Confidentiality

The ways in which supervision serves to provide a safe and confidential space was only ever alluded to in relation to the context within which the supervision was taking place and the perceived challenges to the assumed confidential nature of the

supervisory conversations. By the time of the third round of interviews (two years after the first round), the external environment for the counselling supervisor had changed considerably, and to the extent that she was no longer working with the counselling supervisee who had participated in the first two rounds of data collection. A new supervisee had agreed to take part but the effect of reorganisation meant that their work had changed considerably and now included much activity that was on the periphery of counselling practice, including some activities more readily associated with occupational health, such as workstation assessments. Both the supervisor and supervisee demonstrated remarkable resilience in attempting to maintain their

counselling values in these changing circumstances, which illustrates just how deeply embedded was the discourse of supervision as containment. An indicative example of this can be found in my second interview with the counselling supervisor:

7130 I think there is a role for Supervisors to, particularly in organisations, be more visible. But I think, you know, you need to think very carefully about how you do that and maintain a safe, secure, confidential supervision space.

Um, and I think it’s not easy. It’s not just you suddenly appear at a

management meeting and start speaking freely. I think it has to be, you

know, management information that’s fed back in a form that’s obviously not

identifiable.

Similarly, in my final interview with the counselling supervisor:

13154: And, um, she’s done really well to, to hold on. And what we try to do is hold on to her, the core of her counselling, um, practice, and adapt it to sort of some very, um, well constantly changing, um, organisational criteria

And in my somewhat stumbling reflection back to this supervisor a few lines later, she affirms that her supervisory framework provides a container for holding all the complexities of working in these changed circumstances:

13334 … you say there’s no rule book, but what I hear when you talk about supervision is that because you have a very clearly articulated framework,

which I know we’ve talked about before, . … it sounds to me as though that

gives you the freedom to then more or less do whatever, you know, to be

flexible in the sessions and with, with your supervisees, because you’ve got an overarching framework that you feel is the right one, and it, and it, and it’ll work, you know And so it gives you that kind of …

Which prompts the response from the supervisor: 13343: It holds us all, doesn’t it?

Discussion around the limits of confidentiality within the supervisory relationship was notable by its absence. For example, in my final interview with the counselling supervisee, I was asking her what would happen if she disclosed to her supervisor some action that could be deemed to be unethical. The supervisee was very clear that the supervisor would, indeed should, break confidentiality in those circumstances and refer it to the supervisee’s manager:

13795: I mean I … it’s not something that we’ve actually, um, discussed. But to me it goes without saying that that is part of your supervision.

Likewise, in the mental health nursing context, a new supervision policy was being circulated. Whilst highlighting the differences between managerial and clinical supervision, it also included guidance about information-sharing between the two supervisors, thus challenging again the confidential nature of the supervisory relationship:

4722: and there’s a…an explicit expectation that there’s sort of contact

between the management and clinical supervisor, you know……so that…that unnerved, particularly sort of therapists, you know…

And in the second recorded clinical psychology session, the participants are discussing a new policy document in which it appears that they are being asked to make available notes of their supervision sessions. The supervisor comments:

8913: You know, it feels to me like it’s… it’s a private… private conversation.

I can’t imagine circumstances under which, err, I would feel happy anyone having access to the things that we’ve talked about...

I am inferring from this comment that the limits of confidentiality had not previously been discussed between them and it is only when those tacit assumptions are questioned that expectations are made explicit. This is, perhaps an example, of the ‘common sense’ status afforded to this component of supervision that its confidential nature is assumed as understood by everyone. This is problematic when this is challenged by the context within which the supervision is taking place and also inhibits the extent to which any resistance to it can be expressed.