A justice-informed meditation on counselling supervision through the lens of power, identity, and truth-telling. Although written with Supervision as the focus, as this piece draws on personal and collective experiences of life, the message and invitation of these words, can – if one chooses — apply to how we move through life, through all of our relationships and interactions.
Let’s begin with why we are here
To go boldly,
to boldly go where no one has gone before?
Supervision of counselling practice, it’s evolving to somewhere new.
Oversee the seer, it’s more than show them what to do.
Who goes there, and where is there? From where have you come?
How do you show up here? the reasons do not brush off,
collective? individual?
coming in or going out?
Anti-oppressive and social justice, all in an hour and a half?
You’d better do your due diligence.
You’d better do it right.
Fit this mould, please.
Don’t question the origin,
the motives,
the fight…
,,,Because since forever – it was man. Let supervision now be feminist
not in name, but in structure.
Let it decentralise power and invite care,
make room for rage and honour repair.
I was asked:
“Can you bring your whole self here?”
My answer was: NO WAY.
For my whole self
incorporates the undesirable,
different,
hatred,
confusion of self—
self with other. Can I hold any sway?
But I do bring myself into supervision
Which self? The self shaped by books, and by belonging,
The self who knows and the self who questions.
How does one battle their demons In order to guide the other?
How do we frame supervision as a buoy in the ocean, a lifeline, a beacon?
Where is the line in teaching, guiding, indoctrination, assimilation?
You say socially just,
Socially just what?
Just me,
myself,
and I?
But we are social creatures, independence is a myth
We fight against oppression, we rest to resist.
the capitalist,
the expected,
the usual common norm known as “just” – may not be justice.
Justice for the new generations,
born of the dead,
murdered souls.
Justice for the freedom fighter:
Whose side do we take?
You root for the underdog, silenced at some point,
but we were all refugees once, all of us oppressed,
so we hold on to our truths even tighter.
You ask, make reasonable adjustments,
Reasonable for who?
It’s not reasonable of you
to support the powerful few.
Can we make you more accessible?
More able to get through?
Could you wheel through this doorway?
Limp up this ramp?
Can you hear this announcement?
Read this message by sight?
Yes, use the toilet down the corridor,
Not that one—the one on the right!
Can we supervise the area created for change?
Make space for intersectionality
And can we make this un-strange…
But we have, don’t we,
a duty of care? to care,
to demonstrate how we are aware
of the journey,
the struggle,
the oppression.
The silence,
the jaw clench,
the side eye,
the shuffle away.
The wheeling,
the door too narrow,
the door now closed,
the glass ceiling,
the token nod,
the journey,
the travel,
the footsteps,
the tears,
the stings,
the limping,
the forgotten years.
Wanting to be remembered.
Wanting our truth.
The whole truth,
and nothing but.
You can silence or shut down dialogues
if you aren’t thoughtful
about the timing.
I am trying to make a point here, so bear with all my rhyming,
Because, I ask you to tune in,
To separate politics from the humanity.
Can you see the person, not the government decisions?
Can you see the family unit, the history?
Show me your intersections. Light me your path.
What about those
who hold privilege and oppression
on the same branch of the tree?
A White British father
with Jewish ancestry,
a persecuted people for 3000 years,
but can pass unnoticed with the change of name
from Braunofski and Schwartz to Brown and to Black.
And
The mother’s crown, She whose history
is so close to enslavement,
she carries the name McGowan
and the trauma passed down – on the lives of the offspring and all that they do
this is what they will bring to be supervised by you.
so
How do we open the access doors?
How do we see all of the floors
of a personal history?
All systems of oppression
are intertwined and must be examined as such.
Justice-informed supervision
must
be accountable to the future and to the past. It must be manoeuvrable and accountable, holding the outcast.
How do we access these services,
which sit up high,
up steps to climb,
delivered in spoken words
I do not understand?
What about those who speak
through their hands,
their bodies,
through others?
How do we hear them?
Can I adjust?
What needs to open and shift and budge?
I always say,
“I do not have an agenda,
other than what you bring me.”
But here,
I do have an agenda.
An agenda for change and growth and vision…
The onus is on all of us
to embody the changes we seek.
Hetero-patriarchy stamps down on anything “other.”
Disabled? Neurospicy? female, trans or non? Bent over, sat down, no formal education? No English, from the other town?
There is no current requirement in supervision training, to educate on anti-oppressive, cultural awareness, or engage in justice-focused learning –
and yet, reflexivity demands more than a mirror.
It asks for a looking glass that sees beyond self-interest. That names the bias, confronts the blind spot, and yet still shows up.
