Becoming a Supervisor: The Interplay Between Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in Clinical Social Work Supervision

Intersubjectivity is described in the psychoanalytic literature as a treatment encounter consisting of two participants, each with a particular subjectivity and perspective, engaged in an interactive process in which the therapeutic partners are simultaneously influencing and being influenced in their experience of self and other. In intersubjective supervision, two subjects participate, interact, and influence each other; both members process the supervisees' therapeutic experiences, and the supervisor's countertransference is considered inevitable and integral to the supervision process. In the current paper, intersubjectivity and supervision are reviewed, and a clinical case example is provided to demonstrate some of the core components of intersubjectivity in a supervision setting and how to apply it in clinical social work fieldwork. The case example illustrates a supervision encounter between a social work supervisor-in-training and his supervisee and how they develop self-awareness of more profound aspects of their subjectivities. It sheds light on the supervisor-in-training's willingness to explore and analyze his countertransference and the unconscious when tension and conflict develop within the supervisory dyad. Conflicts within this dyad were analyzed in group supervision as a function of the supervisee's and the supervisor-in-training's defensive operations and resistance to differences in approaches. Teaching vs. treating in supervision was also discussed. Developing self-awareness allowed the supervisor-in-training to reflect on the role of his subjective perspective in his clinical approach, fears, and wishes yet also attune himself affectively to the subjective emotional states of his supervisee. Reflective self-consciousness enabled the supervisor-in-training and the supervisee to experience supervision more creatively.