Robin Shohet has been supervising and training supervisors over 45 years. He has published several books, including co-authoring ‘Supervision in the Helping Professions’ and editing ‘Passionate Supervision and Supervision as Transformation’.
For me, this workshop was mostly about being not doing. Robin is a great storyteller and trickster as he called himself. One of the stories that he shared with us is about becoming loyal:
A man and Devil are walking across the street, when they see someone approaching them picking something up from the ground.
The man next to Devil asks what he picked up.
‘The truth’ says Devil.
‘Aren’t you worried? asks the man.
‘No’ says Devil ‘He’ll get attached to it’.
Loyalty can become our prison and interfere with our being and doing – seeing, learning new things etc. Therefore it is important to be aware of one’s loyalties to people and systems that may hold us back and prevent our growth.