Being Supervised

A Guide for Supervisees

Erik De Haan, Willemine Regouin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367104009
• eBook ISBN: 9780429911293
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

We know from experience and research that supervisory relationships can be immensely rewarding and developmental. Yet the same relationships can also be, and often are at the same time, highly anxiety-provoking and conflictual. Supervision as a developmental process is often mixed with quality assurance, performance reports, or marking and evaluation. Such processes only amplify the substantial power relationships that are part and parcel of supervision and they make engaging well with a supervisor really tough and challenging. This book helps supervisees to get the most out of supervision and reap the unique and substantial benefits that can indeed be found on this profound journey.

Part I
Starting the supervisory journey

Initial orientation, including getting started as a supervisee

Anyone going on a journey would do well to consider certain aspects in advance, such as the whys and wherefores of the trip, travelling companions, the Highway Code, any luggage needed, directions, and stops along the way.

Similarly, an orientation is crucial before undertaking the journey of discovery called “supervision”, as this journey can and should have all sorts of unforeseen consequences.

Part I is intended for future supervisees and contains an initial broad exploration of questions surrounding the “why” of supervision, contractual rights and commitments, supervision as a learning process, and the critical, emotional aspects of learning in supervision sessions. Part I concludes with an exercise. The various stages and themes of supervision are then discussed in more detail.

1 Why supervision?

Supervision is a learning method for both novice and advanced practitioners of professions in which interaction between the worker and others plays an important role. These are professions also known as “the helping professions” (see, for example, Hawkins & Shohet, 2006). Supervision teaches professionals in those client- or person-oriented professions how to acquire and improve their professional competence, in a rather unique way that mirrors the professions themselves. Supervision is therefore itself also a “helping profession”.

The supervisory process requires regular discussion of the supervisee’s work experiences over a period of time, in such a way that learning and change become embedded in those work experiences. Supervision can take place individually or in small groups of up to eight colleagues from the same profession. Periods of supervision vary in length, from a one-off assignment related to a particular client involving very few sessions, to a series of weekly or biweekly sessions over several terms, or five to eight sessions a year for an experienced practitioner. Within the helping professions, supervisory contracts can be among the longest, stretching out over many years in some cases.

Although supervision generally begins as a key part of the professional training and practice in a particular helping profession, it will then become a specific practice requirement for most practitioners. Thus, supervision is increasingly being recommended for the entire duration of work in a helping profession—and not just at the outset when people are still in training. Many professional associations now require their members to be “in supervision” for a minimum number of sessions (usually four to six for part-time practitioners and up to ten for full-time clinical professionals) per year. The need for supervision can increase in times of transition, such as during company mergers and takeovers, when entering and mastering a new field of work, or before retirement.

1.1 Training

Professional training and qualification (both full time and part time) prepares students for a particular profession. In terms of content, this is normally done along three different paths that merge at the end:

1. general and profession-specific theory;
2. methodological principles, practices, and approaches;
3. practical skills.

For the student who wishes to learn the profession in question, this means acquiring:

1. Basic knowledge of people, their behaviour, and their interrelationships within a socio-cultural context. Plus, of course, acquiring knowledge about the profession and its working methods.
2. The right professional attitude, which students can develop through their methodology sessions and practical exercises. In these, they learn how to work within the profession and what options and choices they have within the profession. Students can also learn a variety of ways to see themselves in connection with their professional practice.
3. Finally, learning a wide range of skills provides students with a practical set of tools they can use when they actually get down to work in the profession. Training institutes often act as intermediaries in finding options for an initial introduction to practice, in the form of practical exercises, role-play and/or internships or temporary placements.

1.2 Practice

At a certain point in their training it is time for students to take the lessons they have learned to date and apply them “in practice”: in a placement, in the workplace, in contracted work.

