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In this paper, i address a subset of my experiences as a consultant to other analysts and therapists. Specifically, I discuss my work with clinicians who are engaged in transgressions of boundaries that are serious and potentially harmful to their patients. In such situations, the consultant inevitably assumes certain superego functions in trying to stop a perilous situation from escalating. I wish to stress, however, that in the less extreme and more usual situations, the consultant should optimally avoid a critical or disapproving stance lest it interfere with the consultee's capacity to openly share details of the clinical process.
There is a fundamental paradox in the psychoanalytic training system. For a period of several years, analytic candidates learn the psychoanalytic method through weekly supervision meetings in which they present process notes in painstaking detail to a supervisor who assists them in understanding the intrapsychic and interpersonal processes inherent in the work. In most psychoanalytic institutes, a candidate cannot graduate until he or she has worked in supervision with three or four different supervising analysts. Hence, the analytic identity is forged not in a two-person situation with the patient but in a three-person situation that includes a supervisor.
At some point, the candidate graduates. What ensues can only be described as peculiar. After learning through the regular use of