The online ANSE Journal of Supervision and Coaching: Introduction to the pilot
2017: Volume 1: Isseu 1 One of the major objectives of ANSE is to promote and, wherever possible, facilitate cross border contacts. Actually, it is our core business, because, quite like in supervision or coaching, communication is the alpha and omega of the ANSE community. It is, so to speak, our natural habitat. ■ Sijtze de Roos Central to our mission is – to quote from our Policy Plan – ‘the cross border exchange of information on professional developments between our National Organisations, training institutes and sister organisations, as well as the cross border exchange of professional knowledge and experience between practitioners.’ Obviously, communication and exchange are prerequisite to freely share information on supervision, coaching and consultancy, and – not to forget – to the (further) development and implementation of (European) quality standards. There is so much to share! In all our countries, there is a wealth of experience and theoretical reflection. But most of it never crosses the borders of the country - or at best the language area - of its origin. For sure, live experience may be exchanged in ANSE International Intervision Groups, during conferences and at Summer Universities. True; ‘ANSE English’ in the meantime serves as our lingua franca during our live meetings. But theories, books, articles, master theses or scientific research findings are quite another matter. We still have to overcome a big language gap on paper or smart screen. Too much of this richness is inaccessible to too many of our colleagues. Latvian colleagues, for example, have no access to studies published in Hungary and the other way round, and German supervision scholars hardly ever see, let alone understand, Dutch publications and vice versa. This unfortunate state of reciprocal linguistic exclusion goes all the way from Romania to Finland. But it does not need to be like that. And that is exactly why we hereby launch the first issue of the ANSE Journal, which I am happy to present to you on behalf of the ANSE Board. This one is a pilot, but there surely will follow more. We are planning to publish two issues each year. I am very grateful for the work that board member Barbara Baumann over the last two years put into this, to Eric Vullers of Kloosterhof Publications who made it all possible, and of course to the authors and national editors. Let’s go on this way, and make our often hidden wealth accessible to all of us. ■
GratisBridging, connecting worlds through supervision and coaching
2019: Volume 3: Isseu 2 ■ Agnes Turner & Reijer Jan van ’t Hul …. was this year’s theme of ANSE Summer University in Bolzano Italy from 25th until 29th of August. It was a relevant and up to date theme, as we find ourselves more confronted with tension of separation and polarization in our society. Because we as supervisors are confronted in our work with clients, it is why it is important to discuss these topics here in the context of Supervision. – whether on a personal, ethical or political level in national organisations. ANSE builds bridges between the supervisors and coaches in Europe between the countries and national organisations, between different approaches of supervision, methods, tradition and wants to connect while always keeping the most possible diversity. It’s not about that we all do and think the same, it’s much more about the bridging between different landscapes and idea and again it’s is about the question – what happens on the bridge and where do we go. Supervision and coaching can be the vehicle for understanding, learning, development, change management and so on. It was a successful week with over 120 participants from 15 countries. During the week there were 7 keynotes, 17 workshops and 3 ANSE-platform presentations, study groups and social events. This ANSE Journal is dedicated to the Summer University and therefore it is titled “Bridging, connecting worlds through supervision and coaching”. We asked all keynote speakers and workshop leaders to share their presentation, outcome or summary of the workshops. We are very proud to present 15 articles of the Summer University 2019. This ANSE Journal represents the diversity in our community, it shows a range of theoretical and practical articles. We tried to use the possibilities of a digital Journal, by placing hyperlinks to YouTube movies, or slides of the PowerPoint presentations. The first four articles are written by the keynote speakers, Wolfgang Looss and Sara Niese, Marjaana Gunkel, Silvia Sacchetti and an interview with Brigitte Geissler-Piltz and Karin Herrmann. After these articles, the summaries of the workshop leaders are presented in random order. Of course, there is the column of Gerian Dijkhuizen and one of the interviews she did for the LVSC in this ANSE Journal. This time an interview with Ruslan Goshovskyi from Ukraine, the president of the Ukrainian Association, full ANSE member since last year. We are very happy with the beautiful pictures of Gabriel Scherer (Instagram @getaoutandcapture). Gabriel has a talent for capturing the atmosphere of the week. Every morning during Summer University he presented his pictures of the day before. A selection of 250 of his pictures can be found at the ANSE website. The cover of this Journal has been designed by Waldemar Kerschbaumer, www.adpassion.it/de/ He turned the logo of the Summer University into the ANSE colors. In that way we made the circle round for this ANSE Journal. Special thanks go to Gerian Dijkhuizen, because she started video-blogging for the LVSC during Summer University. Every day she interviewed participants and we posted them on our Facebook. This gave a very lively view on what was happening in Bolzano. For everyone who missed it, the interviews are still available. We hope you enjoy reading this ANSE Journal and get back into the good vibes of ANSE community during a Summer University. ■
