Listening to and Sharing of Self in Psychoanalytic Supervision: The Supervisor's Self Perspective.
Just as the analyst's self perspective is critical to effective analytic process, the supervisor's self perspective is accordingly critical to effective supervision process. But the supervisor's self perspective has received virtually no attention as a listening/experiencing perspective in the psychoanalytic supervision literature. In this paper, the author defines the supervisor's self perspective and considers five ways by which it contributes to an effective supervisory process: (1) sharing one's own impressions of/reactions to patients; (2) sharing personal disclosures about the supervisee patient relationship; (3) sharing personal disclosures about the supervisee as a developing analytic therapist; (4) sharing personal disclosures about the supervisor supervisee relationship; and (5) using one's own self reflection as a check and balance for supervisory action. The supervisor's self perspective provides the missing supervisory voice in the triadic complement of subject other self, has the potential to be eminently educative across the treatment/supervision dyads, and serves as a prototype for the supervisee's own development and use of analytic (or analyst) self perspective.
Psychoanalytic review