Supervision & Individuality

I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections.
and it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly, that I am ill.
I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self,
and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help
and patience, and a certain difficult repentance
long difficult repentance, realization of life’s mistake, and the freeing oneself
from the endless repetition of the mistake
which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.

~ D.H. Lawrence

Recognition and wounding have a relationship to one another. Identifying a wound allows it to begin healing, though it may take time to do so. Clinicians want to recognize the individual behind the wound but sometimes it seems our healthcare system gets in the way of that therapeutic encounter . . . . . managed care, brief interventions, evidence-based practices, high caseloads, paperwork . . . . . are just a few barriers that blur the clarity to see the person behind the wound. But now, allow me a moment to recognize the individual behind that wound, not to the client but to the clinician.

As a clinical supervisor, I have worked with many clinicians to find solutions to the challenges clients are facing. Some clinicians welcome approaches to address the issues at hand while others resist good, well tested practices to help intervene, even when the clinician is struggling to find other interventions that work. Resistance does not usually come from new clinicians, who are developmentally collecting the tools of the trade, but from more experienced clinicians. This is the beginning of a foundation for burnout if a shift in supervision does not happen.

~ Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman taps into Shakespeare’s quote in As You Like It referencing, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” and then personalizes it to the reader. We are indeed merely actors on this stage of life and yet we are individuals too. We as clinical supervisors need to personalize a clinician’s work to them as a person as well as a professional. Clinicians are not merely conduits to help the wounded, but individuals serving individuals. Clinicians need to learn the mechanisms of stabilization, healing and growth but can waste away themselves for the lack of recognition of them as a person. And in turn, the client can end up adding onto their own wounds this depersonalization, subverting intervention after intervention in the attempt to be recognized.

So join me in recognizing how each clinician adds their verse to the world of therapy. Each person offering solid interventions to clients through their own personality, lens of experience and context. Recognizing that the therapeutic encounter is always between two people, not two roles.

The realignment does begin between two roles, clinical supervisor and clinician, two roles that turn into an encounter between two professionals, then two people serving the individual person of the client. This is the contagion of healing, perhaps the greatest skill of a supervisor.