The Secure Start® Podcast
In the same way that a secure base is the springboard for the growth of the child, knowledge of past endeavours and lessons learnt are the springboard for growth in current and future endeavours.
If we do not revisit the lessons of the past we are doomed to relearning them over and over again, with the result that we may never really achieve a greater potential.
In keeping with the idea we are encouraged to be the person we wished we knew when we were starting out, it is my vision for the podcast that it is a place where those who work in child protection and out-of-home care can access what is/was already known, spring-boarding them to even greater insights.
The Secure Start® Podcast
#3 Navigating Trauma Through Reflective Practice, with Dr Nicola O'Sullivan
What drives us toward careers in child protection, and how might our personal histories unconsciously shape our professional approaches? Dr Nicola O'Sullivan takes us on a profound journey through the emotional terrain of social care work, revealing how her own experiences of childhood trauma unconsciously propelled her into caregiving roles.
With remarkable candour, she explores how her training at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust transformed her understanding of herself and her work. "I brought with me a lot of unconscious items," she reflects, describing how overconfidence and determination masked vulnerability. This journey toward self-awareness, though painful, proved essential to becoming what she calls "a more solid, safe practitioner."
O'Sullivan offers a refreshing perspective on psychological defences in high-stress environments like child protection. Rather than viewing defences as obstacles to eliminate, she suggests practitioners tell families, "Please don't drop your defences. You need them until we have something that might offer something better." This nuanced approach acknowledges that defences serve important protective functions while recognising when they might interfere with effective practice.
The conversation delves into systems psychodynamic theory as a framework for understanding what happens beneath the surface in helping organisations. By integrating psychoanalysis, group relations theories, and open systems perspectives, practitioners can better understand the interconnections between various parts of a social system. O'Sullivan explains how this approach helps track "processes in the work between workers and between workers and families and workers and organisations."
For those in the field, O'Sullivan's insights on supervision prove invaluable. Good supervision, she argues, acknowledges the intersection between personal experience, professional role, and the work itself. Using a clear model (she recommends the Seven-Eyed Model), supervision creates a containing space where practitioners can process difficult emotions rather than avoiding them – crucial when we consider that avoidance only increases anxiety over time.
Listen to discover why reflective practice matters now more than ever in a field where workers face anxiety not just from trauma exposure but also from fears of inspection and scapegoating. Whether you're new to social care or a seasoned practitioner, O'Sullivan's wisdom offers both validation and challenge: "Go gently, try not to feel so much shame about your own history, and find people who are wise and kind and open and curious and uncertain."
Nicola’s Bio
Nicola is a Lecturer, Clinical Supervisor and Social Care Consultant, and has worked with children and families in community and residential settings for 24 years.
Nicola’s work has included overseeing the provision of residential and community-based services to children and families involved in child protective services.
Nicola also works intensively with foster carers to support their provision of care to children and young people.
Over a five-year period Nicola studied at the Tavistock and Portman Trust NHS, London. There she completed a Professional Doctorate in Social Care and Emotional Wellbeing.
Nicola completed post graduate training in clinical supervision in 2021 at Dublin City University (DCU). She provides therapeutic support to Sexual Assault Unit Teams across Ireland in the form of professional therapeutic reflective practice spaces to frontline practitioners.
Nicola consults to senior managers in organisations nationally and internationally, and provides individual and group supervision to social workers, social care wor
Welcome to the Secure Start podcast.
Nicola:I know about my motivations, I'm aware I'm kind of watching out and I have the right support in place. One of the things I've come to understand is that you know often the intensity of the work that people do and the strength of emotion associated with that work can disrupt people's capacity to think, and emotions can be so intense and disturbing and unbearable that me and other people that do work we develop defensive processes to deal with the emotions, and so I'm always quite careful about.
Nicola:It's not my job ever to go in and say get rid of these and here's a better way. What I hope that I can offer is a safe, consistent frame in which we can make sense of the work.
Colby:So welcome to the Secure Start podcast. I'm Colby Pearce, and joining me for this episode is a respected member of the child protection and social care community in Ireland. Before I introduce my guests, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land that I'm meeting on, the Kaurna people, and the continuing connection they, and all Aboriginal people, feel to land, waters, culture and community. I'd also like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. My guest this episode is Dr Nicola O'Sullivan. Nicola is a lecturer, clinical supervisor and social care consultant and has worked with children and families in community and residential settings for 24 years. Nicola's work has included overseeing the provision of residential and community-based services to children and families involved in child protective services. Nicola also works intensively with foster carers to support their delivery of care to children and young people in need.
Colby:Over a five-year period, nicola studied at the Tavistock and Portman Trust NHS in London. There she completed a professional doctorate in social care and emotional wellbeing. Nicola also completed postgraduate training in clinical supervision in 2021 at Dublin City University. She provides therapeutic support to sexual assault teams across Ireland in the form of professional reflective practice spaces for frontline workers. Nicola consults to senior managers in organisations nationally and internationally and provides individual and group supervision to social workers, social care workers, forensic teams and frontline workers at all levels of community and hospital settings. Teams and frontline workers at all levels of community and hospital settings. Nicola works clinically in frontline practice with foster families. Nicola has a special interest in wellbeing, racism and emotional and relational health in health and social care settings. Nicola is a visiting lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, munster Technological University, cork and the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Welcome Nicola.
