It may be a hope too high to believe it possible or even realistic that a supervisee can always ‘experience a relationship that is free of threat’ (Merry 2002 p.173), but I believe the necessary challenge and sometimes confronting nature of the supervisor/supervisee relationship is less likely to be compromised IF the relational foundation is one of trust. On person-centred supervision and in a similar vein, Elke Lambers writes that ‘the combination of critical and ‘benevolent’ attitude creates an “error friendly” ... context where both supervisor and supervisee can acknowledge errors, welcome their exploration, take responsibility and learn from them’ (Lambers 2007 p.370).
From the existential perspective, the supervisee is extended a ‘love for their being-ness’ (Moja-Strasser p.35) by the supervisor which is communicated both silently and indirectly in the line of the work. Far from a romanticising of the process, this embraces the human-ness and uniqueness of us all as flawed mortals searching, sometimes in all the wrong places, for meaning and purpose which, according to the existential four-world model, stem from an inner spiritual core. It might be described in other terms as ‘a caring of the soul’ (Moja-Strasser p.36), the silent process that allows the supervisee to move away from a focus on explicit content with clients to the implicit process that lies beneath.
However, with all this talk of theory and models, the question might be asked: where is the client in all this? The first eye makes it clear that ‘...it is almost impossible to do quality supervision on a particular client until the client has metaphorically “entered the room”’ (Shohet, Hawkins 2007 p.86) and this requires us to press the pause button on our intellectual musings in order to accommodate this ‘direct encounter’ (ibid). An educative, jargonistic dimension has its place, I feel, but not if it is somehow a distraction. Indeed, in terms of model-specific interventions, direct exploration from the supervisory stance in terms of what, why and how? forms the backbone of the third eye. And yet, while both the afore-mentioned approaches hold fast to a non-judgemental philosophy that requires us to bracket off where and when appropriate, the role of supervisor requires considerably more plate-spinning and the fulfilling of expectations and needs from an agency, the counsellor, possibly a learning institution and accrediting organisations. Switching between ‘supportive, facilitative and evaluative’ (Strasser 1997 p.172) roles might test to the limit any supervisor who tries hard to be all things to all foci. And yet try they must.
So what does this mean in living, breathing, being-in-the-world terms to me? I shall further illustrate the interactional nature of my philosophy in the context of particularly tumultuous work with one supervisee. One year into training, a supervisee, instructed to seek out and provide his own supervision for his placement at The Priory, came to me following a recommendation. Our first session found no end of material manifest by way of transferential rumblings and parallel process, which came to light following exploration of his client, who presented, chaotic and un-boundaried, disclosing long-term childhood sexual abuse.
As the dust settled post-session, my strong dislike was replaced by a desperate sense of lost-ness and fear, which did not feel all my own. From a systems perspective, he was both neglected and dealt denial and left drowning in both reactive and proactive counter-transferential murk. I risked drowning with him for only by being in there together could I hope to offer ‘meaningful human engagement (which) is fundamental in existential supervision’ (Van Deurzen 2009 p.9) Following consultative supervision, I returned, defences dissipated, knowing that the parallel process in the room could tell us much about that which was playing out between my supervisee and his client. That which felt wounding now felt enlightening and I knew, because of its disproportionate nature that my anger was fused with that of my supervisee and that somehow the chaos of the system had been visited upon us in the room. This all, of course, needed to be named. My intention was to be directive, direct and authoritative in terms of ethical considerations while making it clear that this was about safety for all parties. In short, my supervisee was ‘not being looked after’ (my words) and I worried for his well-being and consequently that of his client. Bearing all this in mind, the following points, taken from Michael Carroll’s The Spirituality Of Supervision, may help to illustrate how we hoped to connect, following the collision of our first meeting:
* Becoming reflective – reflecting on what had come to pass for both of us, looking at the supervisee’s interventions with greater clarity to establish what he meant by ‘I offer a lot of empathic reflection’ and encourage an inside-out rather than outside-in stance.
* Learning, and learning how to learn – I needed to know what was mine, what was his, move from I-It to I-Thou relating with alacrity to reduce any mutual potential for shame.
* Becoming process-oriented – a time to re-introduce (mindfully!) the issues of transferential possibilities and parallel process.
* Establishing healthy relationships – I worked hard to clarify my stand as ‘gatekeeper’ and professional with the concerns previously mentioned which I hoped to balance with genuine rather than ersatz empathy.
