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This book studies the interaction between supervisor and trainee in order to clarify how learning takes place in the supervisory setting. It is in part descriptive and in part hypothesis-generating. The introduction, exploring the definitions, dynamics and theory of supervision, summarizing previous studies in the area, is excellent.
The research was carried out with four supervisors, supervision taking place once a week. Each fifth supervision hour was recorded on audiotape and transcripted. An important precondition was that in their work, both trainee and supervisor were guided by the theory and rules of dynamic psychotherapy. According to this theory, the patient is directly and indirectly, manifestly and latently, expressing wishes, needs and intentions towards the therapist in the narrative of the interaction. The so-called P(P-T)T gestalt-focus refers to the interaction between patient and therapist comprising transference and countertransference reactions. Analysis of the data was carried out in two parts.
In the first part, an “educational diagnosis” was made of each supervisory session that was studied. This diagnosis was inferred after reading the transcripts and based on the author's clinical knowledge and supervisory experience. In an attempt to further elucidate these impressions, a focus was formulated, a “nuclear problem”, as a hypothetical target for the supervisory work in the observed session.
Inferences were also differentiated according to what type of learning or teaching difficulties were assumed in the trainee, i.e., lack or conflict. By lack we mean “dumb spots”, lack of experience, skill and knowledge, while conflict refers to the defensive avoidance of information, or “blind spots”. These comprised both types of conflict, those described by Ekstein