The supervisory field and projective identification1

Taking as their starting point the Baranger and Baranger model of the ‘psychoanalytic field’, the authors extend the notion of intersubjectivity in the analytic relationship to the supervision process. They use a practical example of a supervision to show the development of what they term the ‘supervisory field’, formed from the superimposition of the two fields of analyst‐patient and supervisor‐supervisee. They emphasize the interplay of projective identifications with objects emanating from the inner world of the patient that are relived in the analytic relationship and transposed to the supervisory field. They believe that the concept of the ‘supervisory field’ contributes to a deeper understanding of the unconscious processes occurring in the mind of analysand, supervisee and supervisor during supervision, particularly regarding the identification, comprehension and resolution of persistent disturbances in the supervisory process.     

A fundamental change in vision: where black lives matter

Using the lens of clinical work, the author, a white supervisor, plots her concerns about unconscious racism in the training of a black supervisee. Years later this supervisee brings a distressed black trainee nurse to supervision who is struggling with relational difficulties while suffering from unconscious racism in her hospital. Supervisor and supervisee grapple to offer the patient treatment on both fronts. The author explores the underlying presence of ‘white privilege’ and ‘unconscious racism’ which finds a global audience as a result of the killing of George Floyd – an event which also had implications for the long-term supervisory partnership. Links to Jessica Benjamin’s concept of ‘doer and done to’ are made, as well as discussion of a gradual change of vision in the supervisor herself. The author also makes use of insights gained from consultancy work in a multi-racial company and two Channel 4 UK television programmes that feature workshops on unconscious racism in a mixed secondary school in the London Borough of Sutton.     

The Potential of Animal-Assisted Therapy Within the Supervisory Alliance

Chandler identified eight generalized benefits of animal-assisted therapy (AAT) for a person’s growth. These beneficial areas include (a) motivation, (b) distress tolerance, (c) alternative form of nurturance, (d) physical soothing, (e) genuine acceptance, (f) interactional enjoyment, (g) increased trust, and (h) increased encouragement to overcome barriers. Homestead identified supervision ideals, skills, and barriers within the supervisory alliance. If supervision is negative, this experience may disrupt the supervision relationship, process, and requirements. If not properly addressed, potential harm may come to the supervisee, supervisor, and possibly the client’s welfare. This review will identify how these eight areas of AAT may benefit the supervisory alliance to ensure the best care for the supervisee, supervisor, and the client.     

Managing Emotional Responses in Therapy: An Adapted EFT Supervision Approach

Therapists often encounter experiences in therapy that elicit emotionality, this could be in the form of self-of-the-therapist issues, compassion fatigue, or professional burnout. Whereas approaches to supervision for self-of-the-therapist issues recognize the need for accessing the supervisee’s emotionality, approaches have not focused on how the clinical and professional system could also be part of the cycle. We propose an adapted emotionally focused supervision approach that employs steps one through six of the EFT model. To display how this approach would work, we provide the example of work with longer-term clients. Working with longer-term clients can be a challenge for many therapists, and both the professional and client system come with factors increasing emotional risk to the therapist. Engaging the therapist’s emotionality through supervision has the potential to improve therapeutic outcomes, as well as reduce loss of good therapists in the field to professional burnout.     

Psychoanalytic developmental psychology and the supervision of psychotherapy supervisor trainees

While literature on psychotherapy supervision abounds, literature on supervisor supervision (i.e., the actual supervision of a supervisor trainee who is in the process of learning to supervise) is far more scarce. How might the supervision of supervision process be best understood? What is the developmental experience of supervisor trainees? How can supervisors effectively intervene when working with supervisor trainees? Those questions have been addressed in only the most meagre fashion, and guidance on how to engage in the supervision of supervision is sorely lacking. In this paper, a psychoanalytic developmental framework is used to provide a means of conceptualising the supervisor trainee experience and to suggest a programme by which supervisors can best respond to their supervisor trainees' needs. Supervisor trainee ‘unfolding’ and ‘becoming’ are captured within a developmental progression that punctuates separation and individuation processes. The place of the supervisor – in holding and containing, loosening and liberating, buffering and bolstering, and refuelling and reloading – is considered in the facilitation of supervisor trainee development.     

