ABSTRACT
When, during my psychoanalytic training, my analyst agreed that I was ready to take on a training case, the important question of the choice of a supervisor arose. I began, in my analysis, to approach the subject, expecting my analyst Enid Balint to be her usual thoughtful self, and that we might have the time to discuss which of her colleagues to approach to discuss possible vacancies. I had some views; there were analysts that I did not want to consult as well as some whose work I liked. However, my analyst surprised me with an unexpected and uncharacteristic intervention; she told me that I should of course contact Donald Winnicott, whom she believed had a vacancy for supervision, and do it soon, since he had a serious cardiac condition and was likely to die in the near future. If I didn’t go to him fairly quickly the opportunity would be lost. She added that it was unfortunate, since he would have made a better supervisor for a second case, rather than a first one, but she thought he was so ill that he probably would not be around when the time came for me to take a second person on.
