ABSTRACT
Paula Heimann used to point out to student psychoanalysts that it is useful to bear in mind, from the very beginning, that one of the aims of an analysis is for the patient to reach the point of not needing the analyst. In many ways the same is true of psychoanalytic supervision. There are a number of ways in which the supervisory triad can break down. Too strong a model of how the analysis ‘should’ be done can be profoundly undermining of the student’s own thinking. This can foster an exaggerated dependence on the supervisor so that a student can sometimes feel reduced to being a messenger between the patient and the supervisor, as if the supervisor were the patient’s real analyst/therapist. There is always a risk that an inexperienced supervisee may invest too much in the authority. This can inhibit autonomous working of a student at the time when it most matters, when the student is with a patient.
