How Do I Assess Progress in Supervision?

In Order to assess progress, one has to have an idea of a starting point. When the clinic director's notes on the patient who will become the chief topic of supervision combines with my initial impression of the personality of the supervisee, such a base line or starting point is established in my mind. Parts of this will remain constant, others will vary or change. Among the constants are that I enjoy supervising as part of the day's work when I am free from the analytical responsibility—not to be directly reassuring or critical. I also enjoy the refreshing aspect of seeing analysis with young eyes, to cast my mind back as easily to the days when I was being supervised and saw analytical patients for the first time, as I can recall my adolescence, including the anxiety and general turmoil of one's emotions and the help or hindrance one experienced, in those days, from persons who were senior to oneself. It is important to mention also the variable aspects which can make supervision stimulating; these are represented by the effects of the supervisee and his patient on my fluctuating views of analytical methods and their efficacy.

Against the background of this personal view I should like to put my criteria of progress in supervision in the form of three questions:

1. Can the trainee make use of supervision? The least one can expect by way of a positive answer is that by listening to his own account of what happened between himself and his patient, he will pull various strands together, create a kind of continuity and become aware of what is lacking. This means recognising his limitations. I regard this as the monologue state of supervision: the trainee has listened to the patient without having responded in a way that he could easily put into words and he is now trying to make me listen to his (usually written) account in a similar way. Sometimes an attempt to render in full four sessions within one supervisory hour fills it up and at this stage I am more or less silence