GratisEducation of supervision and coaching, an interesting matter
2019: Volume 3: Isseu 1 ■ Agnes Turner & Reijer Jan van ’t Hul After the ANSE board was elected during the General Assembly in Budapest in October 2018, we had to divide tasks into our portfolio. We took a whole day in January to do this and Agnes put her name immediately at this task but Reijer Jan didn’t feel any challenge to write or to publish articles. Reijer Jan checked what tasks he really would like to do, but also posted his name to tasks with not so many names on it. And now one of his main tasks is the ANSE-journal. In this case it is the same as it is with education, you have to step out of your comfort zone, to learn something, and that is what Reijer Jan did and we decided to work for ANSE journal in a team and continue this successfully! In the first place we want to thank Barbara Baumann for all the efforts that she made, starting the ANSE-journal from scratch and now there is a group of national editors, a nice-looking Journal and the goal to publish ANSE-journal twice a year. Also, the topics for the next four editions are set, so it was not that hard to take over this task until now. Barbara, you put the standards high and we will do what we can do to keep this Journal alive, thank you very much. Within the last General Assembly of ANSE the topics quality and education were on the top of the list. Delegates and presidents for the member countries stated that these are all over Europe main issues within the national organization. The contains revising quality standards in educational programs for Supervision and Coaching but also learning about and implementing new and broader approaches of supervisory skills and competences in educational programs and lifelong learning settings such as intervision groups or conference. Talking about conference, in line with the topic education the first conference on Teaching Supervision and Coaching took place in Frankfurt in November 2018. In this edition of the ANSE-journal you can find an article about reflection on the first ANSE conference about Teaching Supervision and Coaching written by Ineke Riezebos. It was an inspiring conference and we set the goal to organize a conference again in spring 2022. The other articles are from Switzerland, The Netherlands, Ukraine, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia and this provides a nice map of how supervision and coaching is taught in Europe. We get a great overview on the differences and the similarities in the programs throughout Europe and the diversity is also visible in the different points of view, from supervision, coaching, intervision and meta-supervision. Great thanks go again to Gerian Dijkhuizen for writing the ANSE column – this time about the practices of lifelong learning. Behalf of the ANSE board and all national editors we wish you a joyful and fruitful time reading the journal. ■
GratisLearning from Failures, Faults & Fiascos
2023: Volume 7: Issue 1 ■ Agnes Turner Learning from mistakes and failure is an essential part of personal growth and development. It is often said that we learn more from our failures than from our successes because mistakes provide us with valuable feedback and insights that we can use to improve our future performance. Professional failures can be unpleasant and demotivating, but they are also an important opportunity for personal and professional growth. By taking responsibility, reflecting, identifying the lessons, applying them and also learning from the mistakes of others, we can improve our knowledge and skills to achieve better results in the future. In this issue of the ANSE Journal we look at the learning opportunities in the context of mistakes and mistake culture and discuss this in the context of supervision and coaching. Life planning and career paths may have disruptions that could be seen as failures at first glance. But it is precisely these supposed detours and painful experiences - cracks in life - that provide a great opportunity to learn and discover something new. A number of contributions address this issue and point out that it is exactly these life experiences that make us stronger or more resilient.The fact that the unconscious plays a role in our so-called parapraxes is also discussed in this issue and illustrated with examples from supervision. In further succession, a number of articles deal with the learning processes and enormous potential for development - the focus is always on the practice of supervision and coaching. One’s own perspective on mistakes is crucial, as is finding strategies, and this is where supervision can come in. With this issue, we will gain insights into the experiences of supervisors, who tell us in a very lively way about their view of errors and error culture. The European perspective is also explicitly represented in this issue, asking about the knowledge society in Europe. With this issue, a few changes in the Editorial Board are to be noted. