Book review of "A practical guide to transformative supervision for the helping professions: amplifying insight" by Nicki Weld, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Abstract

[Extract] Having what could be described as an insatiable interest in how we can better support and facilitate social workers' use of self in delivering "good practice," it was of little surprise that I found myself drawn to Nicki Weld's new book on supervision. The words "transformative" and "amplifying insight" immediately captured my interest and I found myself eager to explore what new could be said about these ideas and how the author proposed reintegrating them into present-day supervisory practices. In recent years, I have become somewhat despondent with the shift away from the supportive and educational functions of supervision that currently exists in many workplaces. While it has been easy to blame managerialism for focusing on case management and the administrative aspects of supervision, Tsui (2005) reminded us that this preference was also driven by practitioners in the 1990s, who perceived the supervision process as both invasive and placed them under unnecessary surveillance. By embedding the words "transformative" and "insight" so clearly into the title then, I wondered whether Weld was only reiterating my concerns, or whether she could offer some more compelling reasons for exploring the more personal aspects of a practitioner's work in supervision.