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THEORIES OF PSYCHOANALYTIC SUPERVISION appear to be in a period of renaissance. I tend to approach the topic with more or less the same combination of caution and optimism that characterizes my interest in psychoanalytic theory in general; as an intellectual adventure I relish in the same way I enjoyed taking apart clocks during preadolescence … to see how they worked. But I don't think it is at all necessary to have an explicit theory in order to work effectively. In fact, I suspect that too great a preoccupation with it can interfere with the process of supervision or therapy in the same way that taking apart clocks can become a substitute for full involvement in the business of living.
During a recent analytic session a patient said with an "Alice-In-Wonderland" delivery: "Life is a good example of what goes on in analysis." She was referring to her growing awareness that in her real life she was becoming more able to be fully herself regardless of whom she was with or how one might wish her to be, but that her capacity to feel this freedom in her relationship with me, still felt more real and more anxiety-free than real life. In the same spirit, I would like to suggest that life is also a good example of what goes on in psychoanalytic supervision.
It has been observed (E. Witenberg, personal communication) that one never sees a patient as clearly as during the first few sessions. At that time there is usually a greater quality of objectivity and unbiased clarity about the person that is slowly altered as it is