Trauma and the “Confusion of Tongues” in Supervision: Interview with Arnold Rachman, PhD

Abstract

Arnold Rachman, PhD, a Ferenczi scholar, discusses his more than 30 years of experience as a supervisor. The power dynamic in supervision that can foster a shaming and even traumatic experience for the supervisee is brought to light. He argues that the supervisee is a mutual partner in supervision, where he/she is both a learner and a teacher.

Keywords:

• analysand
• Ferenczi
• authority
• empathy
• supervision
• supervisor
• supervisee
• trauma
• two-person psychology

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jill Choder-Goldman

Jill Choder-Goldman, LCSW, is the Interview Editor for Psychoanalytic Perspectives, where her most recently published interview was with Adam Phillips. She is a psychoanalyst with a private practice in New York City, where she treats individuals, couples, and groups, and she is a clinical supervisor and advisor for NIP. She devotes a part of her practice to those in the arts, having also had a successful career as a performer for 20 years.

Arnold Rachman, PhD, is FAGPA Faculty, Trauma Studies Program; New York University Postdoctoral in Psychoanalysis; NYC Board Member, The Sandor Ferenczi Center, The New School for Social Research. He is the author of Sandor Ferenczi: The Psychotherapist of Tenderness and Passion (1997); Psychotherapy of Difficult Cases (2003); with S. Klett, Analysis of the Incest Trauma (2015); and with Elizabeth Severn, The Evil Genius of Psychoanalysis (2016).