Confessors and Jesters (and Supervisors)
John Mark Capper (C) 2021
There is a fine line between the confessor and the jester. Each provides outlet, perspective and opportunity: variously, to short-circuit situations, buy time for consideration and provide an outlet for emotion. Intense practice needs intense and focussed reflection if professionals are to sustain longevity and find flourishing. In the light of curious encounters, particularly the tales of Alice, the similarities and differences between the roles of confessor, jester and supervisor are noted. The particularity of the supervisor as a practitioner with expansive engagement is affirmed as appropriate for contemporary supervisory practice in leadership and the caring professions.
Dramatis Personae
John Fisher (JF), Confessor to Lady Margaret Beaufort.
Lady Margaret Beaufort (MB), mother of Henry VII of England.
Professional Supervision (PS), a character “contested and very differently understood and interpreted.”[1]
Culturally Safe Supervision (CSS), a cousin of the former.
Alice (A), a child[2].
The Mad Hatter (MH), a mad hatter (not to be confused with the March Hare, a meaningless intermediary!).
Persons in role
John Fisher had a habit of placing a human skull on the altar when presiding at Mass and on the dining table at meals;[3] “the one man at this time who is incomparable for uprightness of life, for learning and for greatness of soul.”[4]
Lady Margaret, with Colleges established in both universities of her time and with chairs of divinity established in her name in both, was the power behind the establishment of the Tudors: A woman of faith, letters and ambition.
Professional Supervision, a character believed to date from antecedents in the 17th and 18th centuries.[5]
Culturally Safe Supervision is a process “grounded in spiritual, traditional, and coherent theoretical understandings congruent with a unique worldview.”[6]
Alice, our heroine in training.
Mad Hatter is unaware of place, practice or purpose; a form of Jester, unroled.
Commonalities
“Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could”[7]. The history of supervision might be traced to the beginnings of social work,[8] but the antecedents are deeper; found in the “social, spiritual and cultural arrangements of family and community”.[9]
Confession has the intention of effecting behavioural change. This is part of the brief of professional supervision.[10] It “revolves around the theme of learning.”[11] Carroll (2009) notes that his life been one of learning:
My continual challenge has been, how can I set up the kind of relationships, create the sort of environments, and provide the right interventions so that my learning partners emerge with further learning? Learning for me means increased knowledge, new or more finely tuned skills, capability, competency, change of behaviors or values or mind-sets or mental maps.[12]
Carroll (2009) goes on to note that spirituality has a place in supervision. A recognition, he notes, appreciate more in recent times. To this end he quotes Thomas Merton who said that “he could summarize what spirituality meant in three words: stop and think.” As confession, at its best, demonstrates reflection and interrogation of life, so reflective practice reflects on the examined life[13] of practice. Carroll continues to note that learning is more effective as a relational exercise of encounter: “On my own I get stuck”.[14] This is developed in the classic works of the reflective practitioner of education for professionals, Donald Schön.[15] The presence and intentionality of another provides uplift, the ability to enter a higher plane of awareness and reflection, and thus the skill for better practice.[16]
There are similarities between models of practice and models of supervision.[17] One common element is the encounter[18] between people with the intention of human improvement. This is a basis for reflection and development of “critical spirituality”, which includes
understanding how individual spiritual experiences are influenced by their social context and history as well as the broader community context, including attitudes to what makes life meaningful.[19]
Gardner (2020) cites Schön (1983) in noting the importance of reflection “to unearth unconscious assumptions and values” which affect practice. Gardner (2020) notes also the need to appreciate how one is perceived by others (reflexivity), and the need to understand the location of oneself and the other in cultural and social context.
The supervisor, like the confessor, engages the world of the other from a distance, with a view to eliciting understanding. O’Neil (2018) quotes St Alphonsus of Liguori, Patron Saint of Confessors:
We must … be persuaded that to hear confessions great science and also great prudence are required; for with knowledge without prudence a confessor shall do but little good, and to some his[20] ministry will be more injurious than beneficial.
O’Neil also encourages the confessor to let the penitent set the agenda. Such too is the way of much counselling and supervision. One wonders whether the offering of a penance has parallels with the affirmation of future action in the supervision arena. Prudence.