* Learning connectedness - I saw this in terms of a turning-trauma-into-triumph moment and again Buber comes to mind. I needed to not be a thing, a symbol but somehow in the storm with him as an authentic other.
* Becoming an interior person – It has been said that ‘...the longest journey is the journey inwards...’ (Hammarskjold as quoted by Carroll 2001 p.86) and, here, my longest journey reaped rewards. I strongly sense that no previous points would apply in this particular supervisory relationship, if I had not journeyed inwards over the years, in terms of both personal and professional development/evolution. If clients can stir our demons, then maybe the same holds for supervisees.
In conclusion, I reiterate briefly now how the integrative, relational core of my current work as a therapist will influence my work inevitably with my supervisees. The need for authenticity between supervisor and supervisee is essential in terms of both its modelling potential for the supervisee and their client work and in order to strengthen the capacity to endure challenge and conflict, while never losing a hold on the spiritual core of an existential approach to the work which needs to keep the quest for meaning and purpose firmly in the crosshairs. And so to our 8th eye, that transpersonal dimension which mellifluously ripples through the two former paradigms, adding further relational depth to the work in terms of being-with-other. Authenticity might well result in the ultimate dissipation of transferential possibilities but awareness and mindfulness need be the key here (in Eye 4, Hawkins and Shohet ‘out’ no fewer than FIVE variations). The wider contexts of the seventh eye might well have taken me unawares in the example stated above but I embrace the steep learning curve and acknowledge this is merely the beginning, knowing that I ‘...need to be aware of how different modes are more appropriate for different supervisees, and for the same supervisees at different times’ (Shohet & Hawkins 2007 p.99). That, I believe, is what you call putting fifteen hundred words in a nutshell.
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[ 1 ]. Thorne B. Mearns D. Person-Centred Therapy Today Pub. Sage Publications
[ 2 ]. The 8th eye provides the transpersonal foci to the Hawkins and Shohet 7 eyed model as illustrated in Supervision In The Helping Professions Pub. McGraw Hill.
[ 3 ]. Acknowledgment of the significance of the 7th eye – focus on the wider contexts.
[ 4 ]. Henderson P, A Different Wisdom: Reflections On Supervision Practice Pub. Karnac
[ 5 ]. Transference/counter-transference phenomena are acknowledged and accepted in person-centred theory as referenced by Richard Worsley in The Tribes Of The Person-Centred Nation (Ed: Peter Sanders Pub. PCCS Books) It is, however, viewed differently.
[ 6 ]. Kadushin in 1976 named these as the functions of supervision.
[ 7 ]. Referencing the 5th eye of the model
[ 8 ]. Referencing Emmy Van Deurzen’s model as illustrated in Existential Perspectives On Supervision: Widening The Horizon Of Psychotherapy & Counselling Pub. Palgrave
[ 9 ]. Strasser A, Strasser F Existential Time-Limited Therapy: The Wheel of Existence Pub. Wiley
[ 10 ]. Acknowledgment of the 7th eye – focus on wider contexts.
[ 11 ]. Acknowledgment of the 1st eye – focus on client.
[ 12 ]. Acknowledgment of the 6th eye – supervisor focusing on own process.
[ 13 ]. Clarkson P. The Therapeutic Realtionship Pub. Whurr
[ 14 ]. Acknowledgement of the 4th eye – focus on the supervisee.
[ 15 ]. Acknowledgment of the 3rd eye – relationship between client and supervisee
[ 16 ]. Acknowledgment of the influence of the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th eyes.
[ 17 ]. A manifestation of some of the energies pertaining to the 8th eye – the transpersonal.
[ 18 ]. P Hawkins Developmental/Resourcing/Qualitative model applies here by way of quality control and damage limitation in supervision.
[ 19 ]. Acknowledgment of the 2nd eye – interventions by the supervisee.
[ 20 ]. Michael Carroll references author Stephen Covey
[ 21 ]. Martin Buber’s relational process arrives ideally at a humanistic/existential I-Thou relationship
[ 22 ]. Acknowledgment of the 5th eye – the supervisory relationship.
[ 23 ]. Carroll M. Integrative Approaches To Supervision, Pub. JKP
[ 24 ]. Mearns D. Cooper M. Working At Relational Depth In Counselling & Psychotherapy Pub. Sage
