Supervision: between pleasure and know-how

The author attempts to arrange the results of a long and rich experience of clinical supervision practiced with interest and pleasure in very different kinds of settings all having to do with helping relationships. He identifies four areas of work with groups, those which occur most often and their relevant training objectives. The first area refers to the structural difficulties in helping relationships, and the resulting objective is to facilitate the interiorization of role attributes on the part of the group. The second area refers to the obstacles that prevent the therapist from being in harmony with the patient and the relative objective is to understand their nature, in a more or less complete way. The third area has the objective of improving the comprehension of the inner world of the patient, using the counter transference dynamics of the individuals and of the group and also their identification with the personages of the patient’s inner world. Lastly, the fourth area, typical of institutional groups, refers to the function, often lacking because of interpersonal tensions, which makes a group into a "working group". Here the objective is to investigate the nature of the problem so that the group can take up its work again. To do this the author often uses the Bionion concept of "chosen factor", which he illustrates clearly with clinical examples.

Keywords: Chosen factor, working group, cotransference, counter transference, projective identification

Domenico Marcolini, La supervisione fra piacere e mestiere in "RUOLO TERAPEUTICO (IL)" 115/2010, pp 39-49, DOI: 10.3280/RT2010-115004