Creating Community-based Peer Supervision Groups

We have a lot to learn and a lot to offer. This has become most evident as I round year two in the peer supervision group that meets in my office monthly. It started as an informal chat over coffee at one of the case conferences hosted monthly as an outreach effort of the Baltimore Washington Institute and Pastoral Counseling Services of Maryland. I watched heads nodding as a therapist lamented the isolation and lack of peer contact often associated with private practice. I offered to query the audience to see if peer supervision was of interest to the larger crowd. The list circulated with enthusiasm, and after two years, analysts from the Baltimore Washington Institute are hosting seven peer groups of therapists at varying levels of professional development across the D.C./Baltimore Metro area with an ever evolving waiting list.

The first group of therapists introduced themselves as “humanistic,” “family systems,” “intersubjective,” “self-psychological,” “solution-focused,” “psychodynamic,” “eclectic,” and “psychoanalytic.” So, we established our different approaches at the same time that we established a unified desire for improving clinical skills and for supervision.

Having completed analytic training and feeling wedded to my clinical approach, I wondered how this could possibly be a good fit for me. It took no time to find out that my colleagues had much to teach me and each other. As one person presented a case each month with its consequent challenges, I marveled at the unique way that each group member listened to the material and formulated ideas about the issues at hand. I also recognized that many of us were thinking about conflicts, defenses, resistance, object relations, and ego functioning in our approaches to treatment, even if our vocabularies differed. When it was my turn to present, I chose an analytic case and received incredibly rich feedback that moved my work along with my patient.

As the culture of acceptance of divergent views developed, an interesting trend began to emerge. Members of these peer supervision groups began to apply for psychoanalytic and psychotherapy training at our institute, signed up for the fellowship program, and began attending many of our events. Group members requested referrals for treatment and for individual supervision. This interesting outcome seems to be a result of the analytic community embracing the broader community of therapists as valued peers. In turn, these new peers are valuing what we have to offer in terms of training and treatment. The peer groups have not only been successful at the individual and community levels but have served as a wonderful resource for recruitment. Our institute is benefiting from the rich and diverse interests and backgrounds of our newest applicants.

Gone must be the days of the elitist or exclusive reputation of the psychoanalyst. Our communities are filled with very gifted mental health professionals with whom we can develop relationships in mutual ways. Peer supervision groups are filling a need in the community and creating new paths to psychoanalytic interest. Bridges are being built.

Just think, if every institute started free, community-based peer supervision groups, announcing them at each public function, imagine the levels of benefit—patients get better treatment, standards for clinical skills improve, therapists feel supported and connected, interest in our programs increases, and our programs are enriched by diverse perspectives. Why wouldn't we embark on this? Peer supervision groups are not a new concept; in fact, we've been doing them on the institute level forever. It is clearly time to broaden the guest list.