Introduction

The process whereby the novice or trainee enters a craft or profession through apprenticeship to a skilled practitioner, or overseer, is common to many areas of experience in many cultures, from juggling to healing. Lave and Wenger (1991) have traced it as a form of entry into particular `communities of practice' from tailoring to midwifery. Early forms of variations on this process within charitable and social agencies have been identi®ed and studied by Peters (1967) and Kadushin (1992). The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw further developments in a variety of health professions, and the notion of `supervision' has emerged from such apprenticeships and trainings. Contemporary supervision has been de®ned in many ways and takes many forms. The original connection to training and professional identity remains, but it has expanded beyond the remit of the development of expertise into the life of ongoing professional practice. Chapter 1, for example, points out that `in essence, supervision can be seen as one worker meeting with another to enable them to re¯ect on their practice' (p. 13), but that the nature and use of this `meeting' is varied and complex. Supervision in health professions such as dramatherapy is enmeshed with processes as diverse as management, professionalisation, clinical governance, support, education and the ensuring of safety and quality. This diversity can be seen as a response to the central concern of the act of supervision and of this book. This concern is: how best to deliver therapy for the clients with whom the therapist is working. The following basic questions are re¯ected in various ways within this book, and act as an agenda to help enquire how this concern is worked with.