How to Supervise Without Doing Harm: Comments on Psychoanalytic Supervision

There is told the story of a princely scholar who binds himself and his chosen associates to a quasi-monastic scheme of life only to discover that their “little academe, still and contemplative in living art,” is quickly overcome by their “own affections and the huge army of the world's desires.” No, I am not talking about one of our august colleague's struggle against transference and countertransference, but about the very first play written by the great bard. The significance of Love's Labour's Lost for our task here today, however, is more than that it reminds us of the ageless and timeless power of our affects over our reason. Shakespeare's text presents the first recorded use of the term “supervise.” To look over, to survey and to inspect, or to read through and peruse the work of one's colleagues, be they peers or students, is a most delicate undertaking whether it is in the formal setting of psychoanalytic supervision or in the less structured forum of a discussion of the contributions to this issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry. I was impressed by the seriousness and sensitivity of all the contributors to this volume on supervision.