Addressing the Person of the Therapist in Supervision: The Therapist's Inner Conversation Method

In this study a method of retrospective case supervision is presented aimed at helping the supervisee to become a better self‐supervisor. The method pays special attention to the therapist's self‐reflection and has the therapist's inner conversation as a central concept. The starting point of the method is an assignment in which the supervisee reflects on a case using a tape‐assisted recall procedure. The method helps trainees to develop experiential expertise to become more flexible and effective therapists. A case example of one training group of novice family therapists illustrates the use of the method.     

How does psychoanalytic supervision work? A brief communication

In this brief communication, we offer one perspective – the contextual psychoanalytic supervision model (CPSM) – on how psychoanalytic supervision works. The CPSM, a supervisory extrapolation of Wampold’s contextual psychotherapy relationship model, accentuates four psychoanalytic supervisor–supervisee relationship variables as crucial and change inducing: the learning alliance bond, supervisor–supervisee real relationship, creating supervision expectations/providing an expectation-consistent form of supervision, and the supervisee’s engagement in facilitative educational actions. The CPSM is presented in hopes of stimulating further discussion about what makes psychoanalytic supervision work.     

The ‘thinking aloud’ process: a way forward in social work supervision

Within current neoliberal discourses, critical reflection provides opportunity for innovation in social work practice. This article describes a thinking aloud process used with supervisor–supervisee dyads in community-based child welfare social work to assist critical reflection via the use of open-ended questioning and inquiry. The strength of thinking aloud permitted a deeper appreciation of how the supervision session is utilised to reflect on practice and provided a learning tool within supervision. The feedback from the dyads concurred that thinking aloud assisted in stimulating reflection, developing solutions to the key issues discussed, and was transformative in recognising areas for future development. The process of thinking aloud supports the opportunity and space for the supervisor and supervisee to articulate meaning, critically develop insight, reconstruct, and transport this into future practice. Thinking aloud offers an example of how knowledge can be co-constructed by practitioners within practice and critical reflection captured within qualitative research approaches.     

Problematic Self-Efficacy Inferences in Beginning Psychotherapy Supervisees: Identification and Management

We contend that a particular form of self-efficacy beliefs — specifically referred to as relation-inferred self-efficacy beliefs — often gets activated in beginning supervisees, can potentially pose supervision problems from the outset and, consequently, is best addressed by supervisors early on. Relation-inferred self-efficacy beliefs refer to what supervisees think or infer that their supervisor is thinking about their therapeutic efficacy; because beginning supervisees often have doubts about their own therapeutic efficacy, they can make incorrect inferences about what their supervisor is thinking of them, and supervision can be accordingly affected. In this brief report, relation-inferred self-efficacy beliefs are elaborated upon, their significance for the trajectory of beginning supervisee development is considered, and some supervisor actions that can aid in alleviating the impact of those beliefs on beginning supervisees are identified. We view it as important that supervisors (a) hold supervisee problematic relation-inferred self-efficacy beliefs in mind as a likely supervision reality, (b) strive to proactively address their possible emergence through supervisee education at supervision’s onset and through including the topic in the body of the supervision agreement, (c) be sensitive to cues that may indicate the emergence of such problematic inferred beliefs during the course of supervision, (d) sensitively inquire about those cues and, if confirmed, be open to discussing their implications with beginning supervisees, (e) fully carry out discussion about those beliefs so as to allay supervisees’ inference concerns, and (f) because addressing those problematic beliefs is not a one-and-done affair, be ready to re-address them as need arises.