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Sijtze de Roos for his wonderful work for the ANSE Journal! New to the ANSE editorial board is Gerian Dijkhuizen - welcome, we are very happy to have you in our circle. Gerian is already well known to us through her columns. This part of the ANSE Journal has been taken over by Sveindis Anna Jóhannsdóttir from Iceland. We are looking forward to your columns and thank you very much. Since the beginning of 2023, I have been able to take over the position of Chief Editor and thank the community for the trust they have placed in me. There are two innovations since this issue: firstly, we have set up a book corner. Books on supervision and coaching will be presented here on an ongoing basis. We are happy to receive suggestions and recommendations. Secondly, we have created a rubric with the title: Did you know?. Here we want to inform briefly and concisely about results and events in the ANSE community. By the way, did you know that in the summer of 2023 the Summer University will take place in Budapest with the title “With Words and Beyond - Values and Identity in an Incomprehensible World”? More information can be found at https://anse.eu/activities/summer-universities. See you there and remember, learning from mistakes and failure is a lifelong process. So, let’s go for it! ■
GratisWith words and beyond - values and identity in an incomprehensible world
2023: Volume 7: Issue 2 ■ Agnes Turner In the midst of our ever-evolving world, characterized by perpetual change and chaotic conditions, the recent ANSE Summer University in Budapest was a resounding success. Organized by the European Association for Supervision and Coaching (ANSE), this event marked its 20th anniversary, and it was hosted by the Hungarian Association of Supervisors and Supervisor-Coaches (MSZCT), in collaboration with Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church (KRE). The central theme of the event revolved around the profound impact of uncertainty on individuals and organizations. The keynotes and workshops over the five days delved into the role of supervision in helping individuals find their unique approach to the incomprehensible world. Participants were encouraged to explore their own identities as supervisors, reflecting on values that resonated in the face of uncertainty. One striking aspect highlighted in the program was the acknowledgment that some aspects of our experiences transcend words. The “beyond words” dimension was given emphasis, suggesting a recognition of the importance of non-verbal and experiential modalities in understanding and coping with the complexities of our world. Participants were not only invited to reflect on these questions but also to engage in practical exercises that extended beyond verbal communication. In a time when the world seemed increasingly incomprehensible, the ANSE Summer University in Budapest offered a platform for collective reflection and exploration of new approaches and values. It was a celebration of two decades of fostering understanding, authenticity, and resilience in the face of uncertainty. As we navigated the uncharted waters of our era, this event served as a reminder that, together, we could find not only our bearings but also opportunities for growth and development. Those who joined the celebration in Budapest in 2023 became part of this enriching journey. With 150 participants from 18 different countries, the 10th ANSE Summer University in 2023 was a truly international gathering. The event featured four keynotes, 25 workshops, a festive Welcome Party showcasing Hungarian folklore dance and singing, and a memorable farewell party held on a boat on the Danube. Due to the rich programme and the density of contributions, we have decided to make 2 issues for the Summer University this time. Initially, the first part of the contributions will be printed in this issue and further contributions from the Summer University will be published in early summer 2024. In this way, we want to give as many contributors as possible the opportunity to publish their contributions. This successful ANSE Summer University would not have been possible without the dedicated efforts of the Organizing Team in Budapest, especially the Hungarian Association of Supervisors and Supervisor-Coaches (MSZCT) and Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church (KRE). Their meticulous planning and execution created an environment conducive to learning, reflection, and international collaboration. A heartfelt thank you also goes to the ANSE board for their continuous support and vision, guiding the association in its mission to advance supervision and coaching in the ever-evolving landscape of our world. Your leadership is invaluable, and your efforts contribute significantly to the success of initiatives like the Summer University. Thank you for your unwavering dedication. ■
