Supervision of trainees: Tending the professional self

Abstract

This article seeks to demonstrage how self psychological concepts can be applied to the process of training psychotherapists in a variety of clinical and community settings. The author examines the role of clinical supervision in the development, consolidation, and maintenance of a cohesive professional self. The role of selfobject experience, needs, transference, and countertransference as manifested in the supervisory relationship is elaborated. Supervisor and supervisee form a self-selfobject unit, through which the trainee's anxieties and vulnerabilities can be managed. This selfobject matrix enables maintenance of self-esteem, expansion of cognitive understanding, and structure building in the arena of the professional self. To achieve these ends, the supervisor forms an empathic alliance with the internal, subjective experience of the therapist. The importance of focusing on the self experience and selfobject needs of the therapist in training via an empathic mode of observation is illustrated by several examples and vignettes. The application of theory to practice is emphasized, with examples chosen from a variety of clinical settings and modalities.