To reflect ethically is to unlearn, to be willing to be wrong and still confirm.
Now you’re well-meaning,
but unprepared
to offer guidance and support,
Lacking the critical aware -ness of, Justice-informed supervision,
Addressing the collective, relational,
and political dimensions
Of our world, our work the, anti-oppressive practice.
Frameworks often include
commitments to cultural sensitivity
and non-discriminatory practice.
What do these terms really mean?
Our frameworks now need to redistribute the power, centre now the voices of the marginalised, the racialized and the unseen.
Existing frameworks
written by the hetero-patriarchy
of yesteryear:
they silence, and dull; Create doubt,
strip individuality reduce us to null, And void, the void of the difference can be bridged.
The BACP Ethical Framework calls out:
“Respect diversity and different values.”
“Please do your best
to avoid discrimination”
But if we don’t know
what we’re looking for,
then we fall short.
What if we see it, but don’t know how to address it?
How do we brave it? how to approach the repair?
To stay anti-oppressive, we must be corrected.
It’s our challenge to model.
Model cultural responsiveness,
humility,
curiosity.
unbind oneself
and invite the hard truths.
Commit to lifelong learning,
not just a one-off spoof – diversity workshop. Which says let’s talk, talk briefly—
ever so briefly about race,
Try to see the, enslaved and oppressed, the Silenced, shackled and shuck?
But don’t worry about the term “nigger” here
Just tread carefully over “fuck.” – we wouldn’t want to offend!
Our training was less than adequate,
Insufficient, dangerous, harm.
Diversity was the final chapter,
an optional read,
not the preface nor a sounding of the alarm.
Now, I hear the siren outside. Its alert buries deep, it rings in my ears, screaming retreat!
These frameworks focus
on individual-level ethics.
Unacknowledged goes the collective.
Unacknowledged go the structural issues embedded and ignored by so many an ostrich: The;
racism,
ableism,
misogyny,
homophobia,
classism, shadeism, ageism,
transphobia,
And any other “ism” you may care to throw in.
I do not supervise a technique. I supervise a person.
And that person is not empty, waiting to be filled. Yes this is part of the learning, you are more than your theory and framework
I invite you to sit down with me and just talk.
You arrive with stories.
With languages I may not speak
but I will still listen and see.
Supervision must offer more than safety.
It must offer recognition.
Affirmation without erasure.
Support without assimilation.
Cultural humility is the basis and foundation,
Remain open and inquisitive
It’s their cultural exploration.
and (why don’t you try) experience, their truth, their harm and hurt.
Cultural humility is not a hat you wear once,
You don’t “get it” and move on.
You stay with it, with learning and guidance.
What does it mean to supervise
when pain is not always visible,
when grief shows up in silence, in breath, in pause. In communion, community, or in solitude and inward individual places.
when gender has no fixed abode?
In different bodies? In different faces.
Who holds the power
when power is meant to be shared?
What does collaboration look like
If one seat sits higher up there?
Who sets the tone in this meeting room?
This online platform?
Which one of us enters this space with assumed wisdom?
You’re in your bed or in your sitting room, I am in my office at my desk or on my sofa with my cat,
Whom now might shrink away? who must explain, are there labels here? Do we each wear more than one hat?
Name the unseen weight some supervisees carry
just to enter the room.
Ask not just “what brings you here?”
But also:
What tried to stop you coming?
What did you leave at the door?
Who isn’t in this room with us and where have you been before?
But remember it all filters down, from mother to child, client to helper, helper to helper – each time distilled but with layers of activity, added, focused and unfocused.
This space is relational, not just professional, we meet and we see.
Our task is to make a soft boundaried space, soft enough to hold shame.
Our task is to make a strong boundaried space, strong enough to hold truth and pain.
We supervise the supervision
asking whose story is being prioritised?
Whose lens do we see through?
Whose discomfort is being protected?
Built on what land? In what tongue? At what cost?
The unspoken western cultural rules,
firm handshakes, eye contact, confidence.
Whose confidence? Who’s to say what this feels like?
It’s embodied experience speaking
Though not everyone meets your gaze
not out of deceit, but their gaze falls easier at your feet.
So, Revisit, your intentions,
your contract, renegotiate
to state how you will serve
and collaborate.
We have learned here, not to lead not bring hierarchy. We have learned to walk alongside.
We have practised naming the power, the harm, the phenomenology of being together and soon we’ll all be qualified.
******
Gemma @ Chai Therapy (MBACP Accred)
Still learning, still listening
