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In their monumental study for the American Psychoanalytic Association, Bertram Lewin and Helen Ross discovered “on the whole a rather unthinking and accepting attitude on the part of the students” in their supervisory work and that “many teachers refer to their own supervisory work and that of their colleagues as perfunctory.” The idea for both teachers and students seems to be to “roll up the supervisory hours” to meet board requirements. One of the supervising analysts summarized his views about supervision: “What goes on is more frequently meritorious than shocking, but the intrusion of rivalry, paternalism, infantilization, dominance-submission struggles, plain bad temper, etc., is all too often disquieting” (Lewin and Ross, 1962).
Bernfeld (1952) pleaded for the acceptance of a voluntary master-apprentice relationship; he considered the organizers of modern training to be lawmakers who unwittingly generate conformity rather than creativity. Szasz (1958) has expressed similar views, and Searles (1965) has noted that the very designation “supervisor” or “control analyst” tends to have him experienced as a feared or despised superego.