Five reflective touchstones to foster supervisor humility

ABSTRACT

Widely valued as a fundamental human virtue, and associated with many positive qualities and outcomes, humility has been proposed to be a foundational quality underpinning good supervision practice. This paper endorses its value and addresses the question: what might be needed to inform and support our cultivation of humility as supervisors? Five reflective touchstones are presented and explored, reviewing relevant theoretical and research literature, and offering key reflective questions for supervisors within each of the five areas. It is suggested that regular engagement with these reflective touchstones can support a commitment to develop humility in supervision practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Supervision
• humility
• reflective practice
• touchstones
• professional development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Aisling McMahon

Aisling McMahon is a clinical psychologist, integrative psychotherapist and clinical supervisor. She works as an Assistant Professor in Dublin City University, Ireland, where she teaches on postgraduate psychotherapy and clinical supervision training programmes. With Peter Hawkins, Aisling is co-author of the 5^th ed. of Supervision in the Helping Professions. Her research interests are clinical supervision and practitioner development from training to retirement.