Resistance to group clinical supervision: A semistructured interview study of non-participating mental health nursing staff members

This paper is a report of an interview study exploring personal views on participating in group clinical supervision among mental health nursing staff members who do not participate in supervision. There is a paucity of empirical research on resistance to supervision, which has traditionally been theorised as a supervisee’s maladaptive coping with anxiety in the supervision process. The aim of the study was to examine resistance to group clinical supervision by interviewing nurses who did not participate in supervision. In 2015, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 Danish mental health nursing staff members who had been observed not to participate in supervision in two periods of 3 months. Interviews were audio recorded and subjected to discourse analysis. We constructed two discursive positions taken by the informants: Forced non-participation where an informant was in favour of supervision, but presented practical reasons for not participating and Deliberate rejection, where an informant intentionally chose to not to participate in supervision. Furthermore, we described two typical themes drawn upon by informants in their positioning: Difficulties related to participating in supervision and Limited need for and benefits from supervision. The findings indicated that group clinical supervision extended a space for group discussion that generated or accentuated anxiety because of already existing conflicts and a fundamental lack of trust between group members. Many informants perceived group clinical supervision as an unacceptable intrusion, which could indicate a need for developing more acceptable types of post-registration clinical education and reflective practice for this group.

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Buus, N. , Delgado, C. , Traynor, M. and Gonge, H. (2018), Resistance to group clinical supervision: A semistructured interview study of non‐participating mental health nursing staff members. Int J Mental Health Nurs, 27: 783-793. doi:10.1111/inm.12365, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/inm.12365. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.