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“The situation between the supervisor and the student is analogous to that between the supervisee and the patient.” So writes Spotnitz (1976, p. 217). Emotions aroused in the supervisor are key to understanding the dilemmas supervisees face with their patients. Narcisistic patients induce primitive feelings in their analyst and attempt to recreate past object relationships in the transference. The same process occurs in supervision. This paper will highlight strategies for dealing with this process, identified as projective identification.
A few years ago, one female supervisee, an unusually bright and gifted clinician with a flourishing practice, was going through a particularly difficult period with a number of female patients, each of whom was constantly criticizing her and complaining bitterly that not only was she not making progress, but her life had gotten worse. My supervisee was being made to feel inadequate and flawed, which only served to enrage her. She became paralyzed in her thinking and ability to function, out of fear that she would lose control and kill her patients. At the same time she felt an urgent pressure to do something to relieve the pain and suffering of her patients.
In supervisory sessions, as I attempted to help her analyze her patients rather than “do something” for them, I was told, “Don't explore with me; just tell me what to do. “My efforts to explore were met with pain, anguish, and anger. If I suggested an intervention, she claimed it would only meet with more rage from her patients—rage that had become intolerable. The more criticized she felt by her