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Typically, I have had two explicit reasons for seeking supervision: The first, of course, is to deal with subjective countertransference resistances that visit me in the form of unusually intense confusion or dread. And the second is to discharge frustration, as in my responses to some of the more intransigent resistances, so as not to unwittingly contaminate the treatment. But I never recognized, before reading Patricia Bratt's new book, the significance of the fact that both of my reasons for seeking supervision have to do with the patient's needs; I'm always making sure that I'll be in the best condition for them.
In Bratt's new book, Mutual Growth in the Psychotherapeutic Relationship, what I for one seem to have considered unthinkable finds words: that as much as the patient, the practitioner, too, is entitled to, and should expect to, grow stronger and better as the relationship proceeds. This model of “mutual resilience” challenges the taboo implied within the more commonly held idea that a practitioner is not supposed to have their own issues.
Of course, modern psychoanalysts have long acknowledged, even proudly proclaimed, that “emotional communication” requires, a priori, deep knowledge of our own mental apparatus, and that our training is, by definition, a personally transformative experience. But what if a recognition of our own personal