Convergence, commonality, and context in psychoanalytic supervision

ABSTRACT

What are the binding commonalities that demark and define any and all psychoanalytic supervision perspectives? What do we all do as psychoanalytic supervisors that practically matters? Furthermore, might there be a unifying model that anchors those binding commonalities together into a supervision meaning-making, explanatory framework? In this two-part paper, I take up those questions. In Part I, based on a century-spanning literature review, I identify 50 (non-exhaustive) common Support and Learning factors that appear present across the panoply of psychoanalytic supervision perspectives. Relational, educational, and interventional, these 50 factors reflect the very stuff of which psychoanalytic supervision is made. In Part II, I present and elaborate upon the Contextual Psychoanalytic Supervision Relationship Model (CPSRM) – a theoretically-grounded model that anchors and contextualizes those common Support and Learning factors. Because common factors can be seen as nothing more than atheoretical amalgamation (i.e., lists of desirable characteristics endlessly strung together), the CPSRM is proposed as a theoretically-based antidote. A supervisory extrapolation of Wampold’s contextual psychotherapy relationship model, the CPSRM accentuates relational connection, expectations/goals, and educational action as preeminently supervisee change inducing and learner affecting.

KEYWORDS:

• Supervision
• psychoanalytic
• psychodynamic
• common factors
• contextual model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

C. Edward Watkins

C. Edward Watkins, Jr., Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of North Texas. His primary professional interests focus on psychotherapy supervision and psychoanalytic theory, practice, and research. He is editor of the Handbook of Psychotherapy Supervision (1997) and co-editor (with Derek Milne) of the Wiley International Handbook of Clinical Supervision (2014).