ABSTRACT
For the most part, supervision in traditional psychoanalytic settings is focused on the patient's internal world and gives little regard to the relationship between internal and external; it is “as if these objects appear to exist in a sociological vacuum.” Nowadays, it is evident that the therapist's and patient's subjectivity is formed out of cultural constructs along with introjections of their psychosocial environment, whereby aspects such as race, culture, class, language, gender, sexuality, and religion are central in shaping the psychