KEY COMPETENCIES OF THE PSYCHODYNAMICPSYCHOTHERAPIST AND HOW TO TEACH THEM

IN SUPERVISION

JOAN SARNATBerkeley, California

Four of Rodolfa et al.’s (2005) com-petencies in professionalpsychology—relationship, self-reflection, assessment-case conceptu-alization, and intervention—are keyfor the psychodynamic psychothera-pist. Relationship lies at the heart ofwhat is understood to be curativeabout psychodynamic psychotherapy.Self-reflection implies a complex andhighly developed process that in-cludes but goes beyond Rodolfa etal.’s and Kaslow, Dunn, and Smith’s(2008) definitions. Competent assess-ment, diagnosis, and case conceptual-ization entails making inferencesabout unconscious processes by ob-serving the client and also one’s ownexperience, and integrating these in-ferences with theory. Effective psy-chodynamic intervention is derivedfrom what the psychotherapist hasexperienced, processed, and conceptu-alized about the relationship with theclient and about the client’s internalobject world. An extended vignetteshows these competencies emerging ina psychotherapist-in-training, facili-tated by an intense interaction with asupervisor. Although the supervisoryand clinical tasks are different, thesupervisor provides a relationship

experience that models these samecompetencies for the supervisee andcatalyzes their development in thesupervisee.

Keywords: psychodynamic, supervision,relational, competencies

Challenges of This Task

The project of defining core psychotherapeuticcompetencies, undertaken in this Special Sectionof Psychotherapy, is an important one, althoughchallenging from a psychodynamic perspective.Tuckett (2005) put the problem well in a paperthat attempted to remedy the lack of a broadlyaccepted method of evaluating psychoanalyticcandidates. He asked, How does one “develop atransparent frame work based on an empiricallysupported demonstration of analytic capacity”(p. 31) that is also sensitive enough and subtleenough to satisfy the psychoanalysts who wouldbe called on to apply it? Any such framework“needs to take cognizance of the twin facts thatthere is more than one way to practice psycho-analysis and that it is necessary for the legitimacyof the field to avoid an ‘anything goes’” stance (p.31). For Tuckett this meant finding “goodenough” indicators of competent psychoanalyticpractice, indicators that are both broadly definedand well selected that they can even be agreed toby psychoanalysts who work from a variety ofdifferent psychoanalytic models.

Tuckett’s (2005) solution to this problem isdirectly relevant to my task. He evaluated a psy-choanalyst’s functioning in terms of his or hercapacity to sustain three linked “lenses” or“frames.” He called these the participant-observational, the conceptual, and the interven-tional frames. These three frames find commonground with four of the competency dimensionsrecently defined within professional psychology.

Joan Sarnat, Berkeley, California.Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to

Joan Sarnat, 3030 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94708. E-mail:jsarnat@post.harvard.edu

Psychotherapy Theory, Research, Practice, Training © 2010 American Psychological Association2010, Vol. 47, No. 1, 20–27 0033-3204/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0018846

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For Tuckett (2005), the participant-observationalframe1 referred to “the way the analyst is with thepatient” (p. 37), and emphasized the analyst’s ca-pacity to bear and process, rather than act on, theemotional states that the patient evokes withinher or him. The capacity to sustain a participant-observational stance is closely related to twofoundational competencies in the professionalpsychology literature. The first is relationship, de-fined as the “capacity to relate effectively andmeaningfully with individuals, groups, and/or com-munities”2 (Rodolfa et al., 2005, p. 351). The sec-ond is self-reflection, a component of “reflectivepractice” (Kaslow, Dunn, & Smith, 2008).

For Tuckett (2005), a psychoanalytic psychother-apist’s second crucial capacity was the ability tomanage what he called the conceptual frame. Thisframe “concerns the specific ability to conceptualizeclinical experience” (p. 41) by identifying the trans-ference and countertransference and the develop-ment of an analytic process. This frame is similar toRodolfa et al.’s (2005) functional competency as-sessment and diagnosis-case conceptualization, de-fined as “assessment and diagnosis of problems andissues associated with individuals, groups, and/ororganizations” (p. 351).

Tuckett’s (2005, p. 43) third frame was thecapacity to sustain an interventional frame, thatis, to intervene in a way that is consistent withthe psychoanalyst’s participant-observationalstance and his or her conceptualization. Thisframe corresponds closely to Rodolfa et al.’s(2005) functional competency intervention, de-fined as “interventions designed to alleviatesuffering and to promote health and well-beingof individuals, groups, and/or organizations”(p. 351).

I consider relationship, self-reflection, assess-ment and diagnosis, and intervention—from amongthe complete list of foundational competencies (re-flective practice-self-assessment, scientificknowledge-methods, relationship, ethical-legalstandards-policy, individual-cultural diversity, andinterdisciplinary systems) and functional competen-cies (assessment, intervention, consultation,research-evaluation, supervision-teaching, andmanagement-administration) defined by Rodolfa, etal.—to be key for a psychodynamic model of psy-chotherapy.

For me as a relationally3 oriented psychoana-lyst, primary among these four closely inter-twined competencies is relationship. Recent re-search relating the process of psychodynamic

psychotherapy to its outcome shows why priori-tizing relationship competency makes good em-pirical sense. Silverman (2005) for example, indiscussing the findings of an American Psycho-logical Association task force on evidence-basedpractice pointed out that treatment conditions arenot in themselves reliable predictors of outcomebecause the level of relationship skill of the per-son who is conducting the treatment matters somuch:

A pure ingredient (an interpretation, for example) cannot beassumed in psychotherapy because it always exists in thecontext of the therapeutic relationship . . . [any effort to“manualize” psychotherapist activity] eliminates from consid-eration the important fact of variability in efficacy of theindividual psychotherapists within the same treatment condi-tion. (pp. 308–309)

Similarly, Orlinsky, Grawe, and Parks’s (1994)meta-analysis of hundreds of psychotherapyprocess-outcome studies concluded that a goodpsychotherapeutic relationship—more than anyparticular form of intervention—was the stron-gest predictor of positive outcome.

And yet, it is hard to define exactly what aneffective and meaningful psychodynamic psy-chotherapeutic relationship consists of. Ablonand Jones (2005), summarizing the results oftheir intensive quantitative study of two cases ofpsychotherapy, provided evidence for the claimthat each “good” psychotherapeutic relationshiphas its own qualities. They observed, “each ana-lytic pair has a unique interaction pattern [em-phasis added] linked to treatment progress” (p.541). Orlinsky et al. (1994) distilled from theirmeta-analysis a list of relationship qualities,which when perceived in psychotherapists bytheir clients predicted successful treatment out-come. These included being experienced by theclient as “empathic, affirmative, collaborative

1 Aspects of this capacity are also variously referred to inthe psychoanalytic literature as maintaining an analytic atti-tude, containing and metabolizing projective identifications,creating a holding environment, and working in the counter-transference.

2 In this paper, for simplicity, I am limiting myself todiscussing individual psychodynamic psychotherapy, and notaddressing group or family intervention. Of course, I am notaddressing work with organizations or communities either.

3 I use the descriptor “relational” broadly to refer to allpsychotherapeutic approaches that emphasize the two-personnature of the psychotherapeutic enterprise and the importanceof both interpersonal relationships and internalized objectrelations in understanding clients and their problems.

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and self-congruent (p. 361).” However, Orlinskyet al.’s list cannot answer a question that imme-diately arises when one looks at the psychother-apeutic dyad from an intersubjective perspective:“What does this psychotherapist need to do withthis client before the psychotherapist can be ex-perienced as having these attributes?” In fact,many clients require significant psychotherapeu-tic work with their negative reactions to theirpsychotherapist, as well as significant specificadjustments in style from their psychotherapist,before they can experience that person as em-pathic, affirmative, collaborative and self-congruent, and thus solidify a meaningful work-ing alliance (Bordin, 1979). Given the challengesof speaking in general terms about something asindividualized as a relationship-based approachto treatment, I chose to build my discussionaround a particular clinical and supervisory vi-gnette, condensed and edited from Frawley-O’Dea and Sarnat The Supervisory Relationship(2000, pp. 118–122). In this vignette, taken fromthe middle of a 12-week supervision of a shortterm psychodynamic psychotherapy, I show howa trainee begins to develop relationship, self re-flection, assessment, and interventional compe-tencies. I also try to show how the supervisoryrelationship contributes to that process.

Clinical and Supervisory Vignette4

Lisa was confident in her skills in crisis intervention but feltunsure of herself as she started seeing clients in brief psy-chodynamic treatment for the first time. Knowing somethingabout my psychotherapeutic and supervisory approach, herrequest was for assistance in identifying and using counter-transference. During our first five supervisory sessions, how-ever, Lisa seemed to need concrete help in getting started withclients, and my interventions were largely didactic and sup-portive.

In the sixth supervisory week countertransference issues be-came “hot.” Lisa looked distraught as she entered my officeand told me that she had begun to feel intensely critical of herpsychotherapeutic work. Listening to tapes of her psychother-apy sessions was now excruciating because she was increas-ingly aware of her incompetence in conducting psychody-namic psychotherapy. Specifically, Lisa worried that she haddone damage to one of her clients, a young adult woman whosuffered from depression and loneliness. During their mostrecent session, when Lisa’s client had observed that she oftenpushed people away, Lisa disclosed that she herself had feltpushed away by the client in their first session. Tearfully Lisareported that her worries about this self disclosure had inten-sified when she was subsequently “criticized” by anothersupervisor over another intervention with a different client.Lisa, who herself was in psychotherapy, told me that she feltlike “an omnipotent 2-year old who thinks she can destroy

everything,” and added that she had been realizing that shehad felt too powerful as a child in her family.

I listened sympathetically, neither encouraging her to disclosefurther nor cutting short this emotional outpouring. I then toldher that her anxiety about her power in her new role, and heruncertainties about how to use her power, were understand-able, but that it wasn’t clear that her actual intervention hadbeen destructive. Lisa agreed and seemed to calm down, butthen told me that she had just turned my comment intoself-accusation, deciding that I was telling her she was “over-reacting” and “making too big a deal” of her feelings. Lisaadded that her reaction reminded her of how her parents hadresponded to her distress—by shaming her for expressing it.Now, she added, with a note of despair in her voice, she didnot feel able to contain her client’s upsets, and she worriedthat it might be years before she worked this problem out inher own psychotherapy. Maybe she wasn’t emotionally cutout for this work? I tried again to address Lisa’s anxiety,reminding her that she was a beginner trying to learn adifficult job, and this time I added something about my ownstruggles as a beginning psychotherapist.

Lisa’s mood shifted as she now spoke with more self-compassion about how she was expecting so much more ofherself than she had when doing crisis work. She said that shedid not want to go back, but that this new experience wasdestabilizing all the same.

I then observed that Lisa had seemed to think she should beable to manage her own and her client’s intense anxieties byherself, which was an unrealistic self-expectation at this stagein her training, and perhaps at any stage. Had Lisa thought ofcalling me during this difficult week? Lisa said that she hadwanted to, but thought I might be annoyed with her for“overreacting.” “Like your parents?” I asked with a smile, andLisa agreed with a laugh. She seemed relieved and com-mented as she left the supervisory meeting that actually shedidn’t think she was doing so badly in her hours, despite heranxiety.

In the next supervisory meeting, Lisa described how her clienthad raged at her for abandoning her. Indeed the client hadsuffered several disappointments, including Lisa’s failing topersist in returning her client’s between-sessions phone call.Although this client had previously behaved in a dismissiveway toward Lisa, no-showing more than once and not return-ing Lisa’s calls, unbeknown to Lisa her client’s situation hadsuddenly changed: She had just been rejected by her lover.

Lisa said that during the hour she had become aware of a newcapacity to sit with her client’s upset and angry feelings,despite the anxiety that her client’s distress and accusationsevoked in her. Lisa said she felt she could understand from theinside what her client was feeling and was touched that herclient had taken the risk of expressing it to her. Lisa told herclient how sorry she was that she hadn’t kept trying to reachher, but also told her client that she had actually not “gottenit” that her client really needed something from her. Lisa’sclient was moved and responded, “I had been pushing you

4 Adapted from The Supervisory Relationship (pp. 118–122) by M. G. Frawley-O’dea & J. Sarnat, 2000, New York:Guilford. Copyright 2000 by Guilford Publications. Reprintedwith permission.

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away, hadn’t I?” Lisa responded, “I wish I had understoodhow vulnerable you were making yourself by calling me atthat moment. If I had, I would have been more persistent intrying to get back to you.” At this the client began sobbing,and said that she now realized this was the kind of reactionshe had longed for from her mother. Lisa told me that she hadbeen moved, and that she felt that she was beginning tounderstand how psychodynamic psychotherapy works.

Key Foundational and FunctionalCompetencies for PsychodynamicPsychotherapy

In this vignette, Lisa participates with her cli-ent in an enactment: The client misses sessionsand treats Lisa as if she is not important to her,and Lisa reacts by failing to persist in returningher client’s latest call. After her supervisor re-sponds to Lisa’s feelings of guilt, self doubt, andanxiety, Lisa displays new relationship, self-reflection, assessment, and intervention compe-tencies. In what follows, I offer a formulation ofhow the supervisory process may have contrib-uted to the emergence of psychotherapeutic com-petence in Lisa. First we need to define what eachof these competencies involves for a psychody-namic psychotherapist.

Salient Foundational Competencies

The simultaneous emergence of the founda-tional competencies relationship and self-reflection is illustrated here. From a psychody-namic perspective, Lisa is learning to maintain aparticipant-observational frame (Tuckett, 2005).The two competencies are difficult to disentanglefrom one another, but for the purposes of thispaper, I will try to describe each separately.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy, like all psy-chotherapeutic approaches, demands relationshipcompetencies such as creating an alliance, titrat-ing client anxiety, and facilitating client attach-ment. However, because a psychodynamic psy-chotherapist views the relationship as the crucibleof psychotherapeutic change, not just as a pre-liminary to effective intervention, relationshipcompetency implies developing relationshipskills that go beyond these capacities. In theexample, Lisa becomes immersed within andthen begins to transform the subtle, multilayered,coconstructed, conscious, and unconscious pat-terns of anxiety, defense, and enactment thatemerge in their relationship. She develops thecapacity to maintain emotional contact with her

client although under the pressure of intenselydifficult feelings. Lisa is thus able to engage withher client in a new way when her client becomesopen to doing so. They then create together analternative to the dismissive attachment patternthat this client had probably repeated in manyrelationships, and that was very likely connectedto her presenting problems of loneliness and de-pression. Before Lisa could participate in thepsychotherapeutic relationship in this new way,she needed to accept her failure to persist incalling back her client. Her ability to do so mayhave been facilitated by her interaction with asupervisor who helped her to mitigate her selfcriticism.

I believe that this example shows what a com-plex and highly developed process the term self-reflection implies for a psychodynamic psycho-therapist. Rodolfa et al. (2005) defined reflectivepractice-self-assessment as “practice conductedwithin the boundaries of competencies, commit-ment to lifelong learning, engagement with schol-arship, critical thinking, and a commitment to thedevelopment of the profession” (p. 351). From apsychodynamic perspective, however, self-reflection competence, requires a highly devel-oped capacity to bear, observe, think about, andmake psychotherapeutic use of one’s own emo-tional, bodily, and fantasy experiences when ininteraction with a client. In this vignette, Lisaneeded to tolerate difficult affects in the psycho-therapeutic and supervisory relationships, includ-ing feelings of anger, destructiveness, guilt, need,and dependence, in both herself and her client.She also needed to tolerate awareness of howboth she and her client defended against vulner-ability. Catalyzed by interaction with her super-visor, Lisa is here developing competence in es-tablishing internal and relational feedback loopsthat lead, over time, to significant changes infunctioning. Continually finding, losing, and thenrefinding the capacity for participant observationis a challenge that indeed requires a commitmentto lifelong learning.

Kaslow et al.’s (2008) further break down ofreflective practice-self-assessment into the com-ponents of self-reflection and self-care is alsorelevant here. The fact that Lisa brought herdistress to her supervisor means that she is alsodeveloping self-care competency. It is apparent inthe vignette that without supervisory assistanceLisa might have remained anxious and depressedand therefore might have been handicapped in

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working effectively with this client and possiblywith others. Self-care competence includes even-tually developing the capacity to honor and feelcompassion for ones own needs/feelings/emotions even when consultation is not immedi-ately available.

Salient Functional Competencies

The two functional competencies that are mostsalient for dynamic psychotherapy, assessment-diagnosis-case conceptualization and interven-tion, are also salient, of course, for other forms ofpsychotherapy. However, within a psychody-namic model, these terms imply very particularactivities.

Assessment considers the whole person of theclient, beyond specific symptoms, and includeshis or her conscious and unconscious conflicts,internalized relational patterns, interpersonal pat-terns, and defenses. Conceptualization means for-mulating an understanding of the client that isbased not only on the client’s actions, affects,avoidances, self-reports and history; but also onthe affective, fantasy, and somatic responses thatare evoked within the psychotherapist. All of thismaterial is integrated into a coherent-as-possibleand ever-evolving formulation, with the help ofpsychodynamic concepts. Conceptualization bothcontributes to and is a product of an analyticframe of mind, and to be affective, must be morethan just a coherent narrative. It must also have aring of truth and emotional immediacy (Tuckett,2005).

One might assume that intervention from apsychodynamic point of view means primarilyinterpretation. From a relational perspective,however, the distinction between interpretationand relationship participation is understood to bean arbitrary one, and insight and change are un-derstood to result from both. How one conductsthe psychotherapeutic relationship—the nuanceof what one says and does with the client, andhow and when one says and does it—always hasinterpretive implications, and all interpretationsare equally understood to be actions taken in therelationship. Ablon and Jones (2005), referencinga 1993 report by Fonagy, Moran, Edgcumbe,Kennedy, & Target, commented on this inter-twining of the two in discussing the results oftheir study of psychotherapy process and out-come. They said,

insight and relationship have complementary roles, since psy-chological knowledge of the self can develop only in thecontext of a relationship within which the psychotherapistendeavors to understand the mind of the patient through themedium of their interaction. (Ablon & Jones, 2005, p. 564–565)

How one intervenes—that is, how one partic-ipates in the relationship and how one interpretsunconscious material—springs directly from theclinician’s working conceptualization. Ideally, heor she intervenes only after becoming able to bearthe transference/ countertransference situation,and avoids reacting directly out of it. Sometimessilence is the intervention of choice. The inver-sion of a familiar saying comes to mind: “Don’tjust do something. Sit there!” “Sitting there” im-plies, again, the self-reflective capacity to movefrom reactivity to thinking, formulation, and cre-ating a thoughtful and well-metabolized interven-tion. In theory, if a psychotherapist is in an ana-lytic frame of mind, an intervention will tend tobe well-timed and useful to the client because itwill arise naturally from the psychotherapist’sunconscious link to the client.

Tuckett (2005) offered a list of general criteriafor evaluating a psychoanalyst’s capacity to in-tervene. These are criteria that he believed wouldbe agreed to by psychoanalytic practitioners ofmost persuasions. They are: balancing affect andintellectual illumination, appropriateness of tim-ing and appropriate emotional level, whether theintervention furthers the analytic process,whether it addresses the here-and-now of thetransference, and whether it elaborates uncon-scious relationships within the patient’s mind (p.43). Notably, each of these criteria includes rela-tionship competence elements, and it is a list thatI can indeed endorse. I might merely add that“addressing the here and now of the transference”should be broadly defined to include the kind ofintervention Lisa made in her second hour. Thereshe spoke from within the transference/countertransference situation (“Lisa told her cli-ent . . . that she had actually not ‘gotten it’ thather client really needed something from her”)rather than making interpretations about it (some-thing such as “You were defending yourself byacting as if you didn’t need anything from me andso what you needed was not clear”).

In the vignette, Lisa is struggling with theappropriate use of self-disclosure as a psychody-namic intervention. Despite Lisa’s anxiety aboutthe destructiveness of her initial countertransfer-

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ence disclosure, after reflecting on that anxiety insupervision, Lisa made a second countertransfer-ence disclosure in the next clinical hour. WhenLisa told her client about her regret at havingfailed to call back, she expressed her feelings inan authentic manner that was well-timed anddosed, and she succeeded in reaching her clientemotionally. The helpfulness of this interventionwas confirmed when the client tearfully observedthat she was having the kind of experience withLisa that she wished that she had had with hermother. The client here developed a new insight:She came in touch with her disappointment in hermother, something that she had apparently been,until then, unable to know about.

As supervision and psychotherapy progressed,I would want Lisa to learn to reflect on what ledher to make a particular intervention, why a par-ticular intervention worked or did not, and howher intervention’s impact might be understoodin theoretical terms. However, I would hopethat developing such conceptual competencewould not interfere with her demonstrated ca-pacity to make intuitive unconscious links toher clients and thus to make well timed anddosed disclosures.

Teaching Psychotherapy Competenciesin Supervision

The vignette and commentary in the previoussections have already illustrated a good dealabout my supervision approach. The first severalweeks of this supervision had been primarilydidactic in tone. In the presented supervisoryhour, however, my interventions with Lisa restedheavily on my clinical understanding and myapplication of clinical technique in the service ofteaching and learning.5 First, I provided emo-tional containment to Lisa—listening, processingmy emotional reactions internally, and respond-ing to her distress with an analytic attitude, thusexercising clinical relationship, self-reflection,and conceptualization competencies. I was work-ing to create a supervisory relationship intowhich Lisa could safely bring intense affectivestates, and where we could do psychologicalwork with those states. Creating this kind ofsupervisory environment is essential to sup-porting the development of a supervisee’s ca-pacity to bear the emotional intensity of thepsychotherapeutic relationship and to learnfrom that experience.

I also intervened to help Lisa with her ten-dency toward self-attack. I first attempted to nor-malize her struggles. When that did not suffice, Itold a story about my own.6 Finally, I connectedLisa’s fears of how I would react to what she hadjust told me about her childhood experience, ask-ing, “Like your parents?” Here I clarified anaspect of her negative transference to me becauseI thought that Lisa’s projection of her internalizedparents’ judgmental feelings on to me was threat-ening her feeling of safety in our relationship(assessment-case conceptualization), and re-quired active challenge. Rather than merely reas-suring her, I made a kind of interpretation. In sodoing, I invited her to self-reflect. I did not,however, invite her to elaborate further on thehistorical origins of her concerns, or her relation-ship with her parents, or her fantasies about me,keeping my focus on the here-and-now impedi-ments to our supervisory alliance and on helpingher with her client. By staying with the supervi-sory task, I believe that despite the clinical natureof some of my interventions, I honored the teach/treat boundary, modeling ethical-legal compe-tency, another foundational competency that is ofuniversal importance for clinicians.

In the second clinical hour, Lisa showed acapacity to bear her client’s negative affect whilestaying empathically connected to her. She de-veloped this competence without having receivedany explicit supervisory coaching, but rather as aresponse to my bearing and helping her to pro-cess her own affects. In my experience, supervis-ing in a way that offers to the supervisee thequalities one is trying to teach is a powerfulintervention that contributes to the developmentof psychotherapeutic competency.