     

SUPERVISION: A CONTAINERÆCONTAINED APPROACH

The authors illustrate an approach to the supervisory process as a learning experience for both supervisee and supervisor built on the containment of unconscious anxieties. It is argued that a core function of psychoanalytic supervision is to help contain the emotional turbulence and the unconscious anxieties arising and evolving in the two interacting domains of the analytic and the supervisory sessions. From this perspective, the analyst-patient interaction and that of the supervisee and supervisor can be understood as twin, tiered transformational arenas, the supervisory one being at the service of holding and grasping the roles the supervisee/analyst goes through as part of the analytic process. On the basis of detailed clinical material from a disturbed 7-year-old girl, the authors explore the interrelated issues and difficulties in containing anxieties and turbulence in both the analytic and the supervisory situation. When emotional containment is adequately handled, the supervision helps the understanding and development of the supervisee's use of his/her own personality as a treatment instrument, as advocated by Fleming and Benedek decades ago. The supervisory session thus furthers the resolution of clinical issues through symbol-formation, clinical sessions and supervision being twin domains for recording and understanding emotional evolution.     

Parallel process in supervision

This paper addresses the concept of parallel process and its application in clinical supervision. Parallels between therapy and supervision are examined as well as some of the key issues surrounding the use of parallel process as a supervisory intervention. Although there is a need for more investigation to explain and support this concept further, the authors would argue that parallel process interventions in supervision can enhance the supervisory process and the task of teaching and learning for both the supervisee and supervisor. A case example is provided to demonstrate the parallel process in supervision and its potential as a facilitative intervention.     

What makes for good supervision and whose responsibility is it anyway?

This lecture draws on my recent book ‘Supervision in Counselling and Psychotherapy’ and considers the subject of the respective roles and responsibilities of the supervisor and the supervisee. The book is an introduction to psychodynamic supervision, and was intended primarily for those beginning to supervise, although it also has some interest for those who are more experienced and wanting the opportunity to reflect on their practice.

However, it has also generated interest among those who are in supervision, and, as anticipated, many of those present at the lecture were students currently in supervision as well as those beginning to supervise in various contexts. I therefore decided to focus in this paper on supervision as a joint effort. Supervisors need supervisees just as therapists need patients, and both have a role, albeit a different one, in making the process successful. I begin by thinking about the characteristics of good supervision – and importantly, some of the factors that make it a complex and at times a difficult task. I then go onto consider the process of supervision, the part each of us plays in making it productive, and how we can work collaboratively to gain an understanding of the patient.     

How honest do counsellors dare to be in the supervisory relationship?: An exploratory study

A study was conducted to investigate the extent to which psychodynamic counsellors feel able to disclose sensitive issues in supervision. Ninety-six counsellors in supervision responded to a questionnaire that asked about supervision arrangements, the supervisory working alliance, and the likelihood of disclosing issues such as erotic feelings towards clients and discomfort with the supervisor. Results showed that supervisees were likely to disclose more in individual rather than in collective supervision, when their supervisor was someone whom they themselves had chosen rather than had allocated to them, and when they were supervised independently of the setting in which they counselled rather than in-house. There was a positive correlation between the quality of the supervisory working alliance as experienced by the supervisee and the extent of his or her disclosure. Implications of counsellors feeling inhibited from disclosing particular issues in supervision, and the impact on the quality of their work with clients, are discussed.     

How Does the Analytic Supervisor Teach Group Therapy?

This paper presents a detailed account of the role of the analytic supervisor of group therapy. In addition to overseeing the teaching of clinical skills, the analytically-oriented supervisor monitors the dynamics of the supervisee and the supervisory relationship itself. Unconscious processes may both interfere with, and shed light on what is occurring in the treatment. The author suggests that a collaborative relationship characterized by safety and mutual reflection promotes learning. The distinctions between analytic and nonanalytic supervision of groups are discussed.     

Ethical considerations in the supervision of applied sport psychology graduate students

Abstract

Some of the most important relationships that a sport psychologist experiences in his or her career are between the supervisor and supervisee in applied practica and internships. These relationships may become models for future professional and ethical behavior with colleagues, students, and clients, and thus deserve careful examination. Ethics form a foundation for practice, and while classroom discussions of ethical issues help educate graduate students, the supervisor-supervisee relationship may provide a hands-on experience of ethical dilemmas and ethical problem solving. Ethics in supervisor-supervisee relationships cover at least two broad areas. First, there is the supervisor's monitoring and mentoring of ethical considerations in the supervisee's relationship with the athlete-client. Second, ethical questions arise in the relationship between the supervisor and the supervisee. The present paper includes discussion of general supervisory issues (e.g., modeling ethical behavior, helping develop counseling skills) and explores the specific ethical problems of referring for counseling, intimacy, and exploitation. Also, three case examples illustrate ethical concerns that may appear in the process of applied sport psychology supervision. Broadening education in ethical issues in supervision for both psychology and exercise science graduate programs may help future practitioners better serve their clients.     