Nicola:Thank you, Colby. A bit nervous after all that.
Colby:That's OK. Hopefully we can put you at ease once we start getting into it and talking. Now I just was going to let you know that I introduced myself as living and working and coming to this meeting on Kaurna land, and Kaurna are the local Aboriginal people of the Adelaide Plains where I live here in South Australia, and this is something that we customarily do when we meet and it is really a show of respect to the local Aboriginal people and Aboriginal people in Australia more generally, acknowledging the 40,000 to 60,000 year history of Aboriginal settlement in Australia. Thank you, so the podcast is a little bit of a mixture of kind of getting to know you a bit, better questions and then more direct questions about your work. So I guess the first question that I was interested to ask you, Nicola, and thank you very much for coming on the podcast probably should have said that a little while ago, but the very first question I wanted to ask is how did you come to be pursuing this path in your work?
Nicola:How did you come to be pursuing this path in your work? Thank you so much for having me. First of all, it's nice to be here. Well, I suppose it's a long story, but the short version. I did experience trauma as a young child, both familial trauma and serious medical trauma. Unlike some of my colleagues in this field, I have chosen not to speak about it in great detail in public, because of my work mostly, but I suppose both of those experiences shaped my drive to care and pushed me towards, initially, the path of a residential care setting, childcare setting.
Nicola:Yes, I've been driven since leaving secondary school without a very good education because of acute illness, to study and progress, and I think I measured myself against that, and at my most vulnerable I probably still do so. This was my unconscious driver. I wanted to be known as Nicola, the intelligent student, the hard worker. Clever Nicola instead of poor Nicola, did you hear about her, but I have to say Colby. Clever Nicola instead of poor Nicola, did you hear about her, but I have to say Colby. I wasn't so aware of the connection between my life experience and my finding myself in a caretaking role, and so this often got in the way of me being effective in my work.
Nicola:And it reminds me of a paper actually by Vega Roberts called the Self-Assigned Impossible Task. And it reminds me of a paper actually by Vega Roberts called the Self-Assigned Impossible Task.
Nicola:She talks about the idea that you know me and maybe most of us are attracted to kind of working in particular settings because they offer occasions to work through kind of unresolved personal issues.
Nicola:And I suppose if we, if we take it that that's correct, then practitioners like me with similar internal needs find themselves in similar health care settings and I think that the needs that we bring kind of interact with the needs that the families bring and but that but there's a problem with that and I think there was a problem with that for me.
Nicola:You know, to understand children and families, I needed to have some empathy and to be trying to consider the young person's experience. But if that pain I think in my case and in others perhaps closely resembles the workers own pain, so if the pain in the child closely resembles the workers own pain and conflicted past experiences, then their experiences at work may constantly threaten their capacity. And so that's that, that was my sort of experience. So I think it was of great importance, you know, for me to have some insight into my reasons for choosing the role and setting, and for me that was a kind of a key factor in my work and one that I didn't come about to thinking about until about 11 years into my work so, in continuing in kind of blind sort of pursuit in the health and social care field, I arrived at the Tavistock in 2012, immediately after completing a master's in child protection that previous June, on a mission, kind of to get a PhD.
Nicola:I wasn't really thinking about what it might mean to travel to England to do this.
Nicola:I didn't think about the Tavistock, what this place came to mean to me. It was interesting because all of my learning really has involved a kind of combination of attending college and working full time. And actually I remember speaking on the phone to the course professor, the late Andrew Cooper, and he said to me you know, nicola, this is a very different type of learning, you know involve a lot of thinking and reflection. And I said thoughtlessly yeah, that's fine with me, and I just signed up and so I began the professional doctorate journey and I suppose that was life changing journey and I suppose that was life-changing.
Nicola:Um, I brought with me, to be honest, a lot of kind of unconscious items, you know, early, early kind of experiences. Um, I suppose I brought my role as a mother, my grief and loss as a daughter, my working in a former mother and baby home in Ireland and my lack of thinking about that and I guess I managed those hidden thoughts and anxieties but they did manifest in an overconfidence and a motivation to work hard and get out of that place as quickly as possible, without anyone really seeing me at my most vulnerable.
Nicola:Um, yeah, but I suppose despite that, I met some very patient doctoral supervisors who who gently and very kind of tactfully, you know um, supported me to get to know that part of myself and I suppose I'm telling you all this because that kind of teaching and learning experience is quite unique and it allowed me to look at myself in many ways and to kind of get to grips with myself, um, and I would say that it has brought me safely to my current path. So I feel like a kind of a more solid, safe practitioner because of that experience. I know about my motivations, I'm aware I'm kind of watching out and I have the right support in place, um, and I think it's so necessary when we move into this working space with other humans, um, that we, that we have those kind of pieces of ourselves somewhat intact. You know, um, but I have to say that if I knew what was going to happen in that journey in the tab of stock, I probably wouldn't have gone okay, really yeah yeah, because I suppose it was painful.
Nicola:It was a painful journey. I learned things that I didn't really want to know.
