Some reflections on clinical supervision: an existential-phenomenological paradigm.

This paper reviews psychotherapy, counselling, and nursing literature related to ideas of clinical supervision and attempts to illuminate areas important to effective health related practice and specifically palliative care. Included are explorations of existentialism, phenomenology, existential phenomenology and psychoanalytical concepts. The phenomenological idea of lived experience is outlined and the Heideggerian notion of authenticity is explored in context. The paper also examines dynamic forces such as hope, trust and personal values that might influence clinical supervision design and so inform a framework for practice. An existential-phenomenological method of supervision is offered as one basis for professional practice. The central recommendation of this paper is, however, to identify relevant value and belief systems to direct clinical supervision. Nursing models might appropriately instruct approaches to supervision. The writer considers the phenomenological idea of the lived experiences as a means by which to at once capture the essence of palliative care nursing and guide the supervision towards the existential idea of authenticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]