Three Associating: Adventures in Relational Psychoanalytic Supervision

• Episode 5: Up Against The Limit: Staring Into The Void

  In this episode, Andrew finds himself embodying traumas the patient has experienced but has placed an explicit prohibition on articulating. During his therapy sessions with Rob, Andrew respects this prohibition. There is much else to speak about and the session feels lively. However, after every session Andrew feels strangely dead, reflecting a limit on his capacity to comfortably process powerful affects when words are off limit and the patient wishes to screen off pain and to avoid facing into the void. Questions are raised about the perils of going along with the patient's wish not to speak the unspeakable as well the dangers of not doing so.  All the while, the affective registration of Rob's screened off trauma persists at somatic and affective levels in Andew as an embodiment of Rob's traumatic memories. The power of this is barely tolerable and Andrew feels doomed if he does speak and doomed if he doesn’t, but in the supervision he explores the possibility of a third way and finds a way out of the binary.

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  29:17

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• Episode 4: I'm Not OK That You're OK

  In this episode, Andrew presents us with an insoluble ethical dilemma. Is it desirable or even possible for therapists to remain neutral when the patient lives by a value system very discrepant from their own and seems to do so comfortably and credits the therapy for this outcome?Andrew and Gill agree that therapists are not neutral as they have their own moral compasses, even if they believe it is incumbent on them to bracket them. They also agree it is fair to question the patient about the consequences of their new found comfort with problematic actions and to explore if the comfort is authentic or defensive. However, Andrew and Gill also accept that they may be defending themselves against accepting the patient's comfort with a lack of empathy for those in his ambit. They are left with the question 'Whose defensiveness is it anyway?'.

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  25:12

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• Episode 3: Unexpected Twists and Turns: Prayer Cards Part 2

  In this rich episode, Rachael grapples with a variety of complex nuanced issues such as an unexpected ending and the feat of balancing the therapist's self interest with the patient’s interest in a number of domains, including payment. Also on the table were inner conflicts around masochism and self care and the potential risks and rewards of playfulness and creativity and the inherent pleasures and perils that they engender.At the end of the session, Rachael and Gill concluded that whatever side we finally land on in the resolution of inner conflict, it is essential to own the outcome and to stay authentic and transparent.

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  28:48

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  28:48
• Episode 2: Us Vs Them Thinking - A Silent Threat To Your Mental Health

  In this episode, Andrew struggles with the power of splitting and projection as they close down thought, generate anger, and diminish compassion.He gets caught in these dynamics and struggles with his own reactivity as anger and defensive intellectualisation  masquerading as thinking emerge in the therapy space.Through supervision, Andrew realises the fear and existential threat that underpins these dynamics. He moves from a wish to confront binaries and from an appeal to both/and thinking to understanding the feelings underpinning either/or thinking, projection, and othering.Andrew comes to see how his own responses have been subverted by this extremely pressuring dynamic and returns to the capacity to go meta to himself and to the transference/counter-transference matrix

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  24:18

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  24:18
• Episode 1: How To Spot Narcissism - Red Flags and Dating Hacks

  In this episode, Rachael works with a young woman who is desperate to find the right man and equally desperate to find a failsafe way to make a good choice. A prolific consumer of social media, she scours all the information about red flags that are meant to help someone spot a narcissist (e.g. lovebombing, gaslighting, self-centredness). She appeals to Rachael to assist in this endeavour of constructing and applying lists of red flags. Rachael tries to shift the agenda to fostering agency,  but to no avail.  In supervision, Gill asks a series of questions which leads Rachael to her own conclusion that her own narcissism constellated around the “need to know”. A common dynamic in therapists is implicated in this therapeutic impasse.

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  25:15

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