Colby:It's interesting I have. There's two kind of threads that I'm picking up or that I'm reflecting on as you talk about that. One is that certainly research has indicated that the helping professions do attract people disproportionately who have experienced their own early adversity growing up. The other thing that strikes me about what you're talking about is, in this space, in the child protection and out-of-home care or more broadly, the child welfare space, there is a definite need for practitioners to be self-aware, and that process, I guess, of self-awareness, as you've beautifully described it, can be a painful one and one that is defended against, I guess, to the detriment of practice potentially. Yeah, and you've mentioned there were people that you studied under, academics that you worked with. Were there any particular professional influences that you look back on and think that they've really made a positive contribution to your work and the direction that you've taken?
Nicola:Yeah, I mean, I think most definitely and I suppose probably my doctoral supervisors, dr Tim Dartington and Professor Andrew Cooper, and for the very reasons I spoke to you know to you about moments ago, and I suppose Andrew in particular passed in 2023. And I was a student of Andrew's and of the professional doctorate in social care and social work and when I met him in 2012, I'd never heard of him, I'd never read any of his work and I would say I arrived from Ireland as a as a sort of a younger woman who was quite watchful, elusive and quite a complex human being, and I was very preoccupied with kind of wanting a student card, a timetable and all the other things to sort of legitimize my role and so gain some control in the environment. But I have to say that Andrew's response was very kind, very gentle and kind of full of a type of compassion that I valued but, also found challenging.
Nicola:I thoroughly enjoyed his writing. He wrote a beautiful paper called Hearing the Bluebirds Sing.
Nicola:And he said that he chose to become a social worker himself as a way of continuing to try and heal his whole family and to continue his parents work of healing and sustaining communities, and for me, the idea that one would find themselves in this work at that point because of their own personal experiences, particularly in the family system, was, believe it or not, a brand new idea to me. And Andrew and Tim in particular, I, I think, stayed the pace with me and they very sort of gently um, as I said earlier sort of sort of helped me to to come to see some of my own experiences and to see, I think, what I bring with me now to my work is they saw my strategies, you know my defensive strategies that you spoke about as Ways of being creative, and they appreciated them. So often now in my work, I bring, I bring these ideas. I'll say things to parents, as you know, like please don't drop, please don't lose your defenses. You need them, you know, and it's very important that they're intact until we have something that might offer something better or something different. So, and I think you know, it continues to be a kind of an unknown thought to many social workers that I work with today and social care workers, and this idea of what brings them to the work, their kind of drive and something that they sometimes discover in the process of work discussion groups that I facilitate with them.
Nicola:And the other key point I think that I learned from some of this work is the idea, a kind of a deep understanding of the idea of using ourselves as a resource in the direct work with service users and what does it mean, and the idea that it's a sort of an embodied thing, if you like, and and the need for us, I think, as practitioners, to attune to the flow of the emotional transactions between ourselves and our service users and colleagues which I think are constantly occurring kind of underneath the surface of the relationships, whether we kind of recognize them or not.
Nicola:And that form of experiential learning has influenced me hugely and inspired my research study with child protection social workers at the time.
Nicola:Um, I think the idea of psychoanalytic theory, um, because I was at the tavistock um helped me, I think, to understand more about interactions and relationships. I came to understand my own Irish culture, the painful history of childhood in Ireland, the chronic treatment of women, especially unmarried mothers and babies, my parents and grandparents, history and their painful experiences, and I suppose I was confronted with my own ignorance about history and so I think I bring that to to the work that really influenced me respecting history, and it's interesting how you introduce the podcast and I suppose I have a much greater appreciation for what came before us and I didn't quite kind of have that, you know, kind of have that you know. Currently, I would say that I've enjoyed thoroughly learning about supervision and having completed training in 2021 and to supplement my doctoral research and on reflective practice, and I have to say I love the writing and work of Dr Aisling McMahon, especially a beautiful paper she wrote on reflective touchstones that foster supervisor humility. I love this idea and I think something else you know in thinking about this is that I've that, I have to say, is my journey in learning about racism and anti-racist practices and anti-racist supervision practices, about racism and anti-racist practices and anti-racist supervision practices, and that that kind of learning has been influenced by a lot of people, but especially Dr Amina Adan, ngozi Cadmus and others, and I feel like I'm on a steep learning journey about my whiteness and my privilege and my own racism, and and I'd say that's a project that's kind of ongoing and it's deeply challenging but it's
Nicola:necessary. I love Ngozi's TED talk and her sharing of information on LinkedIn. I think it's super important for us white professionals. We have a responsibility to consider it and to think about it in our own position in society. So that's ongoing and then kind of finally, I suppose, suppose, without breaking the confidence of you know one or two of the foster families I work with. I work with a relative foster family at the moment and, to be honest, I really I very much appreciate their honesty with me. You know they tell me what I do, what I say. That really bothers them. They tell me when I get it wrong and I'm really challenged to notice the ways that I what I say isn't helpful and also the power, kind of, in my words.
Nicola:So a lot I suppose you know there's a lot that's influenced me kind of historically and very present, you know, in the present day.
