Street Analysis: How We Come Together and Apart in Localized Youth Work Peer Supervision

Abstract

“A schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic lying on the analyst’s couch” (Deleuze and Guattari, 2000, p. 2), and a subjugated group working itself out of a bind is a better friend than a supervisor trapped in a tree. This chapter is a schizoanalysis of youth work supervision. For the purposes of this chapter, the term supervision” refers to the processes that youth workers engage in when they meet in private environments to provide (as the supervisor) and receive (as the supervisee) direction and support regarding clinical issues that young people (as clients) bring into counselling settings. While we continue to take up both supervisor and supervisee roles in our professional lives, we have endeavored over the previous years to experiment in alternative practices outside of our formal work settings. This chapter is a representation and extension of those practices that we have come to call street analysis. Following Deleuze and Guattari (2000) we work with the concept of desire as a productive force and use the analytics of subject and subjugated groups as a way to analyze how desire flows within our supervisory assemblages. After providing a theoretical framework for our approach, we proceed by example in exploring the ways we have composed new forms of collegial relationality and practitioner subjectivity.