Scene 1
Lady Margaret meets her Confessor. The scene is formal, the power palpable.
“Forgive me, Father for I have sinned…” she begins.
John Fisher listens; nods off in the musty confines of his side of the screen.
He knocks the table decoration he has been absent-mindedly holding.
“Hell!’ he mutters.
“Mary, full of grace,” comes the response.
“For some minutes Alice stood without speaking”….“Alice looked round her in great surprise. `Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!'
`Of course it is,' said the Queen, `what would you have it?'”[21]
Prudence is required in confession as in supervision. Patience, deep listening and breathing the same breath move beyond practice to discipline and from profession as task to profession as spiritual practice. In this is the transformation of practice and the metamorphosis of person by the re-newing of meaning.
Differences
Particularity and pernicketiness pervade the confessor’s task. What sin is this? What penance does it require? The jester, perhaps, picks at pernicketiness and pokes fun at particularity.
‘I believe I can guess that (apparent riddle),’ [Alice] added aloud.
‘Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?’ said the March Hare.
Exactly so, said Alice.
Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on.
‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know.’
‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter.[22]
“Curious!”[23]
“'I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began,”[24] though this was in quite another context, where her life was threatened (“Off with her head!”) and her composure challenged.
The nature of insight is to see what we see and understand it differently – and perhaps at zenith, to see ourselves differently. It is a self-and-world-(and often word) discovery. Supervision takes us both outside of ourselves and more deeply inside ourselves. As Fiona Gardner notes, in reflecting on the educating of supervisors:
Participants identified that a significant new learning and key aspect of critical reflection was making explicit what is taken for granted: the assumptions that inform your life and your practice.[25]
To arrive at the same place and see it differently.[26]
Scene 2
The banquet is set.
Lady Margaret has the guests set.
John Fisher has been persuaded to leave his beloved cranium behind.
In jovial mood, JF looks for opportunity to entertain.
At the call, “Pass the salt!” he responds:
“I salt, you salt, he, she, it salts, we salt…”
“Pass, not parse”, says PS, aiming for clarity.
“It’s a party and this is fun”, observes CSS.
“Nothing good will come of this”, whispers Alice, under the table.
What do you suppose is the use of child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning -- and a child's more important than a joke, I hope. You couldn't deny that, even if you tried with both hands.[27]
Unless you become like a child (Mt 18:2-4) (Jester! Confessor?)….Curiouser!
“`I can't stand this any longer!' she cried as she jumped up and seized the table-cloth with both hands”.[28]
Clearing the way for Queering the way
And so we step into the strange, the curious, the unfamiliar. Singh and Chun (2010) discuss the negative impact of racism and heterosexism on “queer people of color”. They conclude that supervisor development be enhanced to include self-reflective process around privilege, oppression and diversity with a view to supervisee empowerment.[29] As well, they note that their Queer People of Color Resilience-Based Model of Supervision “challenges the field to recognise the political nature of supervision.”[30]
It is impossible to be a competent supervisor if one does not have the ability to address issues of diversity in both the supervisory relationship and the supervisee’s relationship with clients….Because culture incorporates the influences of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, class, and so forth on our thoughts, assumptions, and behaviors, it is possible to conceptualize all supervision as multicultural…. It is essential then, to consider the socio-cultural–political identities of the supervisory triad that includes the client, supervisee, and the supervisor.[31]
Surely it is an understatement to say “it is possible to conceptualize all supervision as multicultural”. Surely all supervision is fundamentally multicultural, multimodal and “blended”.[32] It is, perhaps, the lack of sensitivity to this that leads to “a church culture that was unsafe for many.”[33] It is a culture, Broughton suggests, that will be changed “through a rigorous grounding of pastoral supervision in the story of Jesus Christ”.[34] If the strange, inclusive, disturbing and god-inspired life is meant, rather than the conformist platitudinous shepherd or the Christus Pantocrator, then supervision and the church may well be queered and restored.
Scene 3
“Namaste!”, said Alice.
“Bless you!” said Lady Margaret.
