Clare Parkinson, CfSWP Seminar Nottingham 04.06.2015
REFLECTIVE SUPERVISION IN AUSTERE
TIMES
PARTICIPANTS OF SUPERVISION
HUGHES AND PENGELLY (2002)
Supervisor
Supervisee
Service user
FUNCTIONS OF SUPERVISION (HUGHES AND
PENGELLY, 2002)
Managing accountability
Direct work with service
user
Professional
development of
Supervisee
JANET MATTINSON 1992THE REFLECTION
PROCESS IN CASEWORK SUPERVISION
Working with the countertransference
1.It could be straight identification of worker
with client
2.It could be worker ‘mimics’ aspects of client
3. Client may make worker feel what it’s like
to be him.

SUPERVISORS ALSO NEED REFLECTIVE SPACE

In all the above the client feels better having
put their difficult feelings into the worker who
either carries them around or gives them to the
supervisor who is then left with
them.(Mattinson p45).
DON’T PATHOLOGISE SWER

It is very important that a worker’s overidentification is not taken to be (just) about the
worker with a denial of the strength of the
problems of the client. ‘If workers are led, even
very subtly, to feel ashamed of their interaction
and inability to withstand some of its grosser
manifestations their professional growth will be
inhibited.’ p47
OPENNESS OF SUPERVISORS

P47 ‘If supervisors do not have to be above
their own reactions, but can value them as
‘highly informative reflections of the
relationship between client and worker’
(Searles, 1955) giving themselves a clearer
realisation than any words could do of the
pressure the client is exerting on the worker,
they are more able to expose their supervision
in detail and to continue to learn and to
develop their teaching skills.’
SUPERVISION ISN’T THERAPY

p. 128. ‘I think there are no occasions when
the supervisor should work with the
transference of the worker. Working with the
transference means exploring the feelings, and
sometimes the genesis of those feelings, which
lie behind the overt behaviour. Working with the
transference means being a caseworker not a
supervisor.’
LEARNING TO WORK WITH FEELINGS

p.130. ‘The discussion about the client’s
feelings and the attempt to get in touch with
these during the supervision, particularly if the
supervisor is acknowledging his feelings at the
same time, will make it safer for the worker to
know about his own.’
STUDENTS FROM A ‘USE OF SELF’ COURSE
Froggett, L, Ramvi, E. and Davies, L. (2015)
 ‘… It was striking to me that I did not talk about
the loss of my client when you asked me about
my work experiences. I had been carrying that
guilt and anguish with me for seven years and
considered it the biggest failure of my career.
The reading s helped me reframe how I
understood this case and my relationship with
the client….

…After sharing this case with the class I was
overwhelmed with how supportive my peers were
and their empathetic concern for what this young
man had experienced before his death. It was the
supervision that I needed seven years ago and
was never available to me. For that alone I am so
grateful to have been a part of this course. It does
not haunt me anymore; I still care about the client
and value the time that we worked together but
with a new sense of peace…’
‘…The struggle for me lies in my concern that if
I continue working in the field I will sacrifice my
own needs and ultimately continue to feel
unsatisfied in my personal and professional
life… I feel I am no longer able to avoid or
repress issues that might otherwise have gone
unexplored had I never entered the helping
profession. I think that this course had helped
me to recognise what issues I may need to
address and what supports I need in place if I
am to continue practicing in the profession’
‘Prior to taking this course I
often struggled with negative
feelings about the work and
the impact it was having on
me. I now feel that I acquired
a new language to describe
some of what I have been
experienced over the past
three years of my professional
life and essentially all along. ‘
‘It took some time before the
penny began to drop, I think I was
quite naïve about the politics of
the profession and I was getting
quite stressed trying to square
what I saw in the workplace with
my values and beginning to
wonder whether I would be up to
it…Understanding the system in
relation to problems I was having
gave me a better sense of where it
was and wasn’t about me. I no
longer feel so overwhelmed.’
REFERENCES (2)

Froggett, L, Ramvi, E. and Davies, L. (2015) ‘Thinking
from Experience in psychosocial practice: reclaiming
and teaching ‘use of self’’. Journal of Social Work
Practice 29 (2) 133-150

Hughes, L and Pengelly, P (2002) Supervision in a
turbulent environment. London: Jessica Kingsley

Kanter, J. (2004) (ed) Face to face with children: the life
and work of Clare Winnicott. London: Karnac

REFERENCES (1)
Karpman, S. (1968) ‘Fairy tales and script
drama analysis’ Transactional Analysis
Bulletin 7, 26, 39-44
Kolb, D, (1984) Experiential learning.
Englewood Cliffs New Jersey: PrenticeHall
Mattinson, J (1992 2nd edn) The reflection
process in case-work supervision.
London: Tavistock Institute of Marital
Studies
REFERENCES (3)

Schon, D (1983) The reflective practitioner:
how professionals think in action.
London:Temple Smith

Searles, H.F. (1955) ‘the informational values
of the supervisor’s emotional experience. In
Collected papers on schizophrenia and related
subjects. The Hogarth Press and the Institute of
Psycho-Analysis. 1965