing relationship with a coach, even when a single session leans on only two or three.

Eye 1
The client What and how the client presented in the session, including patterns in what they said, which often reflect how they show up in life outside the room.
Eye 2
Interventions The tools and approaches the coach used with the client, and how well they worked in that moment rather than in theory.
Eye 3
The coach-client relationship The contract, expectations and dynamic between coach and client, including where the energy sits and whether the working agreement is doing what both sides need.
Eye 4
The coach What the coach notices in themselves during the work: reactions, discomfort, or a client who reminds them of someone else.
Eye 5
The supervisory relationship Whether a pattern showing up between coach and supervisor is quietly repeating the pattern between coach and client, known as parallel process.
Eye 6
The supervisor's own experience What the supervisor notices in their own body and reactions during the session, offered back to the coach as information rather than judgement.
Eye 7
The wider context The organisation, culture or system the client operates in, and how much of what shows up in coaching reflects that wider system.

How does a supervisor move between the seven eyes in a session?

A good supervisor does not work through the seven eyes in order like a checklist. They follow what the coach brings and let the material suggest which eye needs attention. A session that opens with a coach describing a stuck client conversation might stay in eyes one and two, while the coach unpacks what happened and which interventions landed. If the coach then notices they feel unusually frustrated with this particular client, the session moves into eye four, and from there it often becomes clear whether that frustration is telling the coach something about the relationship itself.

The skill in supervision is recognising when a session has stayed too long in one eye and would benefit from a different viewpoint, particularly when a coach keeps circling the same content without new insight emerging. This distinguishes supervision from mentor coaching, which reviews specific sessions against competencies rather than moving across a wider set of viewpoints like this.

Why do eyes five and six matter most for spotting parallel process?

Parallel process is the pattern where the dynamic between a coach and their client shows up again, often without either person noticing, in the relationship between the coach and their supervisor. A coach who feels pressured to have every answer for a demanding client might unconsciously look to their supervisor for the same certainty, recreating the exact dynamic they are trying to understand.

Eye five focuses directly on that dynamic between supervisor and coach. Eye six goes a step further and treats the supervisor's own in-the-moment reactions, a tightening in the chest, a sudden pull to reassure, as data worth naming out loud rather than private noise to set aside. Supervisors who use these two eyes well often surface something about the client relationship that describing the session content alone would not have reached.

Next step

Supervision that works with models like this one, not only case debriefs, is what TPC Coaching Academy's Group Supervision programme is built around.

Frequently asked questions

What is the seven-eyed model of supervision? The seven-eyed model of supervision is a framework that structures a supervision conversation around seven distinct viewpoints on the coaching relationship, from the client's presentation through to the wider organisational context. It was developed by Peter Hawkins and Robin Shohet and remains one of the most widely used models in coaching supervision.
Who developed the seven-eyed model of supervision? The seven-eyed model was developed by Peter Hawkins and Robin Shohet, first published in their book Supervision in the Helping Professions in 1985. It has since been adapted and used across coaching, counselling, social work and other relational professions.
What are the seven eyes in the seven-eyed model? The seven eyes are the client, the coach's interventions, the coach-client relationship, the coach's own process, the supervisory relationship, the supervisor's own process, and the wider context in which the work takes place. Each eye offers a different viewpoint on the same coaching relationship.
Is the seven-eyed model used in coaching or only in therapy supervision? The model was developed across the helping professions broadly, including therapy, but it is widely used in coaching supervision specifically. In a coaching context, every eye stays focused on professional practice, the coaching relationship, the coach's development, and the client's presenting goals.
What is parallel process in the seven-eyed model? Parallel process describes a pattern where the dynamic between a coach and a client is unconsciously repeated in the relationship between the coach and their supervisor. Eyes five and six focus directly on spotting this pattern, since noticing it in supervision often reveals something important about what is happening with the client.
Do supervisors work through all seven eyes in every session? No. A supervisor moves between the eyes depending on what the coach brings and what emerges in the session. Some sessions dwell mostly in the content and technique of eyes one and two, while others move quickly into the relational and systemic eyes when that is where the real material sits.
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