“Amen!” imposed her Confessor
“Another Cup of Tea”, said the Hatter.
“Ah, continuity! Continue!” said PS.
“Or coffee,” chirped CSS.
“Have it your own way. And I will walk with you (which is code for ‘same time, place and price next month’),” said Alice.
“In all this, I have learned, grown, been stretched”, she reflected and journaled.
“Nice”, said an unseen voice.
The subjectivity of the self may suggest a “denial of the transcendence of norms and values”[35] which suggests the unreliability of perception or self-knowledge. Rather, the self may be multi-sourced[36] and polyvalent, inviting exploration, avoiding being limited and nurturing hope beyond bounded finitude.
Thus it is that the adventure through the looking glass ends with a reflection (Ahem!) that either the Red King was part of Alice’s dream or Alice was part of the Red King’s. Our emerging jester-confessor perhaps comes to realise, in this mise en abyme, that the reality of each is the reality of both and the shared reality is the seed for a greater set of discoveries and revelations. There is no singular pathway through an encounter: there are pathways to, through and beyond.
Some questions to my supervisory self
Who stands at zenith and holds the mirror to me?
Are roles more than hats, caps, cappers and hatters?
What might the TEF[37] framework look like if transmogrified to include confession and jest as role? Madness as context? Wisdom as source? And what would self look like?
Bibliography
Beddoe, Liz and R. Egan (2009). “Social Work Supervision” in M. Connolly and L. Harris (eds), Social Work: Contexts and Practice. Second Edition. Oxford University Press, 410-422.
Broughton, Geoff (2021). A Practical Christology for Pastoral Supervision. Routledge.
Carroll, Lewis (1865). Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Kindle ed.
Carroll, Lewis (1871). Through the Looking-Glass. Word copy I got from somewhere once.
Carroll, Michael (2009). “Supervision: Critical Reflection for Transformational Learning, Part 1”, in The Clinical Supervisor 28: 210-220. Taylor and Francis. DOI:10.1080/07325220903344015 (Accessed 2 May 2021).
Davys, Allyson and Liz Beddoe (2021). Best Practice in Professional Supervision: A Guide for the Helping Professions. Second Edition. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Kindle edition.
DeLong, William R. (2002). From Object to Subject: Pastoral Supervision as an Intersubjective Activitity (sic) The Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling, 56:1, 51-61.
Foley OFM, Leonard (2003). "St. John Fisher", in Saint of the Day, Lives, Lessons, and Feast, (revised by Pat McCloskey OFM), Franciscan Media, cited in Wikedpedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fisher (Accessed 28 May 2021)
Gardner, D. (1989). The Anatomy of Supervision: Developing Learning and Professional Competence for Social Work Students. Open University Press.
Gardner, Fiona (2020). “Embedding Critical Reflection in Training for Spiritual Care Supervision and Practice: The Experience of a Specific Student Group”, Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling. 74:2, 91–98.
Grauel, Tim (2002). “Professional Oversight: the Neglected Histories of Supervision” in M, McMahon and W. Patton (eds), Supervision in the Helping Professions: A Practical Approach. Prentice Hall, 261-271.
Long, Susan, ed. (2018). Transforming Experience in Organisations: A Framework for Organisational Research and Consultancy. Routledge.
O’Donoghue, Kieran (2003). Re-Storying Social Work Supervision. Dunmore Press.
O’Neil, Kevin (2018). “How to be great confessor” The Priest 74:9, 83-89. https://www.thepriest.com/2018/08/20/how-to-be-a-great-confessor/ (Accessed 28 May 2021)
Scaife, J (2001). Supervision in Mental Health Professions. Brunner Routledge.
Schön, Donald (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action. Temple Smith.
Schön, Donald (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner. Jossey-Bass.
Seward, Desmond (2007). The Wars of the Roses. Constable and Robinson.
Singh, Anneliese and Kirstyn Yuk Sim Chun (2010). “‘From the Margins to the Center’: Moving Towards a Resilience-Based Model of Supervision for Queer People of Color Supervisors” Training and Education in Professional Psychology 4:1, 36–46.
