Using arts to connect between psychological and social theories in social work supervision

The aim of this chapter is to provide a theoretical understanding of how arts can enhance the integration between micro and macro in social work supervision. Firstly it will outline the inherent mechanisms in arts that help to address stress and strengthen resilience in social work supervision as well as address secondary trauma and burnout whilst also increasing post traumatic growth. Secondly, it will show how arts can embody and personalize social and critical theories in supervision, which embody the subjective experience of social context of both social workers and clients. The ability of art to hold these two different perspectives simultaneously is helpful in supervision and reflects the “person in context” focus of social work. In sum, art will be shown to be a methodology to embody and to integrate micro and macro, or psychological and social, and understandings within supervision within a single image or gestalt.