The Ethics of Supervision - Farhad Dalal - Group Analysis India

About the talk...
As we go further into the process of cultivating group analysis and group analysts in India (now into its third year and with seven faculty and forty candidates), I find myself thinking about the kinds of supervision we/I might provide in that context, a form of supervision that keeps in mind the decolonizing project which inevitably entails a critique of some forms of mainstream supervisory practice.

With this in mind, I ask: what makes for an ethical supervision?
I begin by examining the ethical requirements in different situations; first in situations between persons and things (science), and then in situations between persons and persons (psychotherapy).

I will argue that if psychotherapy (and consequently supervision) is thought to be a scientific activity, then this will require the supervisor to subscribe to the ethics akin to those of the natural scientist, neutral and detached. However, if psychotherapy and supervision are inter subjective relational activities (as I think them to be), then central to the ethical requirements of supervision will be notions of reciprocity and mutuality. Also necessary will be notions of prefiguration and emergence.

Farhad Dalal is the convenor of the Group Analytic Training in India. He is a psychotherapist and group analyst living and working in Devon, UK, where he convened a number of Limbus Critical Psychotherapy Conferences (www.limbus.org.uk). Over the years he has lectured and written extensively and critically on many subjects, including those of race, psychotherapy theory and practice, politics, managerialism, ethics and research. His books to date are: Taking the Group Seriously, Race, Colour & the Processes of Racialization, Thought Paralysis: The Virtues of Discrimination, and CBT- The Cognitive Behavioural Tsunami: Managerialism, Politics and the Corruptions of Science