How Tight do you Hold the Reins of Supervision?
by CSA Accredited Supervisor, Faculty Member and UK Programme Lead Will Medd
I’ve toyed with whether the title here needs to be supervision by horses. If supervision is about who we are, and key capability we bring is our ability to foster relational presence, then horses, and being with horses, it turns out, have much to teach us. I’m no horse person and as part of a programme with colleagues to test our learning edges, we spent a day with Jude Jennison and her team of horses. This wasn’t about riding horses - they were rescue horses. It was more being with them, observing their responses to us, and noticing our responses to them. It was a day of relational presence beyond words and meaning. We all found edges we didn’t know we had – the horses were masters in holding up a mirror to our blind spots of how we relate, what relational presence feels like beyond meaning, about where we stand in relationship to others, about what we hold onto when we don’t know. Here’s some key things I noticed.
First, how we connect. I’ve often wondered about how we connect together at the start of supervision sessions. I’ve come to learn it’s not always about sitting in silence, though I love that. Sometimes there is a different energy, a need for something else. When we first met the horses something was in the air: a group of coaches and supervisors intent on learning and Jude said the horses were displaying an unusual restlessness. It was as though some of us were trying too hard to be present while for others there was fear. I think we can get caught in ‘trying to be present’ and an intensity
can emerge that is far from the flowing dance that relational presence creates. My sense is sometimes that dance requires a lightness through which the depth of connection emerges; going in deep can create resistance, too much intensity and can sometimes feel far from alive.
Second, when it was my turn to lead a horse around a simple circle, I decided to connect with the horse in a relaxed way. Not in the deep meditative state that I imagined it might be, connecting with our breaths with these sentient beings. Instead it seemed the horse appreciated a gentle gesture of “hello, how are you?” as I took the rein. And as I walked, the horse followed. So far so good. Then came a turn and… a nudge on my shoulder and stop! The horse stopped. It would not move. I could feel a glare from its eyes. I looked at it and shrugged with a sense of ‘really, this, now?’ and said, with a gentle assertiveness ‘come on’. It came, it followed. I thought I’d done well! When I arrived back at the starting point, feeling quite pleased with myself, Jude asked, ‘What happened?’. I had no idea, it just nudged me and stopped. Jude asked me to notice where I was holding the rein. It turned out, in anticipation of the corner, my hand had slipped up the rein to just below the horse’s face, close to its nose. I was a little ‘in its face’ and holding the rein way too close, too tight. Actually, a lot in its face and it didn’t like it. It was a moment of realising, though it’s painful to admit, how ‘control’ can creep in even when I don’t realise. And yes, it leaves me wondering, and noticing, how often does control come into supervision? Does it do so in subtle ways and in service of what?
Third for me was the learning from working with a horse as a group. While Jude introduces this for a range of things like leadership, teamwork and communication – and her books a wonderfully clear – the metaphor most powerful is about where we stand in relationship to each other. As a supervisor with CSA we place a lot of focus on the energy of who we are – taking a stand in the middle we might say. Yet we also talk about how there are times we are standing alongside, almost as though we are ‘in it’ with the supervisee. Do we also find ourselves taking a lead in some way, standing in front as a guide? And behind, supporting, enabling? Rather than assuming we don’t, or assuming there is one place to stand, I’d rather ask, what happens energetically as we move between positions, and what intention do we bring?
If you are interested in the experience of working with Jude and her horses, we have another day
planned on March 31st 2025 -
full details can be found here