Does Anything Go in Psychoanalytic Supervision?

The supervisory situation should provide conditions in which learning can develop and the candidate can integrate his personal and professional experiences, theoretical knowledge, and his personality for a competent participation in and handling of the psychoanalytic situation. The supervisory process is a very complex one, influenced by many factors, among these the personality of participants, their previous experience, the structure of the training organization, and the fact of multiple determination, as well as the inherent ambiguities such as autonomy/subordination and openness in face of being evaluated and assessed. The supervisor has to establish a working platform differentiating his or her own motives from the manifold, and often conflicting, interests of all participants (analysand, analyst, supervisor, Institute—that is, “the extended clinical rhombus,” Szecsödy, 1990 Szecsödy, I. 1990. The learning process in psycho-therapy supervision, Stockholm: Karolinska Institutet.. [Google Scholar], p. 10). The necessity to study how supervision is conducted, as well as to train supervisors, is emphasized.