Superego Conflicts in Supervision

Abstract

This paper shows how superego conflicts can affect and disturb supervision. On the one hand the supervisee's wish is to shift the responsibility for his or her group on to the supervisor; on the other, the supervisee would like to be independent and autonomous, to conduct his or her group the way he or she wants, without being forced to tell anyone about it. The supervisor has to refuse to take over the supervisee's superego functions completely, but he or she does have responsibility for ensuring that the trainee will be a capable group-analyst at the end of training. The supervisor has to watch out that the supervisee's group-analytic superego is neither too loose nor too strict. Supervision peer groups are of inestimable help in reaching these difficult and complicated, but very fascinating, goals of supervision. The use of the supervision group as a stage for hidden conflicts of the reported group has further advantages.