Supervision between critical reflection and practical action

Abstract

This article describes the history of supervision as a practice of professional reflection in social work in Germany. Supervision in Germany after World War II developed from a practice of control of professional action (as in the USA) towards professional reflection, particularly self-reflection. Different concepts of supervision include different ideas of subjectivity and intersubjectivity and are positioned between the contradiction between critical assessment and uncovering of social conditions and the imperative of their acknowledgment in practice. Thus, supervision is permanently in search of its identity. That means, as the article illustrates by means of vignettes, that practical action is always caught between reflecting and acting. On this point a link has been made between the history of supervision and social work. The current debate in social work has to do with the old question of how far social work should and could be critical or adaptational. This is mirrored in the current discourse between supervision and coaching, and it will become clear that to act as a professional is to manage this contradiction between reflection and action.