The power to become: a reflection on using found poetry in supervision to help grow a counsellor's practice identity

While supervision is a reflective space for practitioners, supervisors must also reflect on their practice. Researching supervision is one way to do this. I conducted a research project on one aspect of my supervision practice – a creative narrative therapy approach which involved writing a found poem from a supervisee's talk about a practice value and offering the poem back to them. In a small narrative inquiry, I interviewed three former supervisees about the effect of their found poem on their practice identity. All three supervisees saw the value expressed in the poem as continuing to be important to them, showing a semi-stable sense of practice identity which the poem contributed to. Additionally, one participant saw her identity as evolving on from the poem, showing a narrative sense of identity. These findings highlight the potential of supervision to grow practice identities through found poetry, although the supervisor must manage power mindfully.