The supervisory experience: An object relations perspective.

Abstract

This article presents a theoretical framework for understanding important aspects of the supervisory process, one that seems especially applicable to supervisees in their early years of training as psychodynamic therapists. It employs several concepts drawn from Winnicott’s view of the psychotherapeutic relationship, based on the metaphor of the caregiving relationship between mother and infant.

Becoming a Community Clinical Psychologist: Integration of Community and Clinical Practices in Psychologists' Training

“…All students of course also bring to the training their own psychological issues, their strengths and weaknesses which will also determine their unique experience of the work, the student group and the training institution. During their training these individual characteristics and experiences interact with the often painful material brought by the clients with whom they work (Jarmon. 1990).…”

Psychotherapy supervision in small leader-led groups

“…Parallel process is a phenomenon in which the dynamics between therapist and client are unconsciously reenacted between therapist and supervisor (Eckstein & Wallerstein, 1963;Jarmon, 1990). Just as in an individual supervision hour the supervisor and the student can unconsciously replay the dynamics between the student and the patient, a supervision group can reflect the treatment dynamics of the case under consideration.…”

“…The group contract provides structure, defines the boundaries, and lays the foundation for a safe group environment. Firm contracts help establish a safe holding environment, which promotes emotional growth and prevents the emergence of a false (therapist) self (Jarmon, 1990).…”

Relational supervision: Drawing on cognitive‐analytic frameworks

“…One of the central aims of CAT is to develop the capacity for conscious reflection on experience, known as ‘the eye which becomes an ‘I’’ (Ryle & Kerr, 2002, p. 36). In psychoanalytic terms, the accomplishment of the ‘third’ position, strengthened by the father but preceding it ( Jarmon, 1990), is an important developmental milestone for the child, which makes possible her capacity to see herself from the outside and to see herself in relation to others, without being identified with either, creating a ‘three‐term relationship out of a two‐term one’ (Padel, 1985). The supervisor takes up this ‘third’ position in relation to the therapist–patient dyad.…”