Study Group on Supervision

It has been two years since we have written in these pages. In that time, we have continued the work we began several years ago, most prominently our reading list accompanied by critical evaluations by members of our committee. The reading list is on the APsaA webpage and we have received both enthusiastic comments as well as recommended papers. Our list has been, at times, the source of other groups' educational endeavors and we are continuing to expand its contents.

The workshops groups always stimulate active and animated participation in the context of respectful listening.

Our ongoing and well-attended, supervisory workshops, open to all registrants of the scientific meetings, continue to confront the myriad challenges in the hard work of supervision. They always begin with a presentation by one of our colleagues: TAs, non-TAs, candidates and guests from outside the Association and/or outside the United States. We hear rich clinical material, particular problems, collaborative efforts, essentially all sorts of subjects appear in the room.

For example, we have had live supervision sessions between a supervisor/supervisee couple, candidates candidly describing their experiences as supervisees—what has worked and what has not, just as senior analysts describe their own experiences when teaching—particularly what they have learned. The diverse topics of our sessions have included the specific issues involved when senior analysts seek supervision, cross-cultural teaching and learning, supervisor/supervisee dyad sharing uncomfortable moments in their work and their impact on the supervisee's work with the patient, regional differences in teaching and learning, conversations regarding telephonic and televised supervision, the impact of peer pressure on one's work as a supervisor, intersection of money and education, inescapable transference-countertransference enactments, and more.

In other words, we are open to discussing all the ups and the downs, ins and outs of supervision.

The workshops groups always stimulate active and animated participation in the context of respectful listening. They also enjoy a repeated roster of colleagues, nonetheless we are always open and eager to include new participant members. Our group has yet to create ongoing seminars for APsaA members wishing to advance to supervising analyst, although it is definitely on our to-do list. Our hope is that through consultation, study and collaboration, we can create meetings/seminars that will provide a venue for an exchange of ideas, questions and perspectives about supervision. These learning groups also will be formed to help us think through this most important educational endeavor : the development, enhancement and sharing in the skills and challenges of conducting supervision. (Evaluation will not be part of this process.)

Perhaps the most important aspect of our mandate has been to determine the skill set for supervisors as well as teaching models to help our colleagues actualize them. This ongoing effort is implicit in our reading list, described above. In this time, the Committee on Institutes has thought to pursue the evaluation of supervision education programs among the institutes. Thus it has made good and economical sense for us to combine forces. We plan to do the intersecting work of developing an understanding of what attributes comprise the capacity to conduct good, even excellent, supervision; how to teach it; and then how to evaluate its presence in curricula and institute learning.

Eitingon model or not, the mutual education between supervisors and their student colleagues helps form the backbone of our profession—its strength, success, survival. We welcome the questions, suggestions and participation of our colleagues in all aspects of the Study Group on Supervision. Please feel free to contact me at so we can see how you can become involved.