Counselling supervision and the production of professional selves

Abstract

The culture of supervision is produced both in wider professional contexts and in particular local supervision conversations. This paper is shaped by the post structuralist ideas of governmentality and disciplinary power. It uses these ideas to trace the detail of a supervision conversation, noticing the shaping effects of ideas familiar within the professional culture. Excerpts from the supervision conversation demonstrate a supervision process that pays attention to the politics of its own production, and thus to the culture of supervision that it produces.

Keywords:

• Counselling
• supervision
• discourse
• positioning
• culture
• disciplinary power
• governmentality
• autonomy