Intersubjective Supervision of Psychotherapy with Chronically Ill Patients

The intersubjective psychoanalytic approach offers a unique model of supervision for encouraging exploration of the mutual influences between supervisors and supervisees. The model also recommends a negotiation of the meaning of relational issues and mutual responses of supervisee and supervisor, which arise in the course of supervision. In the present article, it is argued that relational psychoanalytic supervision principles are highly suitable for clinical work with severely mentally ill patients. Intersubjective supervision may empower supervisees and develop their potential for negotiating the power structure in therapeutic dyads with chronic patients. It also encourages the exploration of individual patients' selfhood, as expressed in their ambitions and therapeutic agenda to achieve a self-determined recovery.