Cybervision: Virtual peer group counselling supervision — Hindrance or help?

This study explored the use of text‐based computer‐mediated communication in counsellor supervision. ‘Cybervision’ is an innovative collaboration between counsellors and computer technology. The study reports on the use of clinical case presentation by e‐mail and the discussion of cases in text‐based chat rooms. The inquiry, conducted from a qualitative research perspective, seeks to explore the potential effectiveness of Cybervision along with its advantages and disadvantages. Prior to each supervision session, the supervisee presented case concerns by e‐mail and later received 60 minutes supervision from the remaining three group members adopting the role of supervisor. As a form of co‐operative inquiry, the personal experience of research participants was investigated and reported, highlighting key themes and issues relating to the absence of face‐to‐face contact. In all cases, participants reported that Cybervision effectively influenced and informed the clinical practice of the counsellor. Participants quickly and successfully formed a meaningful group where support, challenge and feedback were expressed and valued. The ‘disinhibition’ effect of on‐line contact was found to support open and honest communication. Feelings were communicated in this environment with surprising ease. The consistent emergence of useful parallel processes was another significant finding.     

Issues in training effective supervisors

While increased attention has been focused on the topic of clinical supervision, most of the theoretical writing and empirical research to date has emphasized issues pertaining to the supervisee. As a result, the role of the supervisor in the supervisory dyad has received relatively little attention in spite of its critical function in the supervisory process. This article examines the literature on supervisor training and development. Specifically, four topic areas are reviewed: (a) characteristics of the “ideal” supervisor, (b) theories of supervisor development, (c) ethical and professional issues, and (d) recommendations for supervisor training.     

Development and Validation of the Constructivist Supervisor Scale

The purpose of this research was to develop an instrument for assessing constructivist counselor supervision practices. In an exploratory mode, we also tested supervisee preferences regarding constructivist supervision. Items consistent with constructivist supervision were developed based on a thorough review of the literature and rated by experts in constructivist supervision. Counselors currently receiving supervision (n = 308, 81% female) responded to these items, indicating the extent to which their current or most recent supervisor adhered to these constructivist practices during supervision. Principal components analysis results revealed three main components of constructivist supervision practice: warm and nondirective relationship, past and present experiences, and acceptance of various styles. Preliminary evidence for internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity of the scale items are reported. Participants also indicated the degree to which they preferred their supervisors’ constructivist practices. The final version of the constructivist supervisor scale, consisting of 29 items, may be used in future research focused on supervision processes as well as in practice to assess the degree to which these core constructivist methods are used during supervision.     

Supervisory reactions: an important aspect of supervision

Anne Alonso was passionate about the practice of supervision. An excellent supervisor herself, she sought to identify and teach the ingredients of effective supervision throughout her career. Her first book, The Quiet Profession (1985), was about the supervisory relationship and the various influences on it from within and without the relationship, and she insisted that the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies training program that she directed for many years include a required course on supervision. While the usual focus in supervision is on the supervisee and the clinical material presented, supervisors often experience powerful emotional reactions. Sometimes this is parallel process, in which the dynamics of the psychotherapy are replayed in the supervisory relationship. However, many other sources can contribute to supervisory affect, including the personality, background, and developmental stage of the supervisor, the impact of the clinical material, and the setting in which the supervision takes place. Supervisory reactions can be informative about the psychotherapy being supervised, about the supervisory relationship, or about the supervisor. Supervisors need self-awareness in order to identify their own contribution to their affective responses in supervision. The use of a supervisor decision tree of 1) awareness of reaction, 2) identification of its source, 3) relevance to current supervision, and 4) appropriate use of the reaction in the current supervision is recommended.