This thesis explores a dialogical approach – in relation to supervision, therapy and research. I have as supervisor inquired into my relationship with groups of supervisees who were training to become family therapists or systemic practitioners. Through my doctoral portfolio, I speak from within my practice and I show in some detail the micro processes in relational encounters which help dialogue to evolve. I also address grand narratives about what it means to be a human being, and show how perceiving a human being as dialogical has extensive and governing consequences for how we think about a person’s movements in the world, how we think about them as person, in relation to other people, and how we understand problems, and approach problem solving. My research has been a doing, an experiencing and a creation of knowing in a reflexive flow. My research philosophy, mode of approaching my practice as therapist and supervisor (and as a person in the world) has reflexively been created through my being in practice. I show how an embodied belief in fluidity and complexity, enables me as supervisor to contribute to a space in the context of supervision which welcomes the freedom of a kind of orientation which is open towards situated, emerging, novel and provisional understanding. By attending to here-and-now interactions, becoming answerable in the moment and by embracing intuition, ambiguity and relational compassion, we have been able to welcome risk-taking and improvisation. This mode of dialogical supervision demonstrates a willingness to spontaneously dive into the uniqueness of every new encounter and every new movement. I see this as the poetics of the dialogical meeting. I have experienced how this space has opened up quite unexpected aspects of the supervisees’ experiences and has served as an incitement for them to question different aspects of their relationship to life. This has reflexively created a certain spirit and atmosphere that has invited us all to be bolder in our sharing and exploration of our lives, practice and our ideas. This thesis makes a contribution concerning: how we can be with people in ways that opens up more understanding and creates a sense of belonging and liberation; challenging and transgressively exploring discursive boundaries which attempt to define and fix what research is, what therapy is, what supervision is, and welcomes the infinity of opportunities and possibilities life may offer us. Thus I suggest that it may become significant for the profession to review the usefulness and legitimacy of distinct categorization between therapy and supervision. Through my choice of genre I offer the reader a possibility to respond emotionally as well as intellectually to my writing. I believe the way I have chosen to re-present my research through a mix of genre and evocative texts not ‘frozen’ findings, permits and anticipates novel ways of going on in relation to research in a manner that I don’t believe have been described in this way before within the community of family therapy and systemic practice.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:570935 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Vedeler, Anne Hedvig Helmer |
| Publisher | University of Bedfordshire |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/10547/223011 |
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