For some students, this can be their first direct confrontation with professional practice, for example if it is their first placement. For others, it can mean renewing a previous commitment, for example in an existing employment context or a follow-up placement during the same qualification programme. Whatever the case, the student is faced with the task of converting her recently gained or refreshed knowledge into professional action. And of course that is easier said than done!

Especially if this is a first placement, good preparation can help to ease the transition from theory to practice. Nevertheless, to some extent you may feel “thrown in at the deep end”. But how can you do that if you are daunted or lacking in self-confidence? People often talk about the “shock of practice” experienced by new practitioners. Practice turns out to be quite different from what you had imagined from within the safe surroundings of college, lecturers, and fellow students. Now you need to stand on your own two feet, and feelings of loneliness, doubt or incompetence can creep up on you. The feeling does subside with time and habituation, but for now you just have to deal with it!

1.3 Supervision

To face their first (and later) problems in practice, practitioners can often rely on people responsible for placement and/or work practice, client coordination, care and team management, and on practical exercises with lecturers and fellow students during the “back in training” days.

But for practitioners who really want to develop their professional competence, all of this is not enough. The still-fragile new knowledge, professional stance, and competencies are not self-sufficient and when tested in practice many new challenges and questions emerge. The new professional “persona” you have acquired can make you feel uncertain and lead to confusion. All developing practitioners find, if they are honest with themselves, that core experiences in helping conversations remain badly understood by them, fragmented, and lacking in coherence. In this kind of situation, supervision can be felt as a welcome relief. Only in supervision you can learn to find your own coherent understanding and clarity. Supervision helps to link, order and coordinate your thoughts and ideas, your views and feelings, and your skills and actions. In the supervision literature, this is described as acquiring integration at the first level, that is, that of the person.

Although this can be quite a job in itself, learning for your profession requires even more: thinking, feeling, reflecting, desiring and acting should be coordinated not only with each other but also with your functioning within the profession, notably in your specific work situations with clients. This is termed acquiring integration at the second level: the profession.

Professional identity

Clearly, the person and their profession are closely interrelated but there are tensions because as a professional you have to “act” a role and “act” it well. Supervision moves within the field of tension between these two poles: how you experience yourself (your personal identity) and how you experience yourself-with-clients (your professional identity). Moreover, these poles are constantly shifting during training and development. For young people still in their adolescence, the search for a personal identity is often ongoing. Mature professionals also wrestle with issues around identity, particularly when challenged by their clients or during major transitions in their lives.

Everyone, whatever their stage of life, faces the task of finding or redefining a professional identity. The supervisor can help by exploring with the supervisee the possibility of finding a new balance of her own.

Definition

In a nutshell, and to avoid possible misunderstandings, we offer the following definition:

• Supervision is not case management, care coordination, or team and practice leadership (these are focused on your functioning and performance in your work context).
• Supervision is also not coaching, mentoring, or consultation (requesting help with a challenge at work, possibly on a recurring basis).
• Nor is supervision a form of mental training, fitness, mindfulness, counselling, or psychotherapy (these provide help with personal balance and development).
• Supervision is not a type of skills training, although people do acquire more (professional) competence as a result of supervision.
• Supervision is not the same as peer consultation or action learning (these are group-based learning in practice with colleagues).

Instead, supervision is the key platform for helping practitioners to connect what they learn in theory with what they learn and do in practice, and is therefore at the core of all continuing professional development. Supervision can be defined as disciplined reflection-in-relation wherein case history and principles are transformed into new potential for action and skills (after Rapoport, 1954). Supervision is therefore a process in which new practical knowledge is generated while taking account of (ethical) principles. Practical knowledge is nothing other than an “irreversible change in potential actions” for the practitioner.

To put it concisely and simply, supervision is a useful aid that can help you to learn from your own experiences and practise your job or profession independently and in a more personalised way.