GratisAn Ocean of Possibilities
2025: Volume 9: Issue 2 ■ Kristina Urbanc We are now in the new issue of ANSE Journal 9-2, dedicated to the Summer University held from August 18th to the 22nd in Munich. In line with the good tradition of the ANSE Journal, in this issue we have also tried to bring the richness and diversity of supervision practice and science closer to our readers in the form of articles, reflections and vignettes and to convey at least some of the dynamics and content that we had the opportunity to experience in Munich this August. This issue of ANSE Journal can truly be called a summer edition, even though you will be reading it in the winter months. By that I mean that it is, above all, diverse, colourful, light but also deep, calming but also stimulating, serious but also playful, but above all, it is rich in metaphors and symbolism, encompassing mythology, flora and fauna, and, as the title of the Summer university itself says, an Ocean of Possibilities. Let us recall that, among many other meanings, the ocean also denotes the place where life on Earth probably began, so I invite you to dive into its depths and explore some of its countless possibilities. Sveindis Anna Jóhannnsdóttir (Iceland) introduces us to this truly diverse and rich issue with a column entitled ‘An Ocean of Possibility – Munich 2025, ANSE Summer University – Everyone matters’, in which she gives her review and impressions of the invited lectures by Katrina Gunther, Vanessa Mae, Philipp Staab and Zeynep Demir. The author of the column draws readers’ attention to how much difference words, content and the way something is said can make. Using a well-known literary character – the girl Polyana – she reminds us of the importance of solidarity and the ability to find something to be glad about in every situation, no matter how bleak it may be. In the Did you know section, Gerian Dijkhuizen informs us about the details of the past Summer University in order to bring readers closer to at least some of the lively and hospitable atmosphere in which the meeting took place. In this issue, Sveindís Anna Jóhannsdóttir has another contribution, an article entitled The Inner Ocean: A Path to Deeper Self-Awareness and Well-Being. Using yet another metaphor, “The Inner Ocean”, as a reflective framework in professional supervision, the author deals with resilience and well-being among professionals, discussing how supervision acts as a preventive measure against burnout but also as a way to empowerment, ethical reflection and sustainable practice. Swiss author Amina Abdulkadir describes her workshop: If You Don’t Like Swimming, Don’t Go Swimming – And Happily Stay On the Shore reflecting about choices of using (or not using) virtual presence in counselling clients, using the „Penguin Metaphor“ which describes a shore as a co-presence. Remaining at the level of stories, metaphors and myths, Josephine Schmitt (Germany) refers to the story of Medusa from Greek mythology, addressing the topic of sexual harassment in the workplace and discussing how professionals and supervisors cannot effectively confront this external culture without first recognising its internalised manifestations within themselves. In her article Rape Culture in Organisations – and Within Ourselves: Addressing Sexual Harassment in the Workplace and Its Impact on Our Work, Josephine Schmitt discusses the existence of victim-blaming strategies and the normalisation of patriarchal violence in professional environments, and the need for critical engagement with the underlying ‘rape culture’ within organisations. German author Lisa Aigner, in her article The Challenge of Complex and Fundamental Decisions in Supervision – Consent Facilitation as a Helpful Method, introduces us to the advantages of the consent facilitation method, which offers supervisors an effective tool for constructively guiding complex and fundamental decision processes. It deals with the method that integrates well-reasoned objections as resources for improving solutions rather than overruling minorities and represents a key competence for making teams and organisations more resilient and capable of action. .... ■
GratisPolitics and social responsibility: effect and influence in and through supervision / coaching
