Superficial supervision: Are we placing clinicians and clients at risk?

Abstract

Mental heath nurses recognise the importance of professional boundaries and therapeutic relationships and understand that clinical supervision is an important component to good clinical practice and their ongoing professional development. This qualitative constructivist grounded theory research has uncovered a potential risk in contemporary mental health clinical practice, where the desire for expedient answers may compromise the outcome of formal structured supervision. The notion of a new concept ‘superficial supervision’ and its implications for formal structured supervision are explored.

Keywords:

• supervision
• professional boundaries
• mental health
• grounded theory
• mental health nursing