Supervision of Supervision

Abstract

At the very beginning of working with the group as a supervisor -the dynamics of which I will analyse more thoroughly in the section Personal Experience, group members were discussing their personal experience of the supervisee's position, their past, present and anticipated relationship with the supervisor and their experience of the supervision of the supervisor. Al-though they broached many areas of conflict, their emotional tone and constructive manner brought to my mind an image of a bracelet with three ornaments: supervisee, supervisor and supervisor's supervisor. Only after some time did I realise that these were some points of the origin of parallel processes, and therefore, in the introduction to this paper, I will show the results of Prof Mirjana Pernar, BSc Psychology, Clinical psychologist, Training group analyst, IGA Zagreb, IPA Psychoanalyst SUMMARY:The paper describes how the supervisor's awareness of their covert processes, thoughts, and feelings increased as a direct result of the work in the median group and in the supervision of supervision. When the supervisor misses the parallel process in the supervision group, it can be discovered in the supervision of supervision and during self-analysis. Some aspects of the parallel processes are discussed and presented through vignettes from supervision and median group sessions. The paper also presents the results of different studies about supervision and supervision of supervision observed from the perspective of supervisees and supervisors. Theoretical explanations of parallel process are presented as well. KEYWORDS:supervisee, supervisor, parallel process, supervision of supervision, supervisor's countertransference 218 Article certain studies which deal with problems of supervision from these three perspectives. I will also touch upon several authors' examinations of parallel processes. FIRST ORNAMENT: SUPERVISEE Countless pieces of research on the effectiveness of analysis have shown time and again that the therapist is not the one who is important for therapeutic change: what is important is the relationship between the therapist and the patient (1). On the other hand, there is a lot less research on what contributes to the efficiency of supervision. Currently available descriptive studies of supervisory processes indicate that the efficiency of supervision probably also depends on the relationship between the supervisor and the supervisee. The results of the Weaks' research in 2002 show that the main conditions for an efficient supervision are the feelings of equality, safety and challenge in the supervision relationship (2). The supervisee's feeling of equality comes from a situation where the supervisor, too, is ready to share the difficulties they encountered in their work and is ready to face the fact that what they are not perfect. Equality in the supervisory relationship is main-tained by the supervisor who shows superiority in knowledge, but not in the attitude towards the supervisee. The feeling of safety is created by confidentiality an...