There is some evidence that occupational therapy as a profession may have adopted supervision without adequate attention to the costs involved in the process, in terms of training, time, commitment and the emotional consequences for the participants (see parts 1 and 2, Sweeney et al 2001a,b). This work suggests that many occupational therapists have This paper, the final one in a series of three, aims to draw together the findings of the two reported studies on the experiences of supervisors and supervisees in the discipline of occupational therapy (Sweeney et al 2001a,b) and to distil recommendations for the future practice of supervision within the profession.A paucity of empirical research on the process of supervision within the health care professions has resulted in a confusion concerning the purpose of supervision, its distinctiveness from other activities and the role and function of both supervisors and supervisees, and a lack of clarity regarding the tasks and techniques to be employed within supervision. In keeping with concerns about supervision expressed in the general literature, the findings of these studies (Sweeney et al 2001a,b) suggest that supervision as it is currently practised within occupational therapy is not a comfortable experience for either the supervisor or the supervisee. This paper recommends steps that can be adopted by both supervisors and supervisees to facilitate the development of a more productive relationship within supervision; for example, the use of training, exposure to theories and models of supervision, and the use of agendas, contracts and feedback. Supervisor and supervisee recommendations are discussed within the wider framework of professional, cultural and organisational implications.
The first paper (Sweeney et al 2001) in this series of three on supervision in occupational therapy reported the views and experiences of occupational therapy supervisors. In contrast to the supervisor experience, where there remains a paucity of evidence in the general literature, the clinician as supervisee has been relatively well explored. However, the literature on the experiences of the occupational therapy supervisee is virtually nonexistent. This paper, the second in the series, describes a grounded theory study which set out to explore the process of first-line supervision from the perspective of the novice occupational therapy supervisee (those employed at basic grade and senior II levels). Data collection took the form of semi-structured, one-to-one interviews with 30 female supervisees, who were drawn from a wide range of clinical specialties within the National Health Service in the South West of England. The findings suggested that there existed a large gap between what many of the supervisees expected from supervision and what they actually received. In addition, there was evidence that the typical supervisee entered the supervision process with the aim of presenting a professional face to her supervisor and to the wider health care team and that she did this to protect her fragile sense of competence. Many supervisees employed a range of covert strategies within the supervision setting in order to facilitate the presentation of a professional face. The use of this approach carried with it a number of risks and benefits for the supervisee. The final paper in the series will discuss the implications of these two studies of supervisor and supervisee experience in order to distil recommendations for the future practice of supervision within the profession.
Supervision, as a research field, has received a considerable amount of attention within counselling psychology, social work and psychotherapy. Although there is no lack of theoretical writings on supervision within these disciplines, the theories themselves have provided little guidance for continuing research and practice. This has resulted in confusion concerning the purpose of supervision, its distinctiveness from other similar activities, the role and function of the respective participants in the process, and the tasks and methods to be employed. This paper, the first of three on the experience of supervision in occupational therapy, describes a grounded theory study which set out to investigate the processes underlying supervision in the discipline of occupational therapy from the perspective of the supervisor. The data were collected by interviewing 30 occupational therapy supervisors in the South West of England. The results suggest that supervision is frequently experienced as an uncomfortable and relatively unproductive process within this occupational group. In addition, the data lend support to the possible existence of an egalitarian relationship which operates between supervisor and supervisee, with associated payoffs and risks for each participant in the relationship. A second paper reporting the supervisee's perspective will be published as part 2, together with recommendations for future practice in part 3.
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