Supervision Essentials for Psychodynamic Psychotherapies

Psychodynamic psychotherapy arose in reaction to hierarchical, doctor-patient aspects of Freudian psychoanalysis. It emphasizes instead the partnership between therapist and client, and a conscious focus on the power dynamics involved in this inherently unequal relationship.

In this book, Joan E. Sarnat describes a relational approach to clinical supervision that is based upon this therapeutic approach. While some clinicians treat the supervisory relationship as entirely distinct from therapy, Sarnat presents a straightforward and ethical framework within which a supervisor uses his or her clinical skills to help supervisees navigate their responses to their work with clients.

Clear, concise chapters cover the theoretical and empirical basis for a relational model of supervision, and offer specific recommendations for addressing typical problems related by beginning, intermediate, and advanced supervisees. These include challenges associated with racial and ethnic differences as well as legal and ethical issues that occasionally arise in supervision. Practical matters including documentation, and the format and timing of evaluations, are discussed.

The book also includes revealing transcripts and analyses of the author's supervisory sessions with real trainees, including those documented in the author's companion DVD, Relational Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Supervision.

Comprehensive yet straightforward, this guide is intended for new and longtime supervisors alike, as well as clinical supervisees seeking a conceptual and practical understanding of this essential relationship.

Foreword to the Clinical Supervision Essentials Series

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Essential Dimensions
2. Evidence for the Effectiveness of a Relational Model of Psychodynamic Supervision
3. Supervisory Methods and Techniques
4. Illustration: An Excerpt From a Transcript of a Supervisory Hour
5. Common Supervisory Issues, Part I: Working With Supervisee "Difficulties"
6. Common Supervisory Issues, Part II: Working With Difference
7. Common Supervisory Issues, Part III: Working With Legal and Ethical Issues
8. Future Directions

Appendix

References

Index

About the Author

Joan E. Sarnat, PhD, ABPP, is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Berkeley, California. She is Board Certified in Clinical Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology. She is a member of APA, The National Register, The International Association for Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and The International Psychoanalytic Association.

Dr. Sarnat is a personal and supervising analyst and member of the faculty at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, San Francisco, California, a theoretically pluralistic, independent, psychoanalytic institute. She has served as adjunct faculty at Antioch/New England Graduate School of Professional Psychology, Keene, New Hampshire; The University of Massachusetts, Amherst Department of Clinical Psychology; The Smith School for Social Work, Northampton, Massachusetts; Alliant University, San Francisco, California; and The University of California Extension Program, Berkeley; and established a process-oriented case conference sequence at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. She has supervised, led case conferences, and run consultation groups for supervisors for almost 40 years.

Dr. Sarnat has lectured widely on psychoanalytic supervision and has published in numerous journals, including Psychoanalytic Psychology; Psychotherapy: Research, Practice, Training; Psychoanalytic Dialogues; and The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. She coauthored with Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea The Supervisory Relationship: A Contemporary Psychodynamic Approach (2001).

In 1970, Dr. Sarnat graduated in Social Relations from Harvard College, where she studied with Eric Erickson, Jerome Kagan, and Daniel Goleman.  In 1975, she received her PhD in psychology from the University of Michigan, where Edward Bordin was her primary supervisor. She completed a post-doctoral fellow at the Mount Zion Department of Psychiatry in 1978, and received a Certificate in Psychoanalysis from the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California in 2002.

Dr. Sarnat lives with her mathematician husband, David Hoffman, in Berkeley, California. They frequently visit their two sons, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter in Brooklyn, New York.

Psychodynamic psychologists — especially those supervising trainees who are also working psychodynamically — will find Sarnat's Supervision Essentials for Psychodynamic Psychotherapies to be a useful guide to developing or refining a more relational approach to their supervision.
—PsycCRITIQUES

• Relational Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Supervision
  

  This DVD demonstrates and discusses the relational psychodynamic approach to supervision. The goal of this approach is to create a more experiential, participatory, and relationship-focused form of supervision.