Presence

 "Presence" in supervision

I undertook a project exploring 'Presence in supervision' between September 2016 and July 2017. It formed my assignment and submission for the Consultancy, Supervision, Training and Development (CSTD) London Senior Practitioner Diploma in Supervision programme, led by Joan Wilmot and Robin Shohet.

There were two strands, each with an output:

1] To explore the nature of 'presence' in a sample of the supervisory relationships that I had with current supervisees. I have written about this as well as reflecting upon the overall project in the paper I submitted, which you can access below.

2] To create an abstract sculpture that reflects something of how I understand supervision presence. This is not 'understand' in a cognitive sense, but rather "understand" by holding that concept in mind as I engage in the process of sculpting. The photographs above are of the finished piece.

The sculpting process presented me with a paradox; I wanted to explore presence and yet sculpting is by its nature usually a hidden process; the sculptor disappears into their workshop and emerges some time later with a completed sculpture. I wanted to be more a little more visible as the sculptor, so I recorded five videos at different stages of sculpting. These you can see below.

Since completing the project I have given two workshops based on some of this material.

'Attention and Presence in Supervision' for IACP in Dublin, May 2018, Slides from these workshops can be downloaded from the Resources page. 

'Presence and Absence in Supervision' for the Yorkshire Supervisors' Forum in February 2019, slides from which can be downloaded below.