Supervision: From Prescribed Roles to Preferred Positionings

Abstract

Clinical supervisors provide support, instruction, and professional gatekeeping for supervisees, while also working with them and clients to ensure that quality clinical service is provided. Thus, supervisors find themselves managing multiple and competing ways of orienting to the supervisory situation that may result in relational conflicts (e.g., with supervisees, professional boards). We build on the concept of supervisory positions to articulate an approach to supervision aimed to foster optimal conditions for supervisees' professional development. We exemplify how supervisors may use this approach to manage multiple responsibilities without lessening good relationships with supervisees.

Keywords::

• supervision
• positioning
• professional development
• discourse

Notes

This article was accepted by the former editor of The Clinical Supervisor, Carlean Gilbert.

^1. These data are part of a research project approved by the Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board (CHREB) at the University of Calgary. The names were changed, to protect confidentiality.

^2. Typically supervisory dyads do not talk about their positions but enact them through the way they talk. For brevity's sake, we included and analyzed only some aspects of the performance of talk in the transcript: italics indicate emphasis, square brackets (“[]”) indicate overlapping talk, and curly brackets (“{}”) indicate responses in the backchannel.