The COPE Study Group on Supervision comprises several components. One is small ongoing working groups which convene during the National (January) and Annual (June) APsaA meetings. Their primary focus is the experience of the members of the group in their roles as supervisors. Typically, one member presents material which is vexing, informative, educational, or has some other interesting aspect which the group discusses. These sessions are confidential and intimate conversations among peers who come to know each other's work and thinking, thus allowing for growth.
A second component of the Supervision Study Group is twice-yearly Supervision Workshops, which are open to all registrants of the scientific meetings and led by the study group chair. These include a presentation that offers clinical and theoretical material, for example, live supervision sessions between a supervisor/supervisee dyad, senior analysts describing their own experiences when seeking supervision, cross-cultural teaching and learning, supervisor/supervisee dyads sharing “sticky” moments in their work and its impact on the supervisee's work with the patient, regional differences in teaching and learning, debate about telephonic and televised supervision, the impact of peer pressure on one's work as a supervisor, the intersection of money and education, and inescapable transference-countertransference enactments. In other words, all the ups and the downs of supervision are on the table. The workshops also enjoy the ensured stability which comes from many colleagues continuing to attend time after time. However, there is always room for one, or many more.
A significant new charge to the Supervision Study Group is in response to BOPS's adoption of two pathways, direct and developmental, for institutes of the Association to designate supervising analysts. A study group subcommittee will study methods for implementation of the new guidelines by APsaA institutes. This will include exploring programs that member institutes may use as templates for their routes of development for supervising analysts.
The study group will also develop seminars for APSaA members who are pursuing one of the pathways toward the designation of supervising analyst. These seminars will provide a venue for an exchange of ideas, questions, and perspectives about candidate supervision. This effort will offer guidelines to APsaA institutes and centers for ongoing seminars at the local level to provide continuing education of supervising analysts after their appointment.
We welcome the questions, suggestions, and participation of colleagues in all aspects of the Study Group on Supervision. Please feel free to contact me so that we can discuss this further ().
Barbara Stimmel, Ph.D., is associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and director of Seminar Series at the Institute of History of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical Center.