2018: Volume 2: Isseu 1 ■ Barbara Baumann This is the topic of the 2nd ANSE Journal. After the first topic “Quality”, to immediately draw attention to the political and social responsibility of supervision - too detached? We think and hope that the articles in this issue will stimulate reflection on one’s own attitude to the subject, collegial exchange and discussion in many places with different people. “Talking is working on the meaning of situations; understanding is grasping a situation in its meaning.” This aphorism by the philosopher Hermann Schmitz was certainly not coined with a view to supervision and coaching and yet he describes in a focused way what happens in the supervisory process. The issues, cases, questions and concerns that supervisors bring forward are given meaning through speach and the supervisory process is about understanding and grasping their significance. This significance does not only refer to the person of the supervisee, but also to the professional role, the organisation in which she or he works and not infrequently the social significance also becomes visible. And vice versa. Social and political developments influence organisations and the people who work there. To keep an eye on these interactions, to understand them in their dynamics and to develop constructive possibilities for action and behaviour is always the task and goal of supervisory processes. Therefore, supervisors are repeatedly called upon to deal with political and social changes. Economization, digitalization, globalization, migration - just four keywords that currently shape many socio-political discourses that have a massive influence on the world of labor and on people. These are also topics supervisors have to deal with reflexively, on which they have to develop an attitude. It is not coincidental that the first two articles in this issue are lectures. Jubilees, celebrations, conferences are always occasions to ascertain fundamental attitudes. Both Sijtze de Roos’ speech on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Croatian Supervision Association and Monique Castillo’s lecture, which was written on the occasion of an anniversary in Mexico but was also held once again this year at a conference of the French Supervision Association, address fundamental questions of orientation and attitude. The health sector today is certainly an area of many changes, which reflect social and socio-political change processes and in which political and social responsibility must be discussed and assumed. The article by Kristel Kotkas underlines the importance of supervision in this area, taking Estonia as an example. But how do individual supervisors position themselves on the topic of this issue? The interview conducted by Ineke Riezebos with Seyda Buurman Kutsal gives an example and the questions of the interview can be understood as a model to interview oneself and collegially discuss political and social responsibility and to enter into a collegial dialogue. The aim of the ANSE Journal is to make the diversity and significance of supervision in Europe visible. For this reason, we have added a new category to the journal. In each issue we now want to introduce a supervisor from somewhere in Europe. Gerian Dijkhuizen introduces a German colleague, Per Wolfrum from Berlin. Both worked together for a long time in an ANSE International Intervision Group. We hope that this second issue of the ANSE Journal will give readers a lot of pleasure, reading and discussing with colleagues, supervisors, clients and other in many different places. ■
GratisReflection and reflective learning for editors
2020: Volume 4: Isseu 1 ■ Agnes Turner & Reijer Jan van ’t Hul We are really proud to present ANSE Journal Volume 4 – 2020 – Issue 1 with the title “Reflection and reflective learning”. As we all know, reflection is one of the core competences in supervision. Without reflection, there wouldn’t be a learning process. And so, it is in our editorial board. While we were finishing the latest issue of the journal last October, we discovered that editing and organizing a journal with quality and content is quite a heavy job. It is not only collecting and harvesting articles, but there is a lot more to do, like organizing the articles to a consistent and readable magazine. Many/Some of the national editors carry together with us this task. But we were also trying to find more editors, in which we didn’t succeed. So, we reflected, learnt and decided that we had to change something in the editorial board. We needed somebody with editorial experience, who knows the ANSE Community inside out. And although we didn’t know if we could ask him, we both had the same name in our minds: Sijtze de Roos. To us Sijtze would be the perfect Chief-editor to comment on articles, who is able to write in proper English and has a big network in and knowledge of the Supervision and Coaching community. We decided to take a chance and asked him. To our great honor, Sijtze responded positive and since January 2020 he is our Chief-editor for the next two years. And that was just the start of the development process. In the next months our aim is to build an editorial board with up to 6 or 7 editors, to reformulate our editorial guidelines and work out the themes for the next issues of the ANSE Journal. The current situation with the Corona-virus also made us reflect and forced us to be creative. The adaptation of new ways of online working opened new possibilities for videoconferencing and organizing editorial board-meetings. Six months ago, we would have been hesitant to organize this online, but after two months of lockdown, everybody is so used to online meetings, that it is not a threshold anymore. Although crisis and hurdles are not comfortable, they definitely provide a possibility for in-depth reflection and reflective learning. And there are more than one ways of reflection. This issue will teach us how multidimensional reflective processes and learning in Supervision and Coaching are. Particularly, the different theoretical and methodological as well as practical approaches of reflection and reflective learning strengthen the dialogue in our Supervision and Coaching community and therefore enriches our profession. Enjoy reading this ANSE Journal while having some nice reflective moments. ■
