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One of the distinctive elements of psychoanalytic psychotherapy is how we receive and transmit knowledge, through personal analysis and supervision. Theory is important but comes second. Supervision holds a vital role for trainees and qualified psychoanalytic clinicians, but it remains surprisingly unexplored. This omission goes back to Freud, as Thomas Ogden (2005) pointed out:
While Freud discussed the analytic relationship in elaborate detail, curiously, so far as I have been able to determine, there is not a single reference in the Standard Edition to supervision or to the supervisory relationship (with the exception of his work with Little Hans's father) (1909).
So, I welcome the collection ‘Supervision in a changing world’, co-edited by child psychotherapists Deirdre Dowling and Julie Kitchener, the newest addition to the ‘Independent Psychoanalytic Approaches’ series. This book will resonate with clinicians already immersed in supervision relationships, who will learn from the diverse angles it takes; but I hope it will also appeal to professionals from other fields who are considering supervision to deepen their skills. ‘Supervision in a changing world’ shows them what it is all about: the nature of psychoanalytic supervision, the settings where it is useful, and the challenges it brings.
We become psychotherapists in the context of relationships within which we (hopefully) change, over time. Ogden (2005) described supervision as the way psychoanalytic knowledge is ‘passed from one generation of psychoanalysts to the next’; it is how we establish and refine a psychoanalytic attitude (Watkins, 2013). In
fact, I think all meaningful development (through parenthood, teaching, friendship) involves relationships as a central element … though in our current landscape of parenting classes, tools, strategies and data-based teaching manuals, this is often forgotten. The way I picture supervision is as a kind of relay race, one generation passing on the baton to the