Colby:I remember, as I was listening to you speak, I remember an idea that I had very early in my career and which ran counter to my professional training as a clinical psychologist, and the first place I chose to articulate that idea was at a job interview with our local child protection service, and I can't remember the question, but the answer that I gave was one about. I think the question must have been about managing the emotional load of the work or something similar to the work that we do. So all of my training was about being objective and having a professional distance from our client, and I didn't find that to be helpful in the least. That idea Well, not particularly helpful. I, very early on, cottoned on that. It was our own reaction, our own emotional reaction to our clients was a significant resource and it's actually proven to be a massive resource because in my work it's helped me to be able to express in my words, in my ideas, in my writing, a deep understanding and empathy of the children and young people and adult stakeholders in their life. And I also the other thing that when you were talking about your university supervisors and I don't want to go too much into it, but I thought it reminded me of the therapeutic relationship, at least as I see it, which is one of a gradual exposure to connection contained in a sensitive, responsive and understanding growing environment.
Colby:And um, I think you may well have seen the podcast that I did uh with john whitwell a couple of weeks ago, where he talks about um winnicott's idea of the growing environment. Well, he, john, was talking about the growing environment. I have a very similar metaphor that I use, but talking about Winnicott's ideas that the growth is in the child. It just needs and you could extend that to the growth is in the person. They just need the right environment and that, in a sense, is a large part of our job.
Nicola:Yeah, I mean, that certainly rings true for me. That's how it felt. You know, it felt containing, it felt like a holding environment.
Colby:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I read your paper a week ago that I'd asked you to send through to me a little while ago when it came out. It was very interesting and I could see, obviously, the psychoanalytic influences in your work. And in your paper you refer to psychodynamic systems theory, which was new to me for some reason. I hadn't seen it expressed like that. But I wonder if you would mind, at least for my own edification, if not for others who may listen to this podcast explaining in your words what psychodynamic systems theory is, and I'm hoping I've got that the right way around.
Nicola:Yeah, systems psychodynamic theory, yeah, yeah, um, yeah, I mean I suppose it's not the only model that influences my work.
Nicola:So just to say that, and I think that, um, I find myself kind of constantly moving between like up close, being very close to people and their experiences, and so so, in that way, I'm very interested in the attachment literature, you know, or your area of expertise, and I think that I've always been interested in stories.
Nicola:So I love the story of John Bowlby and I love what drove his motivation, you know what drove him to write about separation, and I think that kind of speaks to my love and very deep interested in people's experiences. And I think that human stories are vital in imparting key clinical messages about human development across the lifespan. But I also see that human stories help us to understand in a broader and deeper way the institutional spaces and the practices within them. So, um, so I'm interested in the up close and personal and here's where I think attachment theory is helpful, of course. But I also find myself moving out again more broadly and connecting um with the kind of systems and society in which we work and live, and so that sparks my interest in systems psychodynamic theory.
Colby:It's an.
Nicola:It's an interdisciplinary field that kind of looks at that integrates three disciplines the practice of psychoanalysis, the theories and methods of group relations, so the ideas of group, group work, groups, and open systems perspective, so the idea of the, the unit as a system.
Nicola:And I think for me me it provides a way of thinking about kind of the energizing or motivating forces resulting from the kind of interconnection between various groups and subunits of a social system. And so practically I think I'm interested in connections and interactions and also what happens beneath the surface, especially what drives people and what are the parts of the organization that function to block connection. And I think that psychodynamic theories can be very useful in helping us to understand organizational processes. I think they can be helpful in understanding, helping us to understand the roles people take up and the tasks associated with those roles. So system psychodynamic offers us quite a lot to kind of hook into and sort of helps us to sort of unpack things.
Nicola:And, um, it brings together for me I mean maybe other people who are, who are much more, um, you know, learned on system psychodynamic theory will have other things to say but for me I think it brings together the person, the organization, the group, us as group cute group animals if you like and the roles we take and the tasks associated with those roles. And I think we often use psychoanalytic theory in ordinary health and social care practice. You know, for example, we often refer to parallel process, transitional objects, transference and counter transference, projection, and I'd like to think that I work hard to bring these ideas kind of out of the clouds, so to speak.
Colby:You know, try and helpfully track processes in the work between workers and between workers and families and workers and kind of organizations yeah, it's interesting listening to you to talk about it because it's it's my thought really goes to the relationship between psychodynamic process and trauma-informed practice, the process of really looking into people's deeper motivations or their inner world and how that is influencing or impacting the way in which they approach life and relationships. So, yeah, there's very much an alignment between the practice of practising from a psychodynamic point of view and I have a saying about trauma-informed practice which is goes along the lines that it's it's less about developing strategies to address behaviors of concern and more about understanding and responding to the reasons for those behaviors, and so I think there's very much that alignment between the two.
Nicola:I think as well, though, as I'm thinking.
Nicola:You know, what I feel is important to say, too, is I feel kind of deeply aware and sort of deeply motivated to not to be careful about how we use these kind of theories, and you know, I think about my own experience and had Andrew and Tim sort of Sort of pounced on me with all of these theories and sort of you know showed, showed me my defenses much too quickly and ran off, you know. And so I do think about the pace of this stuff, the gentleness and the respect with how we use the information that we have. And actually, you know, I feel a bit nervous sometimes about trauma-informed work that are we making sure that as practitioners we have appropriate supervision and actually paying as much attention to ourselves and our own processes as we are to the people that we work with? And I think for me.