Stasiak, Kurt (2021). “Widening the Road to Peace: Some thoughts on becoming a better confessor” The Priest 77:3, 20-22, 24. https://thepriest.com/2021/02/15/widening-the-road-to-peace/ (Accessed 28 May 2021)
Taylor, Charles (1989). Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Harvard University Press.
Tsong, Yuying and Rodney K. Goodyear (2014). “Assessing Supervision’s Clinical and Multicultural Impacts: The Supervision Outcome Scale’s Psychometric Properties” Training and Education in Professional Psychology 8:3, 189–195.
All pictures by Sir John Tenniel, except playing cards ©Macmillan 2011.
[1] Davys and Beddoe, 2021, loc. 27. (See also Kelly ad Green, 2019 and Sewell, 2018).
[2] “The King laid his hand upon [the Queen’s] arm, and timidly said 'Consider, my dear: she is only a child!'” Carroll,1865, 55. If ever there were a rejoinder to the phrase “only a child” it might come from Alice.
[3] Seward, 2007, 437.
[4] Erasmus, noted by Foley, 2003, np.
[5] Grauel 2002, cited by Davys and Beddoe, 2021, loc. 27.
[6] Beddoe and Egan, 2009, 414, quoted in Davys and Beddoe, 2021, loc. 214.
[7] Ah, the hills are alive! With the Sound of Music (and with Shakespearean references: King Lear 1:1)
[8] Davys and Beddoe, loc. 105.
[9] O’Donoghue, 2003, 43, cited by Davys and Beddoe, loc. 105.
[10] Carroll (2009) says it in a title: Supervision: Critical Reflection for Transformational Learning.
[11] Carroll, 2009, 210.
[12] Carroll, 2009, 210.
[13] One notes Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living” (ὁ ... ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ) and the Delphic oracle “Know thyself” (γνῶθι σεαυτόν).
[14] Carroll, 2009, 213.
[15] See Schön, 1983; 1987.
[16] This is fundamental to my own primary educational motif of “engagement”. See Good Practice in Higher Education (https://prezi.com/wom7drtcfqku/good-practice-in-online-higher-education/?present=1).
[17] Davys and Beddoe, loc. 105. They cite Gardner, 1989 and Scaife, 2001.
[18] See for instance DeLong, 2002, 61 who argues that rightly understood the awareness of intersubjectivity challenge the “concepts of objectivity…embedded in the psychological, educational and theological theories we use to inform our supervision. And, that those concepts by creating a relationship based upon hierarchy and assumed structures of power force students into a position of subjection by accepting the ‘interpretations’ provided in the supervisory relationship.”
[19] Gardner, 2020, 92.
[20] The gender is still as determinative as it was in eighteenth century Naples.
[21] Carroll, 1871, Ch2.
[22] Carroll, 1865, 46.
[23] A truly delightful word, appearing 21 times in Carroll, 1865 and nine times in Carroll, 1871. (And curiously twice in Long, 2018, six times in Broughton, 2021. The word occurs only once in the other 25 resources I have gathered, on supervision, as part of my study in this unit. Curious?)
[24] Carroll, 1865, 58.
[25] Gardner, 2020, 94.
[26] Paraphrasing TS Eliot, Four Quartets: Little Gidding.
[27] So spoke the Red Queen in a moment of mad insight (Carroll, 1871, Ch9), or perhaps a recognition of the importance of child theology.
[28] Carroll, 1871, Ch9.
[29] Singh and Chun, 2010, 44-45.
[30] Singh and Chun, 2010, 45.
[31] Tsong and Goodyear, 2014, 190.
[32] If I may pick up a theme from current education discourse. See https://prezi.com/5xf4cwusyz4x/anztla-blended-learning-john-capper-20140705/?present=1
[33] Broughton, 2021, 8. Whilst he refers to the Australian context which has necessitated the expansion of professional supervision, he might as well be referring to the abuse of power in the pre-Reformation church, partly due to the excess power of the confessor.
[34] Broughton, 2021, 15.
[35] DeLong, 2002, 51.
[36] Taylor, 1989.
[37] The Transforming Experience Framework. See Long.
