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.     

Attachment theory within clinical supervision: application of the conceptual to the empirical

Attachment theory, which has demonstrated application in caregiver-child, romantic, and psychotherapeutic relationships, also appears to be supervision relevant. But bad blood between attachment theory and psychoanalysis may well have hampered considering the relevance of attachment theory for psychoanalytic supervision. This project sought to investigate the application of attachment theory to the supervision situation, with the potential implications of our findings for psychoanalytic supervision being considered. Attachment styles, leader–follower dynamics, and attachment-based expectations were explored as predictors of supervisor-trainee working alliance using a prospective, longitudinal study design. Findings revealed the importance of measuring supervision-specific attachment, the particularly problematic nature of supervisee avoidant attachment, and the potential contribution of a leader–follower framework for understanding supervisory attachment. These attachment concepts may well be useful in, and additive for, psychoanalytic supervision practice.     

Creating and Elaborating the Cultural Third: A Doers-Doing with Perspective on Psychoanalytic Supervision

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - Although recognized as highly crucial to supervision practice (e.g., Tummala-Narra, 2004), culture has been addressed minimally in the psychoanalytic...     

Ruminative self-focus, negative life events, and negative affect

Ruminative thinking is believed to exacerbate the psychological distress that follows stressful life events. An experience-sampling study was conducted in which participants recorded negative life events, ruminative self-focus, and negative affect eight times daily over one week. Occasions when participants reported a negative event were marked by higher levels of negative affect. Additionally, negative events were prospectively associated with higher levels of negative affect at the next sampling occasion, and this relationship was partially mediated by momentary ruminative self-focus. Depressive symptoms were associated with more frequent negative events, but not with increased reactivity to negative events. Trait rumination was associated with reports of more severe negative events and increased reactivity to negative events. These results suggest that the extent to which a person engages in ruminative self-focus after everyday stressors is an important determinant of the degree of distress experienced after such events. Further, dispositional measures of rumination predict mood reactivity to everyday stressors in a non-clinical sample.     

Ruminative self-focus and negative affect: an experience sampling study

The authors conducted an experience sampling study to investigate the relationship between momentary ruminative self-focus and negative affect. Ninety-three adults recorded these variables at quasi-random intervals 8 times daily for 1 week. Scores on questionnaire measures of dispositional rumination were associated with mean levels of momentary ruminative self-focus over the experience sampling week. Concurrently, momentary ruminative self-focus was positively associated with negative affect. Cross-lagged analyses revealed that whereas ruminative self-focus predicted negative affect at a subsequent occasion, negative affect also predicted ruminative self-focus at a subsequent occasion. Decomposition of the dispositional rumination measure suggested that brooding, but not reflective pondering, was associated with higher mean levels of negative affect. Though broadly consistent with Nolen-Hoeksema's (1991) response styles theory, these results suggest that a reciprocal relationship exists between ruminative self-focus and negative affect.     

When good pain turns bad

Classically, pain is viewed as being mediated solely by neurons. However, recent research has shown that activated glial cells (astrocytes and microglia) within the spinal cord amplify pain. These nonneuronal cells play a major role in the creation and maintenance of pathological pain. Glia become activated by immune challenges (viral or bacterial infection) and by substances released by neurons within the pain pathway. Activated glia amplify pain by releasing proinflammatory cytokines. Taken together, research findings suggest a novel approach to human pain control that targets glia. In addition, it is likely that such glial-neuronal interactions are not unique to pain, but rather reflect a general rule of sensory processing.     

Personality correlates of the disposition towards interpersonal forgiveness: A Chinese perspective

T his paper presents the results of three studies that investigated the nature of forgiveness, its measurement, and personality correlates in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Study 1 involved in‐depth interviews with 27 PRC cultural scholars about the concept of forgiveness and factors influencing the tendency to forgive in Chinese philosophy and everyday life. The respondents supported the relevance of this concept for Chinese societies and were able to give examples both from classical Chinese texts and their own lives. However, they also considered that preserving group harmony was the main reason to forgive and discounted the personality or religious influences commonly reported in the Western literature. Study 2 reported the adaptation of a Western forgiveness questionnaire for use with PRC respondents. Study 3 involved administering this questionnaire together with measures of self‐esteem, anxiety, impression management, and culturally appropriate constructs of face, relationship orientation, and harmony to 336 college students and 432 teachers from the PRC. As predicted, it was the latter two constructs that had the strongest correlations with the tendency to forgive in both samples. It was concluded that, in the PRC, willingness to forgive is influenced largely by social solidarity needs rather than the individualistic personality variables or religiosity reported in Western research. We hypothesize that this is due to the collectivist nature of PRC society and the results may well generalize to other collectivist cultures.     

Reflections on Contemporary Psychotherapy Practice, Research, and Training

We do not lack for criticism about psychotherapy practice, research, and training. Admittedly, there is much there that needs to change. But, thus far, what have we done right? What are some of the positive, affirming, constructive strides that have been made with regard to therapy practice, research, and training? In this paper, those questions are addressed. Ten broad-based themes about some aspects of psychotherapy are presented and discussed; while by no means exhaustive, each is considered to be quite robust and clearly reflective of some of the truly constructive facets now evident in the field.     

Historical influences on the use of assessment methods in counseling psychology

This paper considers the effects of four historical influences on the use of assessment methods in counseling psychology: the vocational guidance, psychometric, mental hygiene, and Rogerian counseling/psychotherapy traditions. Each historical influence is examined, and some of the implications each influence has had on our current use of or manner in approaching assessment methods are considered.