DeBell discusses the purposes and function of supervision, varying methods of dealing with countertransference, when to start supervision, the selection of cases, the special problems of the supervisor's countertransferences, and the therapist's transference to the supervisor and resistance to supervision, methods for studying the supervisory process, and the selection and training of supervisors.

In the controversy over whether the supervisor should teach or treat—in view of the importance of unconscious determinants on the conduct of analysis—he favors the former but advocates 'collaborative analysis' (Blitzsten and Fleming) in which the supervisor reports 'meticulously' on the supervision to the therapist's analyst. He believes this is more effective than relying separately on the teaching and therapeutic functions of supervision and personal psychoanalysis.