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BJP 33(2):177-191 (2017) • DOI: 10.1111/bjp.12281

Learning in Psychotherapy Group Supervision: Transcending Complementarity and the Generative Potential of Group Conflict

Authors: Paula Collens PhD, Francie van Hout

Paula Collens PhD

Senior lecturer in psychotherapy at AUT University, Auckland. She is involved in academic leadership, research, teaching, and clinical and academic supervision. Her current research interests are interdisciplinary emerging at the intersection of the fields of psychology, psychotherapy, education and music. Her PhD in psychology in education (UCL) examined the relational dimension of one-to-one tuition in higher music education through a relational psychoanalytic interpretative lens. She has been employed in universities in London and Auckland as a senior lecturer, head of learning and teaching, and psychological consultant for staff, students and organizations. She has developed educational, creative and therapeutic initiatives that foster dialogue and critical thinking on issues of social justice and identities. She is qualified as a psychotherapist (MA in integrative arts psychotherapy) and counselling psychologist (HCPC Reg). Her passion for the arts, creativity and imagination has been interwoven into all aspects of her professional life.

Francie van Hout

UKCP registered psychotherapist and supervisor. She has been employed as a lecturer in London universities, teaching on MA psychodynamic and integrative counselling programmes, MA in integrative arts psychotherapy and BA in psychosocial studies. In NZ she has contributed as a visiting lecturer on a Masters psychotherapy programme at AUT University, Auckland. She holds an MSc in supervision and consultation: psychotherapeutic and organizational approaches (University of Surrey) and a Diploma in psychoanalytic supervision (WPF). Her therapeutic training background is in relational body psychotherapy (Chiron Centre) and EMDR trauma therapy. She has worked as a psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice, universities and voluntary sector organizations in London for the past 20 years. With a commitment to social justice, her clinical and educational practice has focused on addressing the psychosocial effects of inequalities.

Abstract

At the site of interpersonal conflict resides the potential for learning. This paper presents psychodynamic theories, empirical research and a fictional case study of psychotherapy group supervision. Supervision is discussed in terms of teaching and learning, triangular relations, and group and organizational perspectives. We examine the interconnectedness of patterns of distress that emerge within dynamic relational systems at the levels of the macro-social, organizational, group and individual. The concepts of equivalence, parallel process and reflection process provide frameworks for this discussion. We explore the constraints and dynamic influence of the organization upon the supervision relationship and the ethical tensions that construct im/possible positions for the supervisor. The case study tells a fictional story of a supervision group situated in an organizational context - a university psychotherapy education programme. A collapse of the group into complementarity, that is into polarized conflicted positions, proffers a vitalizing opportunity for learning. Through the clinical discussion, we reveal how this is contingent on the group's capacity to think together about the meaning of their struggle and to transcend a binary conflict and achieve ‘the third’.

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