Gender and power in counselling and supervision

The need to reflect on how the dynamics of gender and power can articulate together and adversely affect counselling and supervision relationships is addressed. It is suggested that automatically incorporating a social analysis into supervision will help the counsellor clarify the political nature of some of the therapeutic issues and result in the addressing of gender stereotypes which otherwise might contaminate the process of counselling. It is further argued that using a feminist approach, in which there is a commitment to facilitating equality and personal power between women and men, is helpful in establishing a constructive and facilitating supervisory style.