Julie’s Ideas Blog 67: Supervision – Part 4

Yet more on the theme of what I wrote about supervision in 2004 (Hay, 2004a, 2004b, 2007), in this blog I describe how I have experienced supervision formats over the years, followed by some ideas about how a supervisee can prepare for supervision so as to get the most out of it.

Supervision in Practice

Within the transactional analysis training community, supervision is typically provided by:

• at least one ‘sponsoring’ supervisor who works with a specific supervisee over a period of time (and particularly so during the years preparing to become a certified analyst) – in this way, the supervisor is able to identify any general themes that impact on the work of the practitioner
• by different supervisors who may each provide individual supervision sessions – in this way, the supervisee gets the benefits of exposure to many different styles and foci of attention during their supervision

​
Supervision is probably best conducted in time limited slots of about 20 minutes or so.  This ensures the supervision is focused and that the supervisee does not become overloaded with feedback.  If more time is needed, it can be negotiated although often a better option will be to raise any additional issues that arise as separate pieces of supervision.  The basic supervision slot may well be followed by a process review, during which the process between supervisor and supervisee is analysed (without going back into the content).  This will often increase the levels of awareness of both parties, and any observers, considerably.

In addition to one-to-one working between a supervisor and supervisee, supervision can also be conducted:

• with a group of supervisees – this is particularly suitable for more experienced supervisees; the supervisee in question contracts with the group for what they want and individual members of the group accept responsibility for working within the agreed contract (or for staying silent if they have nothing to contribute)
• as a cascade – one person supervises the supervisee, and is then supervised on that supervision by someone else, who may then be supervised on that supervision, and so on – this is a great way of identifying any parallel processes that may be in effect
• peer group and cascade supervision may of course be undertaken with or without the eventual intervention of an overall supervisor

Preparing for Supervision

The preparation process is as follows:

• ask for permission from clients/participants to record and to use the recordings for supervision – this can be explained to them as part of a process of quality control and also CPD record (audio or video) – you can also reassure them that only professional colleagues will hear the recordings, that their real names will not be shared, etc, as appropriate;
• record (audio or video) as much of your work as possible - if you don’t do all of it, it seems to be a law of the universe that you’ll miss something really significant that you want to analyse and learn from;
• while you are working, make a note if you can of any times when you are particularly pleased or doubtful about the way the session is going, so you can listen and analyse that part later;
• afterwards, as well as reviewing the parts you noted, listen to the recordings generally as you will  be able to identify other segments that are good or not so good, that you were not aware of at the time;
• take a specific segment of no more than 5 minutes and start listening to it in analysis mode.  You can do this using transactional analysis concepts such as ego states, transactions, strokes, psychological games, etc; NLP constructs such as representational systems, meta programs, language patterns, etc; behaviour analysis categories such as initiating, reacting, clarifying, etc; or any other psychological frameworks you and your supervisor are familiar with.  Listen to the same small segment repeatedly, with a different focus each time, so that you build up your awareness;
• by the time you have done this, you may of course have worked out for yourself just what was going on, plus identified some alternative ways to proceed in similar circumstances in the future – so you will have completed some self-supervision;
• for other segments, prepare to take them to supervision by producing a transcript (you can do it without but it helps a lot to keep track of the interactions on the tape);
• decide what you want to get from the supervision so you can contract with your supervisor – examples might be: checking your understanding of the dynamics; developing your understanding of the dynamics (when you know something is going on but can’t quite work out what!); identifying options for ways to handle similar situations in future; identifying how much of what happened is due to you versus the participant(s).

You might also find it useful to work with a checklist or summary of information about the client/participant(s) and what you are working on with them – there is a TA-based Supervision Preparation Form at https://www.juliehay.org/article-downloads.html#forms which you are welcome to download and use.

References

Hay, Julie (2004a) Supervision for Coaches Self & Society 32:3 Aug/Sept 34-40

Hay, Julie (2004b) Supervision Train the Trainer, 11

Hay, Julie (2007) Reflective Practice and Supervision for Coaches Maidenhead: Open University Press
​

​© 2019 Julie Hay​
 
​Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her.
​

​If you’re interested in learning more TA, Julie runs regular workshops and webinars –  we currently have an offer of a free place on one of our webinars. You can use these toward your CPD and as credit hours in pursuing professional TA qualification