Colby:I'm always sort of keeping an eye on that. If you like, use the term dose and keep that concept very much alive in my mind, because the dose needs to be small and gradual and it needs to be contained within a, within a working relationship. So it was a, it was going to be a question without notice, but you but you've partly answered it because, as you were talking, I was thinking about the ethics of approaching this work and, in a sense, how do you describe the work to an organisation that would engage you, so that they are forewarned in a way or aware of what the work would look like?
Nicola:Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends on the kind of work that's happening.
Nicola:I think I'm always thinking about being careful and being steady and I love, I love what you said about the doses in the right amount and in a contained environment with the relationship. I just love that and it speaks to me and one of the things I've come to understand is that you know. I've come to understand is that you know, um, often the intensity of the work that people do and the strength of emotion associated with that work can disrupt people's capacity to think, and emotions can be so intense and disturbing and unbearable that me and other people that do work and we develop defensive processes to deal with the emotions. And so I'm always quite careful about.
Nicola:It's not my job ever to go in and say get rid of these and here's a better way. I think what I hope that I can offer is a safe, consistent frame in which we can make sense of the work, and I do that with the support of my own supervisors, who are kind of keeping an eye on my blind spots and sort of watching my pace with the work. I think that's very um important. I think the defensive processes in practice serve to protect workers and sometimes foster carers and children themselves. Um, and I think, from the workers point of view, if they did not have these defenses, they couldn't endure the work. But the absence of understanding them and the need to kind of lower them when appropriate can disrupt practice.
Nicola:And I suppose that's what I'm interested in kind of thinking about very gently and very carefully, of course in the context of a relationship, and I think it's very important to think as well that, um, you know, some people just don't want to reflect, some people don't want to do it and some people are not ready to do that. And I have to say, if I had gone to the tavistock five or six years earlier, I would be one of those people you know, and so I think, when we're ready, sometimes we come to that and sometimes we don't. And yeah, I'll stop there.
Colby:It's such an interesting field and I think that self-awareness again we come back to the idea of self-awareness that we were talking about a little bit earlier and it's not, as you say and I really like this it's not about getting rid of your defences, it's just being aware of them, and I probably have approached my career on a slightly different tack, but very much, I mean, it was memorable. Let me just say I didn't get the job, by the way, but I think there are other factors at play there. But I've always found, as I said earlier, our own experience as being a very rich source of understanding of others. And, as you say, the work is difficult, the work is confronting.
Colby:A lot of people go into child protection work with the intent, the idea and the intent that they're going to help families and the intent that they're going to help families and so what workers are required to do in terms of ensuring safety of children, it kind of well, it can run counter to the very reasons that they get involved. And you're probably aware and this is where this you know very much there's a lot of attention, at least here, being given to kind of moral fatigue, the idea of moral fatigue, the idea of working in an area and performing in a way that runs counter to your own values and those reasons why you entered the work. And yeah, you would need your defences, definitely in those circumstances. But what we don't want is a situation where people stop thinking about what they're doing Exactly and stop thinking about their own place in that dynamic.
Nicola:Yeah, and I guess I think that's where the use of some theory and also the use of kind of a good supervision or reflective practice model can help, if and when it can be taken up. And yeah, yeah.
Colby:Yeah, so I guess. Just I don't want to ask a question that kind of goes over some territory that we've already gone over, but are there any further comments that you would make about how you see reflective supervision practice, including perhaps from a range of theoretical stances, but particularly from the psychoanalytic systems one, are there any further comments that you would make about how that benefits people working in this space and ultimately the clients who they're delivering a service to?
Nicola:Yeah, I mean I think it's important to say, first of all, you know that getting in touch with our emotional experiences at work and also having a sense of what's just happened in a practice encounter, it does require capacity to kind of and stamina, and and it does require us to get in touch with and kind of stay in touch with some very difficult thoughts and emotions.
Nicola:And in a paper that I wrote I'm not sure if this is the one you read, but with some social care workers I talk about this in much more detail. But essentially what I kind of suggest is that in moments of great distress, including survival and the bereavement of the kind that we've written about in this paper, in that paper it's very hard to connect with experience, sense of it, and to trust another with that experience. And I think the workers capacity to engage with their own emotional experience is complicated by what Bion refers to as this idea of attacks on linking, and this is kind of the process that we use to destroy thoughts, thoughts and feelings associated with frightening experiences, and it incurs, it sort of usually occurs when the experience kind of severs the capacity of us to think about them and and that often happens with the death of a baby.
Colby:Hmm.
Nicola:And in that paper I speak about how, creating a space to think and to bring the work in written form and to sort of present the work to a gentle and welcoming and kind group where the focus is not on a solution but on deepening and expanding the practice experience. I think that can offer something Very therapeutic and safe. Yeah, and I think what I have found is that it can lead to a deeper understanding and meaning around the work.
