Ok, I'm not actually talking about Strictly Come Dancing, despite my love for sequins and the cha cha cha!
I mean the supervisory dance between supervisor and supervisee on the topics that get spoken about, or not spoken about. Who leads, who follows.
We know that supervision is for the supervisee’s development, learning and reflection, yet the power imbalance may restrict how much the supervisee feels able to say what they actually need in supervision.
For instance, think of a situation where the supervisee was exploring a difficult dynamic with their client, yet during reflecting on whether they had 'got what they needed' from supervision, they revealed they wanted a deeper exploration of their own process and they felt that their own needs were not met in that supervisory interaction. Yet, they had not felt able to be explicit about this to the supervisor. To some extent the supervisory dance was being directed by the supervisee, they were 'leading’ and the supervisor followed. But there was a mismatch in the dance because the supervisee instead wanted the supervisor to lead. How would the supervisor know it was their time to lead the supervisory dance if they were not told? How would the supervisee be empowered to express what they need in supervision?
From my perspective, we have an opportunity in supervision to have conversations that address the process between supervisor and supervisee in order to elevate supervision practice. How do we have those conversations? Let me guide the way....
I'm holding a free webinar on Saturday 22nd January 2022 10am to 11am, for supervisors. In the webinar I'll be showing you the one thing you can introduce to supervision that can elevate your practice. Be great to see you there!