ABSTRACT
In the immediate situation of supervisees being worried about a suicidal patient, the first task may be to help them overcome any panic or self-blame and then regain their thinking capacities, whether the contact is over the telephone or in a supervision session. Therapists working in the public sector may find that the psychoanalytic psychotherapy system and values conflict with the policies and procedures of the larger organization around issues of patient care and the prevention of suicide. Thus, there can be both internal and external pressures to act rather than think that may overwhelm the therapist, so that the need to work out the most appropriate response, including considerations about confidentiality, may lose out to the pressure to act without thinking. To sum up the supervisor’s overall task, it is to look after the therapist–patient couple that he/she is supervising.