GratisSupervision and Ethics
2020: Volume 4: Isseu 2 ■ Sijtze de Roos Trust, it would appear, is no longer self-evident. In the past, so they say, people ‘knew their place’ and more or less blindly trusted and followed the leaders of their particular social group, class or political party. nowadays trust seems to have turned into work. Trustworthiness must be demonstrated by, for example, transparency, authenticity, openness and integrity, all of which need guidance by codes of conduct and action protocols, and documentary proof by audits and visitation reports. But how reliable are organisations if they conveniently park their responsibilities with a special Chief Integrity Officer? Would that not amount to sheer tokenism, as, for instance, the conduct of commercial banking often shows? And how trustworthy are social professionals if they have their moral dilemma’s formally solved for them by referring to the code of conduct of their professional organisation? Morality by ticking off items on a checklist? How about supervisors and coaches? Clearly, in the course of their dealings with supervisees they live their ethical standards, or at least should try their best to do so. Their ethics are not only vested in personal experience, they are also grounded in the profession they share with colleagues and which they together shape in their professional associations. Hence the importance of shared ethics. So it came to be that, in Berlin, on the 22nd of September 2012, the 14th ANSE General Assembly adopted the ANSE Code of Ethics. According to the preamble, it is meant to serve as a guideline against which national organisations could measure their own codes of conduct, ethical guidelines and general moral principles. Its main purpose is to challenge supervisors and their professional associations all over Europe to always act according to moral requirements arising from the nature of supervision. Supervision is a communicative trade. Supervisors will radiate trust in their supervisees, in his or her potential, uniqueness and humanity. As trust implies the recognition of shared humanity, supervisees need to feel accepted, to feel at home with themselves, with others and the world around them, and to be free to be (or become) what they want to be. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that we open the thematic part of this issue with a long read by our Croatian colleagues Maca Cicak and Kristina Urbanc, titled The role of ethics in creating supervision a safe space. Jean-Paul Munsch (Switzerland) goes on to show what is needed to achieve ethical competence by practicing theory. The path to mastery is a never ending learning process, in which theory and practice merge. In other words: ethical conduct presupposes ethical reasoning and ethical reasoning informs ethical practice, as Liisa Raudsepp and Helena Ehrenbusch from Estonia make very clear. They share their experience with the creation of a development process to enhance ethical reasoning among the members of the Estonian national organisation for supervisors (ESCA), on their way showing the importance of institutional guidance and support. What kind of moral challenges may supervisors run into? In our second long read, Dr. Hans Bennink (The Netherlands) analyses how all of us are regularly confronted with d ilemmas due to conflicting moral obligations. In order to help supervisees reflect on these, supervisors need to understand the complexity of loyalty issues and are challenged to find ways to discuss these in a learning manner. But what to do when supervisees themselves display an ethos that is totally contrary to the moral foundation of supervision? In his captivating article’, Dr. Daniel Trepsdorf (Germany) explores ways to confront ‘the language of hate’ by empowering, democratic and non-violent means. Christof Arn (Switzerland) moves on with an overview of thousands of years of ethical deliberation relevant to present day consultancy, and Attila Szarka (Hungary) presents us with a literary account of the moral effects of clothing. What should a supervisor wear? It is not as easy as it sounds. We complete this issue with The use of creative techniques in supervision by Ineke Riezebos (The Netherlands), which may serve as the starting point of a regular column on this topic. We are working on that. Ideas are very welcome. Finally, Ulrike Mathias Wiedemann (Germany) reviews the (very) critical study Supervision auf dem Prüfstand for us. She presents an overview of research outcomes which the community of supervisors is well advised to take proper notice of. Are we really as effective as we think? Reality testing is the groundwork of reflection. And last but not least (but at the same