I often use experiences in supervision toteach clinical theory, but only after the crisishas passed and the supervisee’s anxiety hasdiminished (relationship and assessment-case-conceptualization competencies). In this casewe might discuss such concepts as unconscioustransference/countertransference enactment, re-sistance, defense, parallel process, holding, and

5 See Frawley-O’Dea and Sarnat (2000) for a discussion ofthe complexities of the ethical use of clinical thinking andintervention in the service of teaching.

6 In my view, the indications for supervisor anonymity areoften different than for a psychotherapist. See Frawley-O’Deaand Sarnat (2000) for a discussion of supervisor disclosure.

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Bion’s (1962) concept of container/contained.We would discuss each concept as it came alive inour shared experience. By integrating theory withexperience in supervision, my hope is that my su-pervisee will feel that theorizing can provide con-tainment in the midst of turbulent relational events,rather than being a primarily intellectual activity.

In my approach to teaching conceptualization Idraw on a variety of psychoanalytic theories, treat-ing them as lenses through which the same experi-ence may be understood differently. I also try tooffer a range of intervention possibilities, ratherthan teaching technique as received wisdom. WhenI suggest possible interventions as I listen to anhour, I point out that such interventions are based onwho I am and how I work (self-reflection). I ac-knowledge that I cannot know the client as inti-mately as my supervisee does (case formulation),and that because I am not in the room with them, Icannot know as well as the supervisee does whatwords would fit best (intervention).

One other form of intervention that is crucial tomy way of supervising deserves mention here,although it does not arise in this vignette: Thesupervisor’s explicit acknowledgment of her ownunconscious contribution to the supervisory rela-tionship (Sarnat, 1992). Here again the medium isthe message as the supervisor’s willingness to beknown as a participant as well as an observerdemonstrates something about how to be a par-ticipant observer in the psychotherapeutic situa-tion. In this vignette we do not take up my un-conscious participation in the here-and-now ofour supervisory relationship, nor do I discloseany of my immediate reactions to my supervisee.This was a moment of crisis, and at such a mo-ment I prioritize helping the supervisee to workwith the client. I also do not want to interfere withan idealization of me when my supervisee isanxious and needs to think of me as “the one whoknows” to reduce her anxiety (assessment-caseconceptualization). Although I do, therefore,sometimes let idealization stand, I try to staysilently in touch (self-reflection) with my humanlimitations and the reality that I have my ownanxieties and defenses (Slochower, 2009). Unlessa supervisor can do so, supervisees are at risk forbeing made to feel that they are the sole source ofdifficulties that emerge in the supervisory rela-tionship. Shame and anxiety will then preventthem from bringing in the problems with whichthey most need and want their supervisor’s help.

However at some point in most of my super-visory relationships I find it helpful and evennecessary to process my unconscious participa-tion with my supervisee. These moments canbe opportunities to model another competencythat is important, in my view, in both a psy-chodynamic psychotherapist and supervisor.That is, to receive negative feedback withoutresponding either defensively or with self-attack, and to accept one’s human frailties(self-reflection). One may then, one hopes, findoneself in a position to use the experience forthe benefit of the client or supervisee, as well asfor oneself.

Conclusions

Drawing on Tuckett’s (2005) work on assess-ing competency in psychoanalytic candidates, Iselected four of Rodolfa et al.’s (2005) compe-tencies in professional psychology as key for thepsychodynamic psychotherapist. I tried to showthrough an extended vignette how these four—relationship, self-reflection, assessment-case con-ceptualization, and intervention—emerge in apsychotherapist-in-training, and how the emer-gence of competence is facilitated in relationshipwith a psychodynamic supervisor. Although thesupervisory and clinical tasks are different, thesupervisor demonstrates competencies in super-vising that are closely related to those she isstriving to develop in her supervisee.

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