1st Edition

Supervision in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy A Case Study and Clinical Guide

By Diana Shmukler Copyright 2017
    158 Pages
    by Routledge

    158 Pages
    by Routledge

    Supervision in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy demonstrates why supervision is an essential component of any psychoanalytic or therapeutic work. Drawing on Winnicott and rich clinical material, and featuring work with Patrick Casement, this book provides new guidance on psychodynamic supervision and explores how its skilful use can have a significant effect on the outcome of such work, enabling the practitioner to rethink their theoretical approach, and thereby view issues differently in the clinical setting.

    Built around the case study of a challenging but successful long term individual therapy, Supervision in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy examines how clinicians can become ‘stuck’ in their work with certain patients, struggling to find a way to get through to them. Diana Shmukler brings together a fascinating combination of various perspectives, detailing the patient’s own words, the therapists’ views and reflections and the effect of a brief introduction to Art Therapy, whilst underlining the power and impact, both theoretically and practically, of using a different approach in supervision. Shmukler superbly integrates theory and practice, underlining the validity of a two-person psychology and the therapeutic relationship, whilst also illustrating the centrality of both participant’s commitment to, and belief in, the process of therapy. Importantly, the book provides a clinical example in which the subjectivities of all the participants are shown to be clearly central to the work. Shmukler underlines the significance of supervision to complex cases, even that of a highly experienced therapist.

    Supervision in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, students and trainees in integrative psychotherapy, counsellors and psychiatrists, as well as patients seeking help for deep seated issues.

    Foreword by Patrick Casement. Introduction. "A Search for a Safe Pair of Hands". Little Girl and Better Mother. The Impact of the Art Therapy. The Changing Transference from Idealisation to the Failing Mother. Supervision; Finding the Missing Ingredient. The Development of the Letters Through the Course of the Work and Their Contribution to the Therapy. Finishing the Work; The Final Crisis and Ending. Some of the Theoretical Ideas that Supported the Therapy. Afterword by Andrew Samuels.

    Biography

    Diana Shmukler, Ph.D, is an integrative and relational psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer registered with the UKCP. She is a clinical psychologist with the Health Professions Council in the UK and South African Medical and Dental Council, as well as a teaching and supervising transactional analyst (TSTA). She is currently Visiting Professor at the Metanoia Institute in London, the University of Middlesex and also the University of Utrecht, Netherlands.

    "This is a moving and courageous intersubjective account of a therapeutic journey. Both parties come through vividly in this authentic narrative, Diana in her reflections on the process and the client most notably through her letters, extracts of which are quoted in the text. I see this as an interesting navigation of a complex therapeutic process which proves to be transformative for the therapist and the client. I highly recommend this book which will prove of interest to beginning and experienced therapists coming from different orientations."-Professor Maria Gilbert, Faculty Head of Applied Psychology, Psychotherapy and Counselling, Metanoia Institute, London.

    "Many books stop where this one begins: clearly expressing the many facets and phases, involved in an in-depth psychotherapy, the author offers an honest account of a challenging, painful and hopeful therapeutic journey. Locating the work within a relational framework with psychoanalytic supervision as central, the author describes how she gradually moved from a more traditional reparative form of therapy into a relational one. Remaining philosophical about her client’s belief in the important platform that the "corrective emotional experience" initially provided her, Shmukler, like many relational psychotherapists welcomes the additional depth and understanding that relational methodologies provide for working with and transforming primitive emotional states."-Heather Fowlie, Programme Leader of Relational Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy training and Faculty Head of Psychology, Psychotherapy and Counselling at Metanoia Institute, London.

    "A courageous, deeply personal account of a psychotherapy that went from enactment to transformation. The story is told by the therapist and her client, with the containing murmur of the supervisor in the background. Clinical reflections thread throughout the narrative and the theoretical dimension is elegantly discussed in the final chapter. The book will be interesting and useful for any psychotherapist but for a transactional analyst it is particularly exciting: it forges an evolutionary path in TA’s methodology, from responding to relational need and working cognitively with the transference, to working in the transference – so that the effects of developmental trauma can emerge, be experienced and worked through within a real adult here-and-now relationship. What a gift. I read it at one sitting."-Professor Charlotte Sills-integrative psychotherapist and relational transactional analyst.