time first of all), Gerian Dijkhuizen (The Netherlands) tops all this off with her regular column - right after this page - and her interview with our Spanish colleague Ioseba Guillermo. This interview is one in a long string which Gerian published in both the Dutch LVSC Newsletter and partly in our journal. They are now collected in a magazine that LVSC will make available free of charge to the visitors of the ANSE Summer University, next year in Riga (Latvia), and those of the 40th Anniversary Conference of the LVSC of 6 April 2021 in the Netherlands. For particulars and registration, please check the ANSE website and/or the website of your national organisation. I hardly have to say that - due to corona (and some other worries) - we now live through barren times. That should, however, not deter us from enjoying our trade and the possibilities of professional exchange this journal offers. The topic of our next issue is ‘digitalisation and supervision’, which is, I think, a very timely theme. Please show us the (digital) loopholes you found to keep communicating, and let us have your visions and experiences. Let me finish wishing you this: however sober, do enjoy Christmas and have a happy new year. Let peace prevail.■
GratisMore words beyond words – values and identities in an incomprehensible world
2024: Volume 8: Issue 1 ■ Sijtze de Roos Before I go on introducing the content of this issue, I may have to introduce myself again. You may wonder what I am – seemingly all of a sudden – doing on this page, reserved for your usual chief editor Agnes Turner. The reason is this: because of her increased academic responsibilities, Agnes could no longer responsibly combine her professorial duties with the editorial chairmanship of this magazine. We regret letting her go, but not before thanking her for the two successful issues that appeared under her leadership. We wish her all the best for the future and we are sure we will meet her again in the ANSE community, or perhaps as author. And so it was that the ANSE board asked me to temporarily take over the position of chief editor. While we look for a definitive solution, my editorial board colleagues and I will do our best to serve you. And we will of course keep you informed about further developments on this front. And now: what do we have on offer this time? We live, I’m afraid, in a troubled world. The turbulence around - and within - us outmaneuvers our attempts to solve the many interlocking problems we are confronted with and overwhelmed by. We are threatened by self-inflicted climatological disaster, while at the same time wars and terrorism rage seemingly unstoppable all over the planet, in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Myanmar, where not? Millions of people suffer brutal oppression at the hands of tyrannical regimes – Uyghurs in China, Russians under Putin, Sudanese by warring warlords – or fall victim to mercenaries, terrorists and fanatical fundamentalists of a sickening variety of perverted faiths. Under these circumstances, it may seem out of place - preposterous even - to limit ourselves to the methodical aspects of our trade. Don’t we lock ourselves up in the imaginary safety of our middle-class bubble, isolated from the harsh reality outside, focused on the purchasing power of the rich middle classes? Aren’t we too concerned about the private preoccupations of the wealthy bourgeoisie to whom we sell our services? What are we actually doing to restore the balance that the world as a whole so desperately needs? How can we stay away from extreme right- and leftwing populism, from self-possessing consumerism or from political-religious radicalism? How to restore the damaged center? And how urgently the centre needs restoring. “Turning and turning in the widening gyre”, wrote the Irish poet W.B. Yeats more than hundred years ago, “the falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity” (Yeats, in: Finnegan: 1989)1. The centre cannot hold. Or could it? What we do need is conviction. In this issue we therefore present another fine array of articles and vignettes on the Summer University of last year in Budapest. Each and every one of our authors shows how important and necessary it is to take time, to pause, to think, to feel and to reflect in the midst of a world that pushes us further and further into situations we never wanted to be in and we can hardly control. As the world is unstable and uncertain, we must learn to be steadfast in our work, as citizens, as political subjects and in our personal lives. As supervisors and coaches, we ourselves are pushed around in this world too; often against our will. We share the same sense of alienation and uncertainty that our contemporaries are experiencing. That is exactly why we can - and must - support everyone who asks for it, or wherever it may be necessary. In order for our services to have at least some beneficial effect, we must master our means, methods and techniques. It is important that we know what we are doing, where, why, for whom and how. Now that is precisely what the ANSE Summer University in Budapest was all about last year. And by extension the content of this issue. .... ■
Gratis
