Parallel and Reciprocal Processes in Psychoanalytic Supervision

On Supervisory Parataxis and Dialogue

“…A common reason underlying the supervisee's reluctance to question or challenge his or her supervisor is, I believe, the fear of exposing his or her own unconscious sense of inferiority or grandiosity. Caligor (1981) reports that having two supervisees share super vision may diminish authority problems and encourage a more candid and collaborative supervisory experience. He finds that ... a three-some makes for less transference on the part of the candidate; less probability of countertransference to any one student by the super visor; .…”

“…Irrational aspects of the supervisory relationship, when dissociated, inattended to, or inarticulated, will inevitably affect the analytic relationship by affecting the nature, use, or un derstanding of supervisory informadon about the analytic rela donship. Searles (1955), Ekstein and Wallerstein (1958), and more re cently Caligor (1981) point to the diagnostic value of supervisory parataxis as a triadic source of information about transferencecountertransference vicissitudes in the analytic reladonship. Issacharoff (1982) further describes how judicious analytic exploration of the supervisee's countertransference within the supervisory sit-…”

Supervision of individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy in institutions: The setting, the dynamics and the learning process

“…In the parallel process, the patient, the therapist, the supervisor and the supervision group can exchange roles, playing the part either of transmitter or receiver. Transference and countertransference factors overlap, and the therapist under supervision becomes confused by his/her involvement in what appears to be an unresolved situation, thus creating an unconscious need to reenact the problem during the supervision session, where the therapist plays the role of the patient and the supervisor that of the therapist (Caligor 1984). Parallel re-enactments occur as a result of the multiplicity of identifications required of all three participants in the process of supervision for the purposes both of therapy and of learning by means of supervision (Gediman & Wolkenfeld 1980).…”

“…Doehrman (1976) has made a special study of the parallel process, concluding that the phenomenon occurs and recurs in a startling variety of forms. Caligor (1984) argues that the parallel process occurs much more frequently than is generally acknowledged and that to overlook it can have adverse consequences for supervision. In the parallel process, the patient, the therapist, the supervisor and the supervision group can exchange roles, playing the part either of transmitter or receiver.…”

“…cally in intensity if both therapist and supervisor have blind spots that unconsciously cause personal involvement, anxiety and reduced empathy (Caligor 1984).…”