 Hello and welcome to MIP TV and as always we have the fabulous Bob Cook from the Manchester Institute of Psychotherapy and Bob is going to talk about quite a new book in supervision and if you've seen the 22 which is the last book reviewed in where we talked about supervision and the helping professions this kind of continues the theme and this book is by Alina Harganden if I'm pronouncing that correctly and it's called the Art of Relational Supervision and there's an interesting story attached to this Bob so what is it? Share that story. Okay so Alina Harganden is very well known in the transactional analysis movement and she was at the spearhead if you like of the relational transactional analysis movement which I would say cut off from the TA movement but it's certainly a distinct approach within TA and she's brought her ideas of relational therapy if you like into the supervision word so relational TA has as its cornerstone how you use transference counter-transference and the use of the self in the present moment so if you take those ideas into supervision it's how the supervisor uses their self counter-transference, projective identification and transference which are forms of transference really yes the supervisor process in the present day I want to say it's groundbreaking but it does draw very very strongly doesn't it from the humanistic school and how they supervise it's you know a humanistic supervisor would say well maybe they do that all the time although I would argue that perhaps they wouldn't pay as much attention to counter-transference and transference no psychedelic world though would oh absolutely you took the psychedelic supervisors that's the world they're moving yeah and this book is really aimed at group supervision so what Helena did was put many of her supervisors into a group and she ran this group I don't know if it was for a year or longer but she then um writes this book on the back of her findings of relational group supervision you know from the year um what conclusions did she come to it sounds like a bit of research as well as um I think it's looking at the themes of um how you work in supervision as a supervisor using your sense of self using the transference in the aid of the supervisee ultimately yeah so that's where you head back so for example if if somebody came into the the group and said you know um you know something like uh you know John is a member of the group say you know well I'm here I'm suddenly feeling quite angry and I don't know if I'm being angry with you or a fact perhaps I'm angry because of the work that I've been doing with somebody on anger management so what material or from the supervision is brought into the group and gets perhaps projected out onto group members so it's like how do we use the group and the transfers is on the group and the projections in the group and the counter transfers and the supervisors use of the self to get back to helping the supervisee supervisee so for example two very pivotal questions I think every supervisor should ask themselves is who is the client for me yes the therapeutic process right and who am I for the client so you've got two diametrically opposed positions who am I for the client yeah and the reverse that will be starting to think transfers yes so with the group members who are the group members playing out in the actual present moment where I might be projecting material onto them which actually come from the supervisors yes so it is revolutionary well in a way it's like using the group you know many facets of the group to look at the transfers or the projected by identification which actually has come from the supervisor but which has been played out unconsciously or consciously within that group yeah I mean I'm just thinking about supervisor on one to one I would imagine that that takes quite a lot of quite a lot of thought and personal reflection and personal development to work with multiple transferences counter transferences parallel processes very sophistication a lot of a lot of sophistication this isn't this is not for people the way I don't know them well in it and be haven't got their own therapist and also actually all those people in that group were very experienced yes it really does mean a lot of sophistication in terms of knowing yourself and experience yeah and I would think it's quite nuanced as well because you've got you've got a lot of people in the room they all have their own processes and they'll all react differently I would imagine to the client's material that's brought by one of them that's right and how interesting yeah interesting then yeah that you've got say six people in the group you've got six different reactions yes to the supervisee's material isn't that fascinating how how wonderful to be able to help the supervisee in their options they can get take back to their therapeutic work yeah yeah I mean it does strangely if it does echo a lot of courses do have group supervision um you know and I've sat in group supervision with with students through the years um and without being kind of rude or discounting the students that I've worked with I think that there is something really strongly in having someone who's doing it it would be completely different with someone we'd be practised as a more experienced because they're probably less audited themselves I would imagine and you know the really big difference in this group sorry this book is the word relational so many supervisors may run group supervision where they get base they check in with what the four people want and they do individual supervision within the group yes this is diametrically different this is this is very much about the the group relating as a group and you know um transacting as a group rather than going around individually almost feels like like a pseudo encounteral process group in supervision that supervision yes so the idea is and the focus is is always how to aid the clients absolutely the other way from the actual supervisory group yes so if the wonderful book to read um because it talks about a relational group supervision over whole year and how not only the things that I'm just talking about here but how the supervisor brought their own transfers into that and how they also contain the group so it's a very interesting read yeah you know it sounds it sounds absolutely fascinating it sounds really unique um it sounds like a great read for any a cross modality really if anybody's a humanistic therapist or a ta therapist sounds to me like a lot of psychoanalysts yeah it sounds like there's a lot of crossover there bob and uh yeah and of course it's someone you knew someone you trained with yeah hilly nogel but when you read this book just to allow yourself to be open to ideas this isn't about black and white or supervision this is this is really to be open reflective book don't have to follow any of the ideas but it's an enriching rewarding stimulating read well that sounds to me like the greatest recommendation just on those last points bob not to mention the uniqueness of the experience and the the kind of biographical um uh theme of it so uh yep so there you have it helina hargandon the art of relational supervision it does sound like an art and yeah yeah as we as we always say bob you're not being paid for this book with you even though you know the author this is just you showing your lover books this is just me talking about this particular which is uh you were right at the beginning it is groundbreaking so read it in that sort of frame yeah yeah plowing plowing a new furrow yeah looking at that yeah yeah i always think it's really good to look at alternative ideas so we'll leave people hanging with that idea and put a link we'll put a link in the in the comments bar below so people can go to the book and as always bob thank you very much for sharing your love of literature and your encyclopedic knowledge it would seem of the people who write it thank you very much thanks very much bye bye thanks bob