Supervision and the art of baseball.

Abstract

AbstractSupervision of psychotherapy consists of a three-person matrix: supervisor, student, and patient. My approach to supervision is to work within a student's natural personality and not to attempt to change it. A comparison is made to baseball wherein a player's natural approach may be modified but not significantly altered. In both cases uncertainty is normative. Supervision requires a learning which may develop into a facsimile of therapy in order for the student to reinforce positive aspects.Keywords: psychodynamic, psychotherapy, supervision, trainingResumeLa supervision en psychotherapie repose sur une matrice de trois personnes : le superviseur, l'etudiant et le patient. Mon approche en matiere de supervision est de travailler avec la personnalite naturelle de l'etudiant et de ne pas chercher a la changer. On pourrait comparer cette notion avec le baseball : on ne peut que modifier legerement l'approche naturelle d'un joueur. Dans les deux domaines, l'incertitude est normative. La supervision requiert une « alliance d'apprentissage » qui peut evoluer en un genre de therapie afin que l'etudiant puisse renforcer ses aspects positifs.Mots-cles : psychodynamique, psychotherapie, supervision, formation.When I entered graduate school in the middle of the last century, I was told in no uncertain terms that research in psychology was extremely difficult and required a rather lengthy apprenticeship leading to a PhD and then a career requiring continuing dedication and effort. Clinical work, on the other hand was considered to be somewhat easier and mastered in practicum placements and in- ternships. Reality, in the form of years in both the clinical and academic realm has convinced me of the complexity and difficulty of clinical work. The research paradigm conforms to a set of well-established rules both in terms of design, analysis of data, conclusions and so on. This applies to both clinical experimental research (randomized controlled trials, etc.) and grounded theory research. On the other hand, clinical work can be viewed as a unique experiment with each patient as an N of 1. It becomes even more complex in that the clinician must be part of that experiment with each patient and cannot be a constant fixed variable. Clinical work in diagnosis and psychotherapy includes, indeed depends, on personality variables of the psychologist interacting with the unique- ness of the patient's personality and presenting problems. The unique- ness of the psychologist interacts with the patient's personality and presenting problems. Supervision of clinical work is even more com- plex, as I will try to explicate in the article because it involves a three person interaction: supervisor, student, and patient.1My approach to supervision starts with my assessment of the student's natural clinical tendencies. In this regard, I will use professional baseball, especially hitting (batting) as an analogy. It is said and is received wisdom in the sports world that the most difficult act is that of hitting a baseball. It requires enormous skill to hit a hard round ball with a wooden cylindrical bat travelling at upward of 100 mph from a distance of 60 feet, 6 in. The most proficient players may do this successfully three out of 10 at- tempts. I have probably witnessed about 2,000 major league base- ball games and countless games on TV and what has always struck me apart from the complexity of the game are the various ap- proaches to hitting, and the stance each player has. As Yogi Berra, the baseball philosopher said, You can see a lot by observing. Some players have an open stance (more facing the pitcher), some have a more closed stance, some hold the bat low, some high, some close to the home plate, some more distant, some crouch, some stand upright. They use individual trigger mechanisms. Batters vary in terms of how they hold the bat and so on. Professional players have natural tendencies which they have adopted as youngsters. …