Colby:Yeah, yeah, it's all right. I mean, I'm of uh, constructs or concepts that are um, that are floated around, I guess in the in the childhood trauma and and child and family welfare space, but one of them, um, is the idea of modelling the model, and I've been talking about it for a long time. I'm not sure if it's in the first edition of my attachment book or not, but I've always been very much drawn to ensuring that my practice and the way in which I interact with people is very much aligned with how I want those people to then, in turn, interact with other people. So if we want people to interact with others with whom they're working in a therapeutic way and establish a therapeutic alliance with them, in some senses the supervision arrangement that we have with them, or the supervisory relationship, is going to overlap with a therapeutic process, perhaps significantly.
Nicola:Yeah, I think, to have a safe kind of space that's kind and gently challenging um practitioner can bring their work and make sense of that work is priceless and and I I feel that it's directly connected to the child's and family's experience, exactly exactly as you say.
Nicola:Um, yeah, it's very important, especially, I think right now I think we live in a left dominated brain, sort of a left.
Nicola:Yeah, it's very important, especially, I think Right now I think we live in a left dominated brain, sort of left brain dominated society where it's all about tasks and procedures and processes and where there's more opportunity to distance ourselves from children and families than ever before and we're at risk of acting and staying out of touch with reality by discounting the reality of other people's experiences and of our own experiences. And I think that the result of that is that the meaning of the work progressively becomes less clear and we find it very difficult to find reparative opportunities. And it's these opportunities that fill our cup, that make us feel a bit better about the work and make us feel a bit better about ourselves in the work. So supervision and kind of safe reflective practice um is very important there and and good supervision in wilfred beyond's terms and you've mentioned it, you mentioned earlier, mentioned it, you know, when we started is psychologically containing and and provide practitioners kind of solid support.
Colby:Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? When I think back over the supervision experiences I've had over the years, and especially in psychology in Australia I know it's different in the UK and in Europe really moves quite significantly away from psychoanalytic thinking into other areas Now. So, nicola, I was wondering this is kind of bringing together a few questions and ones that I've given you notice of and perhaps not given you notice of, but bringing the threads together. I'm wondering if you were invited by an organisation to come in and offer or deliver supervision to staff, when you're meeting with the individuals who are seeking to engage you, what would you say to them is, uh, the supervision approach you would take or recommend? What would it look like?
Nicola:um, so it depends on the organization, of course, that goes without saying. Um, it depends on the context and the role and the task associated with with the job. But you know my sense. What I think I'd find myself saying is that supervision should be regular. It should occur in a safe space, whether it be online or in person. I believe it should happen with the supervisor has had some supervision training. I think it should include attention to the workers' professional development, their personal experience and their working role and associated task. What I would say to workers I think this is really critical is that when we are at work, especially in the human services, we bring all that we are to that work.
Nicola:And it's to say that we leave our personal lives at the door and much research shows us that this just doesn't happen, especially in the spaces when we're working with trauma and we're meeting people with similar, who look similarly to our own loved ones, who act similarly to our own loved ones children, nieces, nephews, parents, partners. But in supervision spaces, we are interested in the intersection between the work itself, your personal self and your professional role. Often supervisees will say to me you know, is this therapy? And here's where a good supervision model is very important. And the supervisor's own supervision, supervision, consultation is really important.
Nicola:We have to keep our eye where it should be. We can't be going off track and the model keeps us safe, safe and secure in that space. We are interested in the intersection between the personal and the professional and the work itself, and therapy for those of us who've had therapy focuses on us as a person, on our personal experience. Yes, of course the work might come into that, but you see, the main focus is on our own personal kind of emotional, psychological journey the supervisor if, of course, the personal experience often comes into the space, but the supervisor's job is to focus on how and why it's connected to the work.
Nicola:And that's where the supervision model is is really critical and supervision should be underpinned by a model that's known very explicitly by the supervisor and the supervisee. Of course I personally use the seven eyes seven eye model by Peter Hawkins and I find that really helpful because it also places an eye on the context in which the supervision takes place. So you can see how this connects with my like for the system psychodynamic thinking. Of course I bring my own theories and influences, but the model keeps the supervision focused and really on track, in my view.
Colby:It's very interesting and I think what it really reinforces is that there is so much more to supervision than people generally perhaps think or expect supervision to be Listening to you. I think it's very important, before you accept or get involved in supervision processes or a role sorry that there is preparatory work and ensuring that everyone understands their roles and what's going to happen. And, interestingly, I've had said to me at the end of supervision sessions that that was very therapeutic, yeah, that that was very therapeutic, yeah. And when I've heard that said, I guess I have thought isn't that interesting, that's very interesting that that's the person's reaction to it, yeah, I think therapeutic process. So imbues my approach that even when I'm delivering supervision or even when I'm training, I guess there is that intent to hold people collectively in a safe and containing space and allowing that allows, in which they feel safe to connect and reflect.
Nicola:And I I mean people pick that up, though. I mean I really like that and like people know that, don't they? So when they're saying you know that felt really therapeutic, I wonder I don't they. So when they're saying you know that felt really therapeutic, I wonder, I don't know. But I wonder, is it that they're saying I feel connected to, I feel safe, I feel heard, I feel seen and like that's such a gift, isn't it? You know, and one of the things that supervisees say in supervision, research is, of course, you. This will be familiar to us the the relationship matters, you know, that's right. The alliance with the supervisor, that really matters.
