ABSTRACT
In supervision, several layers of triangles come together: the therapist, the patient, and the patient’s oedipal experience; the therapist, patient, and supervisor triangle; and the therapist’s and the supervisor’s personal triangles. All these will influence the supervision process to a greater or lesser degree. The more self awareness the supervisor and therapist can muster the more likely it is that the distortions of skewed triangles can be avoided. The “primal triangles” are prototypes for triangles seen in supervision. The triangle offers a firmly delineated structure with definite reference points, within which there is the opportunity for free movement from one position to another and offering a choice of view points. In the supervision version of the triangle, the supervisor and the therapist can collude to keep the patient in an interminable therapy, or as an inmate in an institution, in the conviction that it is not safe to let the patient go.