Case example

A supervision group of six comes together after just having participated in three days of training. One of the first to speak says he feels “issued out” as he dealt with all of his experiences and queries during the workshop. The second participant says, “well I do have a question: how do I handle the differences between my training clients (provided by the institution) and my new external clients who are beginning to come in”. “Oh well, that in fact is a question of mine too”, says the first speaker, “so there is something to work on for me too.” The third participant says, “I am an outcomes-focused person, I always want to add value, and I think it interferes with my accepting my clients as they are. I want to maintain more ‘creative indifference’ when I work with them.” The fourth participant says, “I would like the group to help me to understand what would enable me to work less directively with my clients.” With some guidance from the supervisor, the group decides to work with these three questions and assign some forty-five minutes to each. The first two speakers start out in a pair to work on the second speaker’s query (“How can we handle differences between training clients and new, paying clients?”) after which they receive feedback from the rest of the group. The group has already met some five times before, so the supervisor leans back as group members give each other helpful, constructive feedback. At the end they are all surprised and excited that there was still so much to learn straight after those intensive training days, and they ask the supervisor if they could stay together longer than the initially contracted eight sessions.

2 Contracting: the way to monitor your progress

If supervision has been decided on, the supervisee is entitled to receive it from a competent supervisor—preferably one who is qualified and registered. Both supervisee and supervisor commit themselves to doing everything they can to get the supervision off to a good start and to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. The foundation for this is a basic contract (see for example the standard supervision contract in Appendix A), ideally drawn up in writing. The contracting parties are the sponsor, the supervisor, and the supervisee(s).

Before supervision properly begins, several conditions need to be met, the most important of which are:

1. Agreement between sponsor, supervisor, and supervisee regarding the formal objective(s) of the supervision.
2. The existence of relevant work for the supervisee (as part of for example, placement, or employment), to allow the necessary link between learning and working.
3. Broad agreement on the time frame for supervision, as well as the number, frequency, place and duration of individual sessions.
4. Agreement on any reporting to be done to the sponsor, with or without an assessment of performance.
5. Agreement on material and organisational matters such as the supervisor’s fee, terms of cancellation, availability of a suitable and accessible workspace.
6. The right supervisory combination: which supervisor works with which supervisee(s) and who makes that decision? Do supervisees or supervisors have any say? Have any contraindications been specified? Why is the choice being made for either individual or group supervision sessions?
7. Agreement on the ethical principles and code of conduct to serve as the basis for supervision.¹ What options are available in the event of a conflict between supervisor and supervisee that cannot be resolved by mutual agreement? Ideally there should be an appeal procedure.

2.1 Contracting with the organisational sponsor

There are various types of sponsor who can prescribe or recommend supervision and with whom the conditions can be negotiated: they include professional training institutes, professional associations, clinics and NHS or care institutions, and supervisees organising their own supervision. Unless supervision is self-referred or overlooked by a professional association, the supervisor has to contract twice in principle: once with the sponsor for a framework contract and once with the supervisee for a supervisory contract.

a. Supervision commissioned by a training or qualifying institution

Supervision can be offered either during initial training or as part of continuing education. Here, supervision is included in the contract between the institute and the students participating in the course. The (future) supervisees know where they stand from the outset: supervision is a compulsory part of their training and the supervision results will normally be assessed as good, satisfactory or unsatisfactory. There is usually an employment contract or other permanent framework contract between the institute and the supervisors.

b. Supervision commissioned by a professional care institution, clinic, or consultancy

Here too, there may be an employment contract and/or a general framework contract with supervisors. However, this is often not the case. If not, a supervision contract has to be negotiated with the client...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• ABOUT THE AUTHORS
• INTRODUCTION
• Part I Starting the supervisory journey
• Part II Being on the supervisory journey
• Part III Understanding the supervisory journey
• NOTES
• GLOSSARY OF TERMS
• APPENDIX A: Structure of a Supervision Contract
• APPENDIX B: Ashridge's Code of Conduct for Supervisors
• REFERENCES
• INDEX