Title: Supervision in Action: A Relational Approach to Coaching and Consulting Supervision
Author; Erik de Haan
Publisher: Open University Press
ISBN 978 03352 4577 2
Usefulness ****
In this welcome addition to the literature on coaching supervision, de Haan applies the perspective he took in his earlier Relational Coaching. While other authors focus on the functions of supervision, the attention here is on the importance of transference and parallel processes in the supervision relationship.
He uses seven playful metaphors to draw this out. Some may balk at supervision being described as “two rather frightened people, finding out the unknown”, but the irony reinforces the point that supervision is a deeply relational experience.
He makes telling comments on the confessional nature of supervision, in which the supervisee submits to the supervisor, wanting to be changed and yet not changed. At the same time, the supervisor, given permission to occupy her pedestal, tries to do so compassionately. The cycle of doubt and discovery shared by both is finely illustrated in chapter seven’s transcript of a supervision session.
The material on group supervision is disappointingly limited, but what he says about it is thought-provoking.
Overall, de Haan engagingly shows how, at the heart of supervision, are two people trying to know themselves and each other and to use whatever lies in between.
Ken Smith is an accredited coach and coaching supervisor www.kensmithcoaching.co.uk
Volume 7, issue 4