Professional Supervision as Therapists' Self-Care During Wartime

Supervision has been an obligatory part of psychoanalytic training since the establishment of formal institutes in the 1930s. As is common worldwide, typical supervision groups in Ukraine were established according to the affiliation of specialists related to particular theoretical orientations in psychoanalysis (e.g., Freud, Lacan, Klein) or related to the category of patients served (e.g., children, adolescents, adults, couples, groups). Such Ukrainian supervisory groups have included interactions between professionals of approximately the same level of experience with an average frequency of weekly or biweekly meetings. This contribution describes a radical shift in the format, process, and content of psychoanalytic supervision groups in Ukraine following the Russian invasion. Specifically, this article describes the “Wartime Research” project, which was established by Ukrainian psychoanalytic supervisors in March 2022. In addition to describing the project, this article focuses on the individual experience of a Ukrainian psychoanalyst as a supervisor and clinician during the war. Specifically, the phenomenological experience of psychoanalytic supervision as a form of professional and personal self-care is described.