Relational perspectives and the supervisory triad

Contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives, especially those broadly labeled relational, have significant implications for how supervision is understood and conducted. Perspectivist, 2-person models of psychoanalysis may be app lied to the ways supervisors construct supervisory authority, knowledge, an d the transmission of clinical technique to the trainee. Specifically, a dy adic model of psychoanalysis leads to a triadic view of the supervisory pro cess. Clinical examples are used to expand traditional concepts of parallel process and illustrate ways in which supervisor, therapist, and patient ar e engaged in an inevitable and ongoing system of multidirectional influence . Relational concepts-such as the value of paradox and uncertainty, the int eraction between mutuality and asymmetry, locating a balance between old an d new object relationships, and attending to reciprocal influences in affec tive shifts-are highlighted as they apply to the supervisory triad.