The Problematic Shadow of Super-Vision in Analytic Supervision

Freud made hardly any reference to the topic of supervision. When he did, as for example in his paper The Question of Lay Analysis (1928), he merely acknowledges its existence as a component of psychoanalytic training and, moreover, defines it loosely in terms of inexperienced practitioners having the opportunity to discuss their cases with more experienced practitioners.[1] Indeed he states that the movement from beginner to Master 'must be acquired by practice and an exchange of ideas in the psychoanalytic societies in which young and old members meet together',[2] which, if anything, de-emphasises supervision, and with it the supervisor as knowledge holder, in favour of a more open and group based research agenda which has, at its core, the experience of analytic practice.…