« After a long silence..... | Main | Paid or Peer Supervision? »
August 16, 2009
In danger again......
And suddenly a fortnight has slipped away and I've not added another entry. But, I was encouraged last week when a colleague mentioned that she enjoyed reading my blog, so here goes again.
At the end of July I attended the annual BASPR conference (British Association for Supervision Practice and Research). This year's theme was 'Benefits of Supervision'. Here I immersed myself for two days in the many dimensions of my work as a coaching supervisor. This conference is primarily for psychotherapeutic practitioners, but I learn such a lot from this domain. With Andrew Samuel's keynote we discussed the need to attend to the issues of politics, culture and social differences in the therapeutic relationship. He also raised the question of the political nature of agreement, disagreement and false agreement between supervisor and supervisee. I still need to process this for myself and how I might address this in the supervisory relationship.
I went to a session on Ruptures - this is the jargon for disagreements/breakdowns in the supervision relationship. I found this extremely interesting because I don't have much 'felt experience' of this with supervisees, but have sometimes wondered whether there is any unfinished business which we may not have addressed when a relationship has ended. And I realise as I write that if I am wondering, there is probably something lurking that I or we missed. I remember during my inital training that the tutor proposed that in repairing the rupture we can go on to co-create a stronger working alliance. I did have an explicit experience on one occasion when a prospective supervisee refused to complete the written contract that I had prepared. We discussed his resistance, I accepted that I was happy to work without a signed document from him on the understanding that he was clear about the basis on which we started work, and I mentioned the value of repairing ruptures to our relationship. We have continued to work together ever since.
The question I continue to hold and ponder from this conference session is: "How do I let my clients know that it's ok to discuss that what I do is not actually helping them?" I'd like to pick up on this after further reflection, on another day.
And before this becomes a major tome, just a reminder that next year's conference will be on 24th & 25th July 2010 and the title is "The Competent Supervisor: Imprisonment or Liberation". More on competences later!
Posted by Alison at August 16, 2009 04:48 PM
