Exploring group processes in peer supervisory practice when systemic practitioners display vulnerability

This systemic doctoral project addresses the research gap concerning what is made from clinical peer group supervision and the impact of group supervisory processes. The study is centred around the research question: “What happens when systemic practitioners talk about their difficulties in peer group supervision within the Norwegian Family Welfare Service?” The aim is to provide insight into peer group supervisory processes originating from supervision requests where systemic practitioners display vulnerability. The project is designed as a small-scale ethnography integrating components from conversation analysis and action research to make sense of relational processes. The research findings indicate that relational, emotional, organisational, and cultural elements intra-act in constraining group processes in peer supervision. There is a sense of vulnerability and insecurity connected with revealing and addressing therapist difficulties in supervision, leading to a frequent move from inviting to intimacy to keeping a distance in the supervision conversations. The research participants associate this shift with feeling unsupported or unaided in peer group supervision. Key recommendations made from the results of this study: • Establish an institutional peer group supervision mandate to hold and direct the supervision practice within the Norwegian Family Welfare Service. • Apply an overall caretaking supervision frame that supports systemic learning and increase safety in peer group supervision. • Challenge the cultural value of equality as sameness to embrace the systemic idea of learning through difference and the production of multiple perspectives. • Attend to bodily responses, affect, and emotions as an essential mode of knowing in supervision practice. A reflexive commentary on my motivation for carrying out the research is included towards the end of the thesis.