Literature on supervision, coaching and mentoring - John Launer (2006: 268) observes - "seems to exist on islands that are not in communication with each other". Some islands identified by professions-such as counselling and psychotherapy-other islands through their theoretical bent-such as psychoanalysis, systhemic family therapy, neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and client-centred approaches-and within most islands appear to be a particular 'ex cathedral' terminological preference (from an infallable authority) with rarely any attempt to contextualise definitions, frameworks or theoretical positions. "Readers are often left to work out for themselves exactly what the author's set of assumptions and agendas might be, and why" Launer remarks.
Yet, it appears from a literature review undertaken by Launer, that authors seem to address the same notions in one form or another. He reasons that perhaps it is not surprising, because of operating from individual professional bunkers. He remarks that few scholars can master the entire literature of their own field/s of interest, let alone other. However, many he states "are guilty of what Freud called "the narcissism of small differences' "(p. 269).
Launer, J. 2006. Reflective practice and clinical supervison: making sense of supervision, mentoring and coaching, Work Based Learning in Primary Care, 2006(4), 268-270.
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