Colby:Yeah, so drawing together some more threads. One of the things that I notice in child protection is the we've talked about defences. In psychology, and particularly in psychologists who work with anxiety, we would refer to it as avoidance. There's a lot of avoidance and in fact, there's a lot of sanctioned avoidance avoidance so there are the safety actions and the safety behaviours that are engaged in.
Colby:The child protection area is often driven by avoidance and I think, as clinical psychologists as I am, and in other professions as well, one of the psychology 101 things that we should know is that avoidance only makes people more anxious. Is that avoidance only makes people more anxious? And I reflect that back with you know, when people stop thinking about the work that they do because of the impact perhaps that it's having on them, then they only become more anxious about the way that they do. If you subscribe to the theory, which has been well known for a very long time, that avoidance only compounds anxiety and that, as it is in the therapeutic relationship, but in the supervisory relationship, in the work that we do, it's only through gently approaching the personal experience of the work, much the same way as how the most effective way of dealing with phobias. You don't overcome phobias by avoiding them. You overcome them by I don't know phobias by avoiding them, you overcome them by.
Nicola:I don't know. I'm afraid of spiders.
Colby:So I would say when people say, well, what about spiders?
Colby:And I would say, well, you'll always be scared of spiders, but you can make the problem with a phobia the different. And look, I come from a country where everything is trying to kill you, remember, we're not like we haven't had some pat here. Um, we, you know, even in my garden now there is likely to be a brown snake, the the second most deadly snake in the world out there. The good news is they're perhaps more scared of us than we are of them, although you know, some people find that hard to believe, I, whenever I see them, uh, they're always heading away from me these days, um, but any, but yeah, so um.
Nicola:I mean, one of the things I was just going to pick up on what you said there in terms of anxiety is, I think, one of the tasks for us, and especially now, I think, more than ever, anxiety, as I think one of the tasks for us, and especially now, I think, more than ever, is to understand the source of the anxiety. I think traditionally we we would often think about the source of the anxiety as being about being so close to child abuse and that we would call that kind of primary anxiety. We, you know, it's just, it's the anxiety about to do with the kind of task that we have A gorgeous paper written by, based on a study by Isabel Menzies back in the 1960s. She talks about the kind of primary anxiety associated with the task of nurses. I think now we have other forms of anxiety in, especially, social work and social care practice, and I think we it's anxiety to do with being inspected. I do think we need to be inspected.
Colby:Don't get me wrong, but I think we it's anxiety to do with being inspected.
Nicola:I do think we need to be inspected, don't get me wrong, but I think we have tipped. The balance is tipped and my concern is that we have workers who are more worried about if they're inspected than worried about the family, and that kind of secondary anxiety is a should be a real concern for us, because what we see is that that is now organizing the behavior of the worker, and then the other piece that we have to be concerned about is the scapegoating Workers are very worried about. If something happens, in my case it's going to be in the media. I am going to be persecuted and I'm going to be scapegoated, and we have lots of evidence of that. So for me, one of the questions would be where's the source of the anxiety coming from? And for a lot of us it's coming from above and below, and I think it's a desperate place for them to be in. Often, um but that.
Nicola:But that doesn't mean that they're not good at their job and also, for some of you know, for many of them, they enjoy it yeah, yeah, anxiety is um such a I.
Colby:I think of anxiety as something that is potentially limiting and, to the extent that people are limiting, about the way in which we experience and approach life, relationships and roles. So, yeah, that anxiety that you refer to of being scapegoated is absolutely prevalent here in my local jurisdiction. Just from our conversation, I would anticipate it would be prevalent in many, if not most. But I would also I'd say one other thing just in a final point from my end about anxiety, which is that, like defences, anxiety is not something that we should be getting rid of. Everyone experiences anxiety. Anxiety can be quite a helpful emotion. As I say to my client group, it stops us from doing dumb things but put us at risk. So it's a normal emotion. It's a natural emotion, but when it's a problem is when it impacts adversely on the way in which we would naturally, helpfully and as part of a good life approach. Yeah, life and relationships and roles. Yeah, life and relationships and roles. And if I was too anxious, of snakes, my garden would be a jungle and there would be more snakes
Colby:living there, true. So we've had a lovely chat from my perspective and hopefully from yours too, nicola. But a couple of just final questions that I meld together.
Colby:One of the reasons why I'm doing this podcast and selecting the people that I am to be on it is to kind of capture the wisdom of people who've been working in this space for decades often, and because I particularly reflect on new practitioners starting out in the field and their experience of the work, and also the client group and particularly the children and young people experience of them, the workers. So I'm wondering if there was any particular things or wisdom that you wish you knew and you've kind of touched on this a little bit earlier in the podcast If there is any advice that you would give to your younger self or any wisdom that you would give to your younger self and melding that into another question and that you would probably give to other professionals starting out in in this field I think I would say to myself, my younger self, you know to go, go gently, you know, try, try not to feel so much shame about your own history and find people who are wise and kind and open and curious and uncertain.
Nicola:find people who are generous with their and open and curious and uncertain. Find people who are generous with their own vulnerability, who will be able to meet you gently and carefully. And find those people, and I think I would also say to my younger self always be generous in your work, take risks, believe in your own sense of things and make use of that, your own internal sense of things, and make use of that. Um, for new practitioners, I think I would say find generous practitioners who are experienced and kind say beware of using professional social media platforms too much.
Nicola:They can potentially make you feel ill-equipped and we lose a sense of ourselves often when we scroll too much on these sites. And I would say privilege learning from experience over knowledge about something. And I would also say find a good supervisor. Ask them about their influences, like you've asked me this evening, and check what makes them tick. And don't forget you can always change a supervisor, and actually having a supervisor for years and years might feel comfortable, but it might not necessarily be good so it's good to to shift, shift about and change do you think that it's not?
Colby:it's nice to be to have a supervisor who challenges us a bit.
Nicola:Absolutely, absolutely, and I think it's the role of a supervisor. Yeah, I think it shows interest.
Colby:And as a therapist I think as well. Yeah, it shows interest In my own work with our children and young people who are deeply hurt in relationship. I see my role as one of challenging them a bit by gradually, gently exposing them to relational connection. That's where growth comes, not just, I guess, in the containing environment, but the containing environment supports growth, but a little bit of challenging in that environment does as well. It's like the fertil fertilizer, I guess.
Nicola:Definitely. I mean, I would say, you know, having spoken about Andrew and you know said very nice things I would say the other feeling that I had a lot of the time was this deep sense of discomfort at what he was trying to get me to kind of see, yeah, and it's one of the things I value most lovely.
Colby:So in my therapeutic work I try not to ask a lot of questions, but particularly at the very beginning of my work where I may ask a few more questions, or if there is a an event, something that's happened that I do need to ask a few questions about, I tend to be more reflective and just make observations of what I'm seeing, the child experiencing. But when I do ask what feels like a lot of questions to me, and perhaps to them as well, I always say well, I've asked you a lot of questions. Do you want to ask me a question? What question? They always ask me how old I am. They often ask me how old I am.
Colby:I was giving my age in months until someone worked it out. Now I do it in dog and cat years, which leads to quite a bit of laughter and working out of their age. But this is particularly so. This is with adults as well. When I'm asking them a lot of questions, I ask them if they've got any questions for me. So, have you got any questions for me? Or, time being, as it is perhaps something that you'd like to ask me before we finish off.
Nicola:Yeah, well, I thought about this. I mean, I have a good few questions to ask you, so maybe we could reverse sometime and I could be interviewing you. Yeah, I think I would like to know what are your influences, your major influences, but I'd also really like to know so I don't know if you can answer them both, but I'd also really like to know you know you've been in this field for a long time what would you say sustains you?
Colby:what would you say sustains you? Yeah, that's a very. I think the relief of suffering is the sustaining motivation. What sustains me in my capacity to continue with the work is my family, my wife and my children, which is not to say that I find the work easy. I don't, and in many respects, the longer you work in the field or in certain respects, the harder it becomes, the more you know what you don't know. So I meet regularly with Patrick Tomlinson I don't know if you know him, you probably do. He's very active on LinkedIn, which is where I made the connection with you and I also, I think, this podcast, this podcast has really become my way of meeting and experiencing connection with people who have similarly worked in the space for a long time and feeling shared experience, acknowledging the shared experiences that we had.
Colby:So I think one of the things that I say to my client group is that not all problems can be fixed, but if they can't be fixed, it is really important that they're understood and that you feel understood in relation to it. So I think, again, it's the personal and professional relationships that I have that sustain me and as I've been 30 years working in this space 35 if you include the research that I was doing before that. Yeah, more than ever, I've felt the need for connection with like-minded and like-experienced individuals. In terms of my major influences, probably the major influence would be Bulby and his work and related people, and something that you've touched on, which is my experience of the work, has been my greatest influence. As I said, it was very early in my career in answering a particular question that I was very conscious and very conscious thereafter of paying close attention to the person in front of me and also my reaction to that person. So I agree, I think experience is our greatest teacher and greatest influence.
Colby:Thank you, thanks for that it was a long one.
Nicola:No, I really like what you said about you know, we may not be able to solve this problem, but if we can understand it, if that person can feel understood, it's so helpful, know?
Colby:yeah, I love the way you phrase that, so thanks, yeah it's one I trot out to children who don't want to go to school most regularly.
Colby:Yeah, we understand that you don't like school, but you have to go to school Not said as bluntly as that. But yeah, that is an example of something that just comes up all the time with children is that, yeah, they often don't want to go to school, but there is a legal requirement in Australia, and I guess in other parts of the world as well, that their parents are required to make them go to school. So, anyway, look, thank you very much, nicola, for agreeing to come on. I'm hoping that that was as positive and enjoyable an experience as it was for me speaking to you, and I'm really pleased to have made the connection in person, after messages backwards and forwards and comments on LinkedIn posts and the like. So, yeah, thank you again and yes, if you ever want to do a reciprocal interview, I'd be happy to do it, but I'm a very wordy person, so you might need to leave a little bit longer.
Nicola:Thank you so much for having me and thank you for your interest and your attention to my work. That's just such a gift. So thanks, thanks.
