Self-supervision, surveillance and transgression

Abstract

Transgression is not only an inevitable part of systemic supervision but is also necessary if we are to work towards innovative and inclusive supervisory and therapeutic practice. Defying culturally generated ‘rules’ of systemic practice can allow for more relevant and productive ways of talking. Systemic practitioners are increasingly finding themselves trying to practice systemic therapy in employing authorities and training courses which are dominated by inflexible professional narratives and manualised procedures. Our profession is committed to ethical inner and outer dialogue, to self- and relational reflexivity as distinct from the rule-bound surveillance culture in which we live and work. Systemic supervisors and therapists may find themselves at odds with monological institutional discourse and attempts from within our own profession to manualise practice. I introduce examples from supervisory conversations to illustrate how supervisors can develop more culturally sensitive practices through supporting practitioners to hear and have heard their own marginalised and oppressed voices and those of their clients.