Learning Process in Psychoanalytic Supervision: Complexities and Challenges: Paul A. Dewald, M.D. with a contribution by Mary M. Dick, M.D.  International Universities Press, Madison, Connecticut, 1987.  489 pages.

Dr. Dewald's book is an admirable attempt to deal with the complexities and challenges of the supervisory situation. The author is candid in sharing his approach to supervising a psychoanalytic candidate with her first analytic case. In his synthesis and summary he refers to the importance of a “good fit” between supervisor and supervisee.

It is indeed lucky in daily life as well as in supervision to have a collaborative resonance between the participating individuals. But this potentially egalitarian model does not conform with the author's initial definition of psychoanalytic supervision “as a form of master—apprentice education, in which the expert seeks to transmit to the novice the understanding and abilities required for the task at hand.” At the end of the book, however, Dr. Dewald modifies this point of view in making it clear “that the candidate will select only those aspects of the supervisor's model that fit with and subserve the candidate's own learning and personality.” He goes on to emphasize the need for tolerance in the supervisor for the candidate's independence and freedom not to accept some of the expert's suggestions. In my opinion it raises the question whether supervisory suggestions or interpretation are as significant as we tend to believe. Akin to the analytic process, the true or false comments by the analyst are not the cutting of the Gordian knot. What matters most is the interactional, emotional support between patient and analyst, and candidate centering on clinical issues rather than predominantly on theoretical precepts.

There is a great deal of material in this book that this reviewer appreciates and