THE SUPERVISORY

JACOB A. ARLOIV,
hf.D.
SITUATION :

HE ROLE OF supervision in the training of psychoanalysts does

T not require any extensive introduction. A great deal has already

been written on the subject and the entire matter is being
examined, studied, and evaluated by the individual institutes and
by the Committee on Psychoanalytic Education of the American
Psychoanalytic Association. There are many unsolved problems
regarding the technique of supervision, the function of super-
vision, the theory of supervision, progression in supervision, etc.
Lewin and Ross (1 1) have recently collected data and evaluations
from 192 training analysts in response to a questionnaire. They
raised scores of questions and many questions are still to be raised.
Supervision as an educational technique is a very complicated
matter. It involves all aspects of the pedagogical interaction. In
some respects supervision differs not at all from the ordinary
tutorial method of teaching. I n other respects it resembles a
clinical conference and at times it takes on the form, however
briefly, of a didactic lecture. This communication recognizes the
importance of all these facets of supervision. This communication,
however, is directed toward one specific aspect of the supervisory
experience. It is concerned with the problem of the theory of
supervision and it is oriented toward the question: “TVhat goes
on in the sessions?” One might be more precise and say that this
paper is oriented toward discussing the essentially tctiiqzte features
of the supervisory experience.
By the essentially unique experience OE supervisory experi-
ence I refer to the interaction between supervisor and therapist.
576
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 SUPERVISION 577

TVhile this relationship resembles the more common types of teach-

er-student or master-apprentice relationship, there are nonetheless
certain aspects which are peculiar to this interaction. Notable
among these is the fact that the candidate is (or has been) in analy-
sis himself. I n addition, his teacher is a trained psychoanalyst
who is trained to listen in a very special manner and who is con-
stantly aware of transference reactions and displaced transference
reactions. T h e supervisor does not hesitate to utilize his knowledge
of unconscious mental processes. H e knows that the student tells
a great deal more than is contained in the record, and that the
student knows a great deal more than he can possibly tell in one
session. As a subcommentary on the displaced transference aspect
of this relationship, one has to consider the influence of the organ-
ized institute and its special subcommittees. T h e supervisor is a
representative of the institute, and beyond that, the institute and
its committees help form the frame of reference in which the inter-
action between the therapist and the supervisor takes place. Against
this background, what is essentially unique in the supervisory
situation is the opportunity to observe, all at the same time, a
group of simultaneous interactions; the interaction between patient
and therapist, between therapist and supervisor, and finally the
subtle effect of the organizational relationship to the institute. It
is the intention of this paper to examine these interactions from
the psychoanalytic point of view.
T h e question “TVhat goes on in the session?” is not raised in
any normative sense, that is, to seek out the standards by which
individual supervisors judge supervision from the point of view of
their own philosophy of education; nor is this question posed in
order to get information concerning the different practices in use
in supervision. TVhat is proposed instead is to examine the nature
of the supervisory experience from the psychoanalytic point of
view.
Supervision is a special type of learning process based upon
the joint examination of the record of a therapeiitic interaction
between a patient and his therapist. Like any learning process, its
possibilities and limitations are to a very large measure determined
by the nature of the situation itself. T h e supervisory situation
may be compared and contrasted with the analytic situation as an

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578 JACOB A. ARLOW

interaction between therapist and supervisor. Each individual

tacitly assumes a role and a set of relations toward the other
predicated on the common constructive motivation of assisting the
student in becoming proficient in the practice of psychoanalysis.
This is the essential bond which unites {herapist and supervisor.
Other elements enter realistically or neurotically to color or
influence this relationship, but these elements are not fundamental
to the situation. One of the Lewin-Ross respondents, for instance,
writes, i n a somewhat rueful vein: “As a learning method, super-
vision is excellent, but of course, it is subject to the virtues and
the evils of all personal relations. What goes on [in supervision]
is more frequently meritorious than shocking, but the intrusion
of rivalry, paternalism, infantilization, dominance-submission strug-
gles, plain ill temper, etc., is all too often disquieting.” One could
shrug off this observation by quoting to the respondent his own
words concerning the virtues and evils of all personal relations,
and perhaps on a note of cynicism one could add: “That’s life.”
As psychoanalysts we cannot do so. We feel that in psychoanalysis
we have an instrument which gives us an additional and, as we
think, a more scientific insight into personal relations. Accord-
ingly what I propose is that we examine the supervisory experience
in a psychoanalytic way.
Such an approach suggests itself quite naturally from the work
we all do, and also from the type of intellectual and professional
discipline which we have all experienced. Nevertheless, I must
say that an awareness of the dynamic interplay in the supervisory
situation grew in me only slowly as I accumulated more experi-
ence, and every once in a while, some striking incident with a
student-therapist elucidated in a dramatic and oft-times surprising
manner certain principles of the supervisory situation.
To introduce the thesis which I will develop, let me cite two
illustrations from my experience as a supervisor. These experiences
are by no means unique, and I am certain that every supervisor
has many such occurrences to report. Both these experiences have
this element in common: they served to demonstrate in a clear-cut
fashion how, during the supervisory session, the therapist, in pre-
senting the material, unconsciously shifted his role from reporting
the data of his experience with the patient to “experiencing” the

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 SUPERVISION 579

experience of the patient. That is to say, during the supervisory

session, one could see evidence of a transient identification of the
student with his patient. (This is a very broad way of stating what
I mean. T h e qualifications and implications of this observation
will be taken u p in detail subsequently.) These same incidents con-
currently directed my attention to my own modzrs operundi during
supervision. They made me realize how and to what I was respond-
ing, in the presentation of the therapist. I may add in regard to
these clinical excerpts that neither of these therapists at the time
of supervision was a student at an institute. They were both gradu-
ates and both were at the time in personal analysis.
T h e first therapist was presenting material from his work with
a young married woman who had been in treatment for almost’a
year and a half. Her problems included marital discord, frigidity,
and recurrent periods of nonpsychotic depression. Despite her re-
current depressive moods the patient was very alert intellectually
and, according to the therapist’s report, she spoke in an interesting
and animated way. T h e therapist himself was a very careful, some-
what inhibited, meticulous, and objective observer. His manner
was judicious and by no means excessively animated.
At this session the therapist was reporting a very interesting
dream which had been the subject of several days of analytic work.
It was a dream of comprehensive scope. Occurring premenstrually,
it contained a great deal of material concerning the patient’s re-
pudiation of her femininity, the very conflict which was connected
with her problems. T h e therapist had little to say about one of
the elements in the dream, an element which had aroused my
curiosity. This element was a representation of a blank screen.
TVhile I was thinking of this blank screen, I became aware of a
sudden change in the way the therapist presented his patient’s
productions. I noted that the therapist’s speech had become rapid
to the point of breathlessness; his voice had become intensely
animated; his sentences were short and delivered in a clipped, con-
cise fashion. I thought to myself: “Dr. X is kind of hypomanic
today.” Almost immediately the element of the dream, which had
aroused my interest, the blank screen, came to mind. ’CVhen the
therapist paused for a moment to catch his breath, I seized the
opportunity to ask him a number of questions. Had he been aware

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580 JACOB A. ARLOW

of his suddenly hurried manner of presentation? H e had not until

I began to ask my question. Did he have any thoughts about this?
I could hardly finish asking the question when the therapist vol-
unteered: “This was exactly the way my p3tient had been speaking
to me.” “I realize now,” he added spontaneously, “she was hypo-
manic.” T h e patient had had a transient hypomania which had
only in part eluded the therapist, but which he had nonetheless
placed in the record by acting out an identification with the
patient. TVhat he had failed to remember, he had repeated. JVhat
he had failed to report in words, he had transmitted in action. T h e
phenomenon of transient identification with the patient, which
is so important in the conduct of analysis, it struck me, is also
important in the supervisory experience.
T h e second illustration is somewhat different in quality, but
the principle is the same. This material comes from a student’s
report of a dream of a young male, homosexual, alcoholic patient.
It was characteristic of the patient‘s behavior to ingratiate him-
self in a submissive way to strong men whom he admired and
whose prowess he wished to grasp for himself during the act of
fellatio. H e corresponded to a type of homosexual described by
Nunberg (IZ), i.e., the type of individual who submits his penis
to be sucked but who in fantasy identifies himself with a sucker
in the act of castrating a powerful man. Conflict over these wishes
had resulted in many crippling inhibitions. T h e mechanism
underlying the patient’s perversion became understandable i n a
dream which the therapist reported during a supervisory session.
I n this dream the patient is lying on a couch. H e turns around
to offer the therapist a cigarette, etc. At this point in the super-
visory session the therapist reached for a pack of cigarettes, took
one for himself and although he knew very well that I do not
smoke, extended the pack to me and asked: “Do you want a
cigarette?”
T h e therapist had been having difficulty with this particular
dream and the reasons for his difficulty were made apparent by this
striking bit of action during the supervisory session. H e had iden-
tified himself with his patient at that moment and through this
identification demonstrated a very probable source oE counter-
transference difficulty, namely, the possibility that he and the

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 SUPERVISION 58 1

patient had similar problems. (This was subsequently confirmed

in other ways which are not pertinent to this discussion.) There
are many ways by which evidence of countertransference difficulty
may be detected during supervision. TVhat I wish to emphasize
in this illustration is the phenomenon of identification with the
patient during the process of reporting the record of the thera-
peutic transaction. (As indicated by the earlier example, such an
identification does not necessarily signify countertransference
difficulty.)
Further observation relates to the role of the supervisor. I
observed that the therapist was quite unconscious of this trans-
parent mimicking of his patient’s behavior in the dream. At that
moment I found myself thinking: “Hanns Sachs has written of
daydreams in common. Here is an example of a night dream
in common.” I became aware of the fact that, as in the first illus-
tration, the therapist, during the course of the supervisory session,
had shifted his role. He changed over from being the reporting
therapist to identifying with the experiencing patient. I found
myself observing, not only the fact that the therapist had shifted
his role, but the particular moment at which this occurred. It
occurred at a time and in a context where the material of the
patient’s productions had made the underlying castrative wish
very clear. At the point where the therapist should have introduced
an interpretation, he responded with an identification. T h e change
in role from reporting to experiencing empathically, can be com-
pared to the interplay of id impulse and ego defense as observed
in the therapy of an individual patient.
These and similar experiences impressed the following points
upon me:
1. From the dynamic point of view, one may observe an
analogy between the supervisory situation and the analytic situa-
tion.
2. T h e importance of shifting dominance of certain functions
in the ego is as significant in the superGisory situation as it is in the
analytic situation. In therapy, the patient oscillates between experi-
encing and reporting, while the therapist oscillates between identi-
fying with the patient and observing him. During supervision the
therapist recapitulates this oscillation of roles.

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582 JACOB A. ARLOIV

3. T h e failure of the therapist to give a timely interpreta-

tion may be compared sometimes to the resistances which the
patient experiences during treatment. It is important to observe,
not only what the therapist does or fails to do in the conduct of
the analysis, but also the particular context in which he intervenes,
i.e., whether he interprets, distracts, or joins the patient in the
process of repressing derivatives of id impules.
4. A careful scrutiny of these phenomena may demonstrate
how therapist and patient may share certain fantasy wishes in com-
mon. Such a situation, as is well known, is one of the principal
causes of the so-called “blind spot.”
5. The specific type of inexact interpretation or “defensive”
interpretation which the therapist introduces may be suggested to
him by the patient, or it may be borrowed by the therapist directly
from the patient. Here one observes a community of resistance or
of defense mechanisms. I n the calm atmosphere of the supervisory
session these defensive maneuvers of the therapist reveal them-
selves as inexorably as does the resistance which the patient
employs during treatment.
These observations and experiences during supervision are
not new. They are presented at this point as an introduction to
the theory of supervision. I n other words, what inferences may be
drawn from these observations?
I n order to avoid misunderstanding, I would like to make
clear that the examples which have just been given are, in my
experience, neither bizarre nor do they necessarily indicate that
the therapist has a serious countertransference problem. These
examples were presented because they demonstrate i n unequivocal
terms how the therapist transiently identifies himself with his
patient. I n my conduct of supervision, I take pains to observe this
identification, particularly in its relationship to the timing of
interpretations given by the therapist. Only rarely do I find it
necessary to make the therapist aware of this identification. It
would be erroneous to conclude from the examples cited above
that the main function of the supervisor is to consider the thera-
pist’s countertransference and to deal with it during supervision
in an analytic way.
T h e comparison between the supervisory situation and the

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 SUPERVISION 583

analytic situation has been alluded to frequently in the literature.

In the deliberations which led to the Rainbow Report (13), we
read a comment from a representative of the TVestern New Eng-
land Psychoanalytic Institute concerning “the complex variability
and the many intangibles of the supervisory situation. T h e super-
vision of a control case may be described as a psyclzoanalysis of a
psychoanalysis.” (Please note that the idea of supervision as the
psychoanalysis of a psychoanalyst is assiduously avoided. This may
be a fine distinction, but it is a very important one, as I have just
indicated.) T h e speaker does not continue with any further dis-
cussion of the metapsychological implications of this very pregnant
statement, but certain of the respondents quoted in the Lewin-Ross
report on supervision (1 1) reveal that during sessions with students
they function according to similar principles. One respondent
writes: “I listen to the reported material as I do to that presented
by a patient. I present my reaction to the student for his considera-
tion. If I am correct he recalls confirmatory material, or perhaps
something he has forgotten to record, etc.” This respondent is
clearly thinking of his communication to the student i n terms of
an interpretation to a patient, and he assesses the correctness of
his pedagogical intervention by the same time-honored criteria
which we use to evaluate the validity of a therapeutic intervention,
namely, is the patient (in this case the student) able to bring addi-
tional confirmatory material? O r does the intervention undo an
amnesia? Do we suddenly come into possession of some material
which has been forgotten?
Another respondent replies that he has no theory of super-
vision, “but I have an awareness of what goes on in my mind. I n
the beginning, when I don’t myself understand the case, I will ask
for a lot of factual information . . . later when I understand the
case better, things are different. When a candidate reports properly
he lets me become more and more a co-analyst and from there on
my role is not too difficult and need not be spelled out.” Two
things stand out very clearly in this very interesting comment:
First, note how the supervisor examines what goes on in his
own mind. H e refers to an examination of those functions which
Isakower has called the analyzing instrument. I n doing so the
supervisor is following in the educational, supervisory situation

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584 TACOB A. ARLOW

the advice which Freud gave for the therapeutic, analytic situation,
namely, the analyst must be aware of what goes on in his own mind
because the correct interpretation appears in consciousness in the
form of an association.
Second, this respondent refers to the time when the candidate
reports freely and lets him become more and more a co-analyst.
By “properly” we understand, I am sure, a quality of reporting
which is open and honest, which reveals no intention to conceal
the details of the vicissitudes of the therapeutic interaction. By
analogy to the analytic situation we may say that at this point the
respondent sees his student as in a phase of “lessened resistance.”
From there the supervisor’s role in the supervision of the candi-
date (as in the therapy of a patient) is a role which is not too dif-
ficult and need not be spelled out.
I n discussing supervision as a learning process, DeBell (2)
states that supervision “should provide the student with the oppor-
tunity to observe in reflection his own conduct of an analysis and
thereby readjust and refine his observing instrument. T h e same
opportunity of self-observation, assisted by the supervisor, should
permit the student to increase his understanding of the effect of his
technical interventions and hence his skill at their use.”
Considerations of discretion often make it most difficult to
present detailed data concerning supervision in published reports.
Every supervising analyst can quickly draw from his experience
some illustration of the thesis that a therapist, for whatever reasons,
may give an interpretation to a patient, an interpretation which on
closer examination can be shown to have been suggested to him
by the patient. For example, one student reported that she was
embarrassed when her stomach gave an exceptionally loud gurgle
during a therapeutic session. T h e patient could not help hearing
this noise. H e defended himself from the embarrassment by dis-
placing his sense of disgust away from the analyst’s body onto other
situations. Several times during the course of that session the
therapist found herself unwittingly giving interpretations or mak-
ing statements which consistently diverted the patient’s stream of
thought away from the therapist and onto some other situation.
Sometimes a therapist may “borrow” a defensive pattern of
acting out, or he may act out some wish-fulfilling fantasy in imita-

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 SUPERVISION 585

tion of his patient. Thus, for example, another student who had
failed to sense the significance of the patient’s barging into his
office, unannounced, as representing an acting out of the patient’s
voyeuristic impulses, imitated the patient’s behavior in connection
with the supervisor. On the same day which the student reported
the patient’s acting out just cited, he did the following: Having
left a personal item behind in the analyst’s office, he barged in
without knocking after the supervisor had already begun the
therapeutic session with his patient. This example, as well as the
one immediately preceding it, both have the following in common:
they demonstrate how the therapist’s defensive interpretation or
acting out may be suggested to him by the patient.
T h e counterpart of the concept of daydreams in common (the
fantasy shared by the patient and the therapist) is to be found in .
the community of defense-the utilization of a common defense
or resistance by both patient and therapist. In other words, there
are two aspects to the process of empathy-the id aspect, and the
ego aspect. T h e therapist may unconsciously identify with the
patient because the therapist may share with the patient a common
id wish. I n addition, the therapist may identify with the patient
by sharing with him a common method of warding off anxieties.
T h e supervisor, in his instruction of the therapist, operates from
the point of view of the ego. H e places before the observing por-
tion of the therapist’s ego the evidence of the phenomena obtained
from the record, the interplay between the patient’s productions
and the therapist’s interventions. T h e elements which lead to a
sense of conviction in the therapist of the correctness of the super-
visor’s observations are similar to the elements responsible for the
patient accepting an interpretation during therapy. This will be
discussed presently.
It is time now to examine the elements common to all the
observations which I have quoted and to try to place them in the
perspective of psychoanalytic theory. Freud (4) spoke of calm
self-observation by the patient as an essential condition for free
association in psychoanalysis. For the therapist he recommended
the attitude of gently hovering over the material, being free to
listen and to observe the patient, while at the same time being
open to the perception of his inner mental processes. I n a series

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586 TACOB A. ARLOW

of papers on technique and on the resolution of the transference

Sterba (15) commented on the activities of the patient and the
therapist in more precise terms. I n regard to the activity of the
patient he described how during analytic therapy there occurs a
split or a disassociation within the ego which permits one part of
the ego to stand off and function as an observer of the neurotic
struggle being waged between the rest of the ego and the id.' T h e
dominant ego functioning oscillates between experiencing and
self-observation.
Sterba (15) demonstrated further how an analogous split takes
place among the functions of the ego of the analyst during analytic
work. T h e analyst is constantly shifting roles. At times he is pre-
dominantly the observer, at other times he becomes a participant
in the patient's emotional experience. After this brush with em-
pathy he returns again to the position of observer, this time, how-
ever, observing both the patient and his own inner processes.
These basic formulations have been elaborated by many psy-
choanalytic observers in connection with various problems of tech-
nique and training. Only two of the contributions will be discussed
at this point because they are most pertinent to my subject. These
are the contributions of Greenson (5) and Beres (1). Greenson
used these ideas as a point of departure to study empathy, the
empathy of the therapist, the vicissitudes of empathy, and the
psychopathology of empathy. I t is the task of the supervisor, he
demonstrates, to observe the vicissitudes and the pathology of the
capacity to empathize. This is done by studying the variations and
the disturbances of these functions as the therapist oscillates be-
tween the roles of observer and participant. Greenson stresses that
he uses the 'term observer to apply to the shifting of roles on the
part o€ the therapist, the shifting of roles between sharing the
emotional impact of the patient's experience (which he calls
empathy) as opposed to the other functions and responsibilities o€
a therapist which he groups under the heading of observing.
1In his earlier work Sterba identified this observing activity as part of the
superego. Later, however, he regarded the observing portion as one function of
the ego, separated for the time being from the struggle going on among the
rest of the ego, the id, and the superego. Other authors, e.g., Strachey (16) empha-
size the identification with the analyst which takes place during the process of
self-obsenation.

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 SUPERVISION 587

T o these observations it seems necessary to add the intra-

psychic experience of empathy which the supervisor has during his
work. T h e supervisor empathizes (identifies) with both the thera-
pist and the patient during the supervisory session. T h e process by
which the supervisor makes his specific contribution to the super-
visory situation depends upon a similar oscillation of roles. T h e
supervisor observes, participates, and observes once again. To re-
vert to the figure of speech quoted from the Rainbow Report, a
supervisor acts like the analyst in the “psychoanalysis of a psycho-
analysis.” T h e manner and the timing of the observations which
the supervisor has to make to the candidate constitute his tech-
nical pedagogical skill. These observations are analogous to, but
not identical with, interpretations given in the analytic situation.
From this point on, the difference between the analytic situation
and the supervisory situation becomes more marked. T h e super-
visor’s interventions or observations are limited in scope. They
apply only to the surface phenomena. They can reach only approx-
imately toward the unconscious motivation of the candidate, and
although the candidate’s wish to emulate the supervisor is a very
powerful factor in the supervisor-candidate relationship, the super-
visor’s interventions cannot be considered the equivalent of a
therapist’s interpretation. T h e former are limited in their dynamic
efforts when compared to analytic interpretations. One can never
escape the reality of the situation, namely, that supervision is
essentially and fundamentally a teaching experience.
It is a common experience to see how the candidate in super-
vision finds it difficult to decide which role to play, that is, whether
he should interpret on the side of the ego or whether he should
interpret on the side of the id; whether he should exercise measures
to “alert” or to “reassure” the patient. Much of this dilemma may
be accounted for in terms of the student’s lack of experience.
Sometimes, however (and this is not at all uncommon), a per-
sistent disturbance in deciding which side of the conflict to inter-
pret may be seen in the student under supervision. T h e supervisory
situation creates the framework in which these difficulties can be
understood. I t should be emphasized that such difficulties are part
of the normal learning experience and should not in themselves be

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588 TACOB A. ARLOW

regarded as pathological or as indicative of countertransference

difficulties.
T h e ability of the supervisor to’understand these disturbances
in technical orientation is enhanced by the fact that the record
which the therapist presents to the supervisor has been edited
unconsciously. This view is in opposition to certain suggestions
advanced concerning taping interviews or utilizing verbatim
transcripts. T h e argument given in support of the complete
transcript states that we know very little about what actually takes
place during therapeutic sessions if we depend upon the incom-
plete record presented by the student (10). The supervisory situa-
tion, however, is so structured as to invite a dynamic (one might
even say, artistic) account of the interaction between the therapist
and the patient. The supervisory situation discourages the court-
room type of transcript. This type of reporting resembles the
voluminously detailed reports of anxious students. Such reports
tend to discourage alertness on the part of the supervisor and are
usually motivated by the defensive needs of the therapist. T h e
argument supporting taping of therapeutic records for supervision
does not render full justice to the dynamic creative aspects of the
supervisory experience. As mentioned earlier, the record of the
therapeutic interaction has been edited unconsciously. T h e thera-
pist tells us much more than he himself knows. The gaps in the
record lend an air of ambiguity to the therapist’s report. This
element of ambiguity has a function in the supervisory experience
which is similar to the role of ambiguity in the aesthetic experi-
ence (9). It provides an opportunity for the supervisor to fill in the
gaps with his own understanding of the patient, of the therapist,
and of the interaction between the two of them. T o revert to the
respondent who spoke of the time when his candidate reported
“properly”-that is, with a minimum of resistance-such a happy
state would seem to indicate, as indeed Grotjahn (6) and others
have suggested, that supervision is no longer necessary or contrari-
wise, that something very wrong is afoot.*. In the supervisory
situation, moreover, the supervisor is in a position to observe the
ZIn regard to this Kohut (8) commented that the supervisor must have in
mind some model of the proper analytic process and that he judges the therapist’s
conduct of the analysis by ascertaining the degree of deviation from the model.

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 SUPERVISION 589

precise moment and context i n which the therapist departs from

the “ideal” model. A free and relaxed atmosphere and an accept-
ing, judiciously critical attitude on the part of the supervisor make
it possible for a dynamically and affectively accurate record of
the therapeutic interaction to emerge.
Beres (1) utilized the concept of dissociation of functions of
the ego in order to make a comparison between the creative and
the analytic process. H e was interested in delineating what it is
which establishes in the patient a sense of conviction concerning
the validity of the analysis in general and of interpretations in
particular. Beres compared the experience of psychoanalysis with
the creative process in artists. I n both the creative process and
in therapeutic psychoanalysis a process of taming the chaos of the
id derivatives, of bringing them under the mastery of the ego is
necessary. In order to do so, the patient, like the artist, must be
able to contemplate his experiences from the distance. TVithout
this distance there is no mastery of the instinctual impulses; there
is only a momentary relief through discharge of energies. Beres
says: “There is not the insight, the imaginative awareness which
constitutes the true content of the aesthetic experience or of the
analytic revelation.” H e notes that TVordsworth recognized that
there is more to poetic experience than the recollection of emotion.
T h e emotion has to be re-created and relived. He quotes TVords-
worth: “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.
It takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility; the
emotion is contemplated, till, by a species of recollection, the
tranquility gradually disappears and that emotion, kindred to
that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually
produced and does itself actually exist in the mind.” I t is [Link]
point that the work of the poet begins to take form. Beres adds:
“So too, in psychoanalysis. T h e calm self-observation must be
followed by an emotional experience, the working-tlirough process.
But what the artist can do with his own creative genius, the
analysand can accomplish only with the help of the analyst i n a
mutual communicative experience.”
These very apposite remarks of Beres concerning the analytic
situation may be applied with profit to the supervisory situation.
During the supervisory session, the student-therapist is afforded

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590 JACOB A. ARLOIV

an opportunity to relive in tranquility those empathic emotional

experiences which took place within him during his work with the
patient. He can do this, moreover, in a setting which makes it
possible for him to place some distance between himself and these
experiences. TVhile he is presenting the material of the case to
the supervisor, the student is able to sense something of the original
emotions once again, but this time in a controlled environment
with “diluted dosage” and in the presence of the supervisor. T h e
supervisor is an audience of one who shares i n this experience
of communication. H e assists the therapist in objectifying his
affects and fantasies. T h e complete experience serves to integrate
the total interaction between the student and the therapist i n a
constructive, ego-syntonic fashion. T h e supervisor discharges for
the student-therapist many of the functions which Freud (3) and
Sachs (14) said the audience serves for the artist. I n the psycho-
analytic situation the tolerance of id derivatives is effected through
transference, through identification with the analyst, and through
changes in the superego. Strachey (16) is of the opinion that the
major cause of the mitigation of the neurotic conflict may be
traced to the shifting balance between the various functions of
the psyche made possible by an alteration of the superego. This
modification, he says, takes place through an unconscious iden-
tification with the superego functioning of the therapist. A similar
set of forces operates in the supervisory situation.
One of the principal difficulties facing the student-therapist
stems from conflicts concerning his empathic response to the
patient. H e is able to master these conflicts through his personal
analysis plus the added effects of the supervisory experience. I n the
supervisory situation, problems concerning the therapist’s ability
to tolerate his empathic response to the patient are brought out
into the open. Part of this developing ability results from an iden-
tification with the supervisor and by changes or corrections of the
distortions of the image of the professional ego ideal: T h e most
effective influence, pedagogically, in the supervisory situation
probably is the identification with the supervisor.
T h e supervisory session is an experi,ence of confrontation with
reality; it serves to dispel certain unrealistic, neurotically distorted
notions concerning the nature of analysis as well as the nature

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 SUPERVISION 59 1

of the psychoanalytic situation. In this respect the supervisory

situation may be compared to a kind of working-through experi-
ence in which neurotic reactions to the role of therapist and to the
process of empathy may be observed and studied phenomenologi-
cally. Of course, the true working through of these conflicts and
the attainment of insights into such problems is possible only in the
analytic situation. T h e genetic aspects of the conflict and its uncon-
scious determinants are properly the realm of the personal analysis.
T h e supervisory situation is a part of reality and must be treated
as such. Beyond confrontation with reality, the imparting of in-
formation and the understanding which comes from experience,
the supervisory situation is not an appropriate agency for effecting
the resolution of unconscious conflicts. It may delineate very
sharply those aspects of the interaction between the patient and
the student-therapist, but it is too fluid a medium from which to
derive reliable knowledge about the conflicts which may inhibit
a particular therapist in his work. An attempt to make interpreta-
tions of this type in the supervisory context might be compared to
giving an interpretation to a patient without any knowledge of the
unconscious and genetic factors in the disturbance.

Conclusions

I have tried to sketch the essential features which pertain to the

special and unique interactions in the supervisory process. An
attempt has been made to understand these features in terms of
psychoanalytic theory. Only a small area, but an important one,
of the total supervisory situation is discussed here. Special emphasis
has been placed on two sets of relationships, the relationship
between patient and therapist, and the relationship between thera-
pist and supervisor.
Experiences in supervision demonstrate the same type of dis-
sociation of functions which has been described in connection
with the ego of the patient during therapy and for the therapist
in practice. This dissociation may be observed taking place in
both therapist and supervisor during the supervisory experience.
From this point of view certain analogies can be made between the
ego process during therapy and during the supervisory situation.

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592 JACOB A. ARLOW

Certain inferences can be drawn concerning the learning experi-

ence i n supervision. T h e supervisor is in a specially favorable
position to study the oscillation and the functioning of empathy
and identification i n the therapist as he reports during the super-
visory session. Disturbances of the free and proper mobility of
these functions can be studied in context in a manner which is
similar to, but which is not identical with, what goes on during
therapy.
T h e reporting therapist may be observed to change his role
unconsciously while reporting to his supervisor. This is a normal
and essential process in reporting, and sometimes it serves the
function of introducing into the record, through action, material
which may fail to appear in the record verbally. I n this work the
supervisor unconsciously measures the student’s activities against
some model and makes judgments concerning unusual deviations
from the ideal mode of operation. Deviations may occur for many
reasons. Such deviations are part of the normal learning experi-
ence. Confronting the student with such deviations in his inter-
action with the patient is the specific area where the supervisor
makes his unique contribution.
I n a supervisory situation, the supervisor has an opportunity
to share with the therapist transient identification with various
aspects of the patient’s mental functioning. It enables the super-
visor to understand by sharing the therapist’s sense of empathy
with the patient. Perhaps the commonest cause of the so-called
“blind spot” is conflict over sharing a fantasy wish in common
with the patient. This vicarious gratification of id wishes is only
one of the many attractions to identification with the patient. Dur-
ing the supervision, the therapist may reveal how he borrows
defenses and resistances from the patient in order to fend off his
own anxieties associated with the material which the patient
presents. Such identification with the patient naturally influences
the nature and the timing of interpretation. Thus in supervision,
one may observe that in the therapeutic interaction there is the
possibility for a community of resistance as well as a community
of fantasy wishes. It is of particular importance for the supervisor
to observe these phenomena in relation to the timing of inter-
ventions.

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 SUPERVISION 593

As a learning process the supervisory situation may be com-

pared to artistic creation and to analytic therapy. During super-
vision, the therapist is given the opportunity to re-examine his
empathy and his interaction with the patient from a distance. I n
addition to this, the therapist re-experiences in controlled and
mitigated form the emotional impact which his patient has had
upon him. H e relives these emotional experiences in a circum-
scribed setting with his supervisor, who acts in the role of assistant,
teacher, and audience. T h e supervisor enables the therapist to
objectify his affects and reactions. T h e supervisor shares in the
communication. I n this fashion a creative experience emerges
which facilitates the organization and integration of the chaotic
emotional experiences of the treatment sessions.
I n the supervisory situation, only the surface of the therapist’s
reaction to his patient is laid bare. Because it lacks depth and
genetic dimension, supervision does not lend itself to be used for
real structural change in the therapist. Supervision is a part of
reality, and it cannot accomplish per se that which the personal
analysis may set in force by way of broadening insights and stimu-
lating receptivity to new self-understanding.

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Submitted April 1, 1963
120 West 59 Street
New York 19, N.Y.

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