If we never embark on edgy or experimental strategies, we risk becoming stuck in the work and limit what we can offer our clientsIf your supervisor asked, ‘How are you resiling right now?’ it would sound like an odd question, but in the context of supervision it’s actually a regular and familiar enquiry – we just put it in different language. What might we be doing when we resile?
When we resist things, we can usually figure out what’s being resisted and why – on reflection, if not immediately – and we can become more conscious of how the resisting is done and what, if anything, can be changed for the better. To describe, understand and appreciate your action of ‘resistance’ involves using active verbs: you block, defy, turn against, push away, and so on. The fact that as a profession we haven’t taken the verb ‘to resile’ into our customary lexicon could be significant in this respect. When you think of yourself resiling, what actions come to mind? I will resist a tasty etymological digression at this point, except to note that ‘resilience’ comes from the Latin resilire, meaning ‘leap back’ or ‘rebound’. I like that – a definite sense of movement there – and it also connects the action of being resilient to the vital concept of boundary. In supervision, we tend to bang on about the importance of maintaining clear boundaries of all kinds, and properly so. But consider this: in actual practice, a great deal of effective work is done right at the very edge of, or just beyond, a boundary of some sort, despite – or perhaps due to – the counsellor feeling pulled out of shape by the process. Tight boundaries are good, and slack ones are bad. All the same, I can imagine an inflexible, rigidly boundaried practitioner missing out developmentally and therapeutically by never embarking on ‘edgy’ or experimental strategies, avoiding all leaps in the dark, not risking any creatively spontaneous interventions, and thereby often becoming ‘stuck’ in the work with clients. I know that endurance of being-in-stuckness is sometimes necessary in longer-term therapy and can often be the start of a truly liberating movement in the client. But, if a therapist or supervisor or any practitioner becomes an expert ‘stuckist’ – too set in their ways, impervious to innovation and dismissive of novelty – then I would say they are almost certainly limiting or diminishing what they can offer to their clients and colleagues. Moreover, they increase their susceptibility to boredom. One of my supervisees (who isn’t at all boring and has let me use, anonymously, what follows here) told me about a long-term client he called ‘a permanently stressed-out workaholic’. For session after session this client seemed to rebuff all possibility for change in his life. There were no apparent shifts in perspective, no new behaviours, no fresh insights, no reframing of anything at all. Now you might be thinking ‘resistant client’ and/or ‘bored counsellor’. And both of them, you could say, were showing true resilience: the client kept rebounding by coming to every session in exactly the same shape each week; and the counsellor was always dutifully prepared and held the space for him reliably and regularly every time. In supervision, the counsellor talked about sitting back with the client (often but not always a sensible position when things feel immoveable) and claimed not to be bored or frustrated – but I certainly was, and after a while did not resist saying so. My willingness toresile, to continue to return again and again to all this unchanging sameness, was rapidly fading. How come? With my supervisee’s agreement, I sat in a different chair and voiced my feelings about the situation as if I were the client. By opening up the parallel process in this way, we realised it was more a case of ‘bored client’ and ‘resistant counsellor’. That’s over-simplifying the dynamic, but essentially my supervisee discovered that, distracted by the permanent array of presenting problems, he had been unconsciously resisting a deeper relational connection to the client, who we guessed (correctly as it turned out) was really desperate for closeness. The client had assumed he couldn’t get that quality of relationship without keeping a tight grip on all his many issues; although he was totally fed up with suffering them, he believed they made him worthy of being bothered with, as if he was nothing without them. So, a paradox became clear: due to his phenomenal resilience, he wasn’t getting what he needed from therapy. The notion that resistance and resilience are concurrent or convergent actions, which I think this brief story illustrates, does not mean they are identical or never separate. For example, resistance can often be absolutely non-negotiable. Some things in your professional life must be resisted in order to maintain safe boundaries – no ifs and buts, no excuses. When in doubt, your safety as a private practitioner is enhanced if you take to supervision what it is you feel you’re resisting and what you wonder if you might be resisting, so you can then discern whether your resistance is in the service of your clients or detrimental to them. This ethical enquiry has a clear effect on the nature of your subsequent resiling: do you return to the client exactly as before or do you rebound in a different way with either a boldly revised or a subtly altered view of the client? I think that is essentially what it means to resile
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August 2020
CategoriesEncouragement: An Essential ingredient of Supervision - Anthea Millar
Supervision comes in many shapes and sizes, inspired by numerous models and theoretical orientations. Yet when ‘unpeeled’, it seems there is a common ingredient at the heart of all effective supervision practice: encouragement. This is also an essential value at the heart of our Cambridge Supervision Training courses and the book Practical Supervision: How to Become a Supervisor for the Helping Professions co-authored with my colleagues Penny Henderson and Jim Holloway. Adler, over 80 years ago, took an optimistic view of human nature, believing that a need to belong and contribute to the group is inborn in each individual. However, humiliation and shame, disconnection and disgrace, inferiority and deficiency are deeply threatening dangers to us all, and prompt us to lose courage (feel discouraged) in making positive connections and contributions. So we may resort to patterns of self-destructive behaviours if, in our family of origin, we experienced these forms of discouragement. Adler also suggested that neither heredity nor environment is the ultimate determiner of personality. Instead he believed that this desire for pro-social behaviour is embedded in us, and we all have the capacity for constructive change (Ansbacher and Ansbacher 1956). And crucially, this change is most likely to occur in a relationship with a person who is encouraging. Encouragement has been described as: ‘…the process of facilitating the development of the person’s inner resources and courage towards positive movement. The encouraging person helps the discouraged person remove some of the self-imposed attitudinal road blocks.’ (Dinkmeyer and Losoncy 1980 p 16). Looking more specifically at supervision, Lemberger and Dollarhide (2006) state that the process of encouragement can ‘..assist the supervisee to aspire to the highest possible level of professional competence. Encouragement is literally “entering the courage” and assets possessed by the supervisee….(it) can further buttress the working relationship between the supervisor and supervisee and open up new meaning-making opportunities for both…’ (p119). In a bid to identify the many forms that encouragement can take, and having a bit of fun with alliteration, I have created a diagram that aims to illustrate my thoughts about the main Elements (or ‘E’s) of supervision. These elements are ordered to echo key phases in the supervision process, and are framed by encouragement. Ethics Where there is a clearly contracted working alliance that is underpinned by a strong ethical framework, such as that provided by the BACP, both supervisor and counsellor can work more courageously. The increased courage comes from being supported by a set of principles that are not there to ‘police’ but to encourage mature reflection. Without the encouragement of an ethical frame, dilemmas can seem insurmountable; or of much greater concern, we may miss the dilemma altogether, and unwittingly enter into unethical practice, becoming both discourager and discouraged. The Essential ‘E’s of Supervision Ethics Equality Empathy Exploration Enabling Insight Education Extension Effectiveness Equality and Empathy‘To be human means to have inferiority feelings’(Adler 1964 p54). Adler suggested that the development of inferiority feelings result in large part from subjective childhood comparisons with other family members. As these feelings are so uncomfortable, we compensate by striving to overcome them through such patterns as superiority and perfectionism. Here’s where problems can arise in the supervisory relationship. This ‘slippery pole’ dynamic of inferiority and superiority will show itself as a discouraging power imbalance, that destroys a sense of equality. Equality does not mean that the supervisor and supervisee need to have the same level of experience, values or theoretical orientation – what it does mean is that there is a cooperative partnership that acknowledges and honours difference. By not getting caught into ‘How am I doing in comparison to others’, and reflecting instead on: ‘What am I doing?’, we then offer a supervision space based on equality that encourages supervisees to risk disclosure of problematic issues much more readily. Most counselling and supervision approaches have empathy as a fundamental basis to the relationship and I certainly see this as essential to offering an encouraging frame for the supervision work. However encouragement is always about authenticity, where a willingness to be honest (congruent) with a supervisee is as important as offering of empathic understanding. Exploration and Enabling InsightEnabling the supervisee to present and explore what is going on, whilst keeping a careful eye on the client’s well being, is a complex task. As supervisors, we may be tempted to come in too early with our theories, interpretations and answers. Equally, with the aim of being empathic, we may delay intervention, listen attentively, but offer no focused input to the supervisee. One example of very many interventions that can encourage supervisees to explore and gain insight is the process of Socratic questioning (Millar 1999). Using Socratic questions, the supervisor does not play the role of expert or authority. The skill of the supervisor is in having an idea of what direction would elicit the most useful information, clarification, or insight. Each new question is based on the supervisee’s previous answer or statement. Gradually, the supervisees are led to their own insight, and make their own conclusions as to what they are doing, and what they could be doing more effectively. Education and ExtensionWhether in the role of supervisor or supervisee, taking risks and extending our skills is often deeply encouraging. Our learning can be particularly rapid after making mistakes or discovering gaps in our knowledge. However it is at exactly these moments that we can feel most vulnerable to inferiority feelings. By protecting ourselves from this discomfort, we are not protecting the client, and poor practice may be perpetuated. Supporting the supervisee to have ‘the courage to be imperfect’ (Dreikurs 1970) through feedback that will educate and extend, is an essential aspect of taking supervisory authority (Henderson 2006). So how can this verbal feedback be offered encouragingly so that it is neither punitive nor unhelpfully praising? (Dreikurs 1958, Dweck 1999, Kohn 1993). Adlerian practice puts the emphasis on first identifying a person’s strengths, before presenting areas for development and change. This provides a firm base from which we can be more receptive to other forms of feedback. A similar process can be used both for identifying strengths and challenging areas for growth, as verbal encouragement, differentiated from praise, focuses on what the person is doing, rather than how the person compares with others. This is achieved by avoiding the use of single adjectival labels such as ‘good’ ‘unethical’, ‘clever’, ‘non empathic’, and also by keeping in mind the assets and positive intentions of the supervisee. By using descriptive language, paying particular attention to verbs, feedback offered is very specific, identifying what the supervisee has actually been doing. From this base, the supervisor may add their view, or provide educative information as appropriate. EffectivenessLast, but not least, is the need to assess not only the supervisee’s competence, but our own effectiveness as a supervisor. Some crucial ways for the supervisor to ensure this include regular opportunities for mutual feedback between supervisor and supervisee, supervision for the supervision work, ongoing professional development and further supervision training. Encouragement is a many faceted process that is the essential ingredient for supervision. But it is not easy. I have continually to deal with my own tendency to move into a superior and judgmental mode, but have discovered, gratifyingly, that when I am more encouraging, I actually feel more encouraged. So I would invite all supervisors to reflect on what they might develop further to ensure encouragement is at the heart of their supervisory practice. This practice will in turn encourage and enable the most important person of all: the client. ReferencesAdler, A. (1964) Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind. New York: Capricorn. (Original work published 1933) Ansbacher, H.L. & Ansbacher, R.R. (Eds). (1956) The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler. New York: Harper & Row Dweck, C (2000) Self Theories: Their role in Motivation, Personality, and Development. Philadephia: Psychology Press. Dinkmeyer, D. & Losoncy, L.E. (1980) The Encouragement Book. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Dreikurs, R. (1958) The Cultural Implications of Rewards and Punishment. The International Journal of Social Psychiatry. Vol IV, No 3, Winter 1958 Dreikurs, R. (1970) The Courage to be Imperfect. In Articles of Supplementary Readings (Chicago: Alfred Adler Institute 1970) Henderson, P. (2006) Learning to take Supervisory Authority. In P.Prina, K.John, C.Shelley, A.Millar (Eds). UK Adlerian Year Book 2006. London:ASIIP pp 40-49 Henderson, P., Holloway, J. and Millar, A. (2014) Practical Supervision: How to Become a Supervisor for the Helping Professions. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Kohn, A. (1993) Punished by Rewards New York: Houghton Mifflin. Lemberger, M.E. & Dollarhide, C.T. (2006) Encouraging the Supervisee’s Style of Counseling: An Adlerian model for Counseling Supervision. The Journal of Individual Psychology. Vol. 62:2, pp106-125 Millar, A. (1999) The Use of Socratic Questioning in Classical Adlerian Therapy. In P.Prina, C.Shelley, C.Thompson (Eds). UK Adlerian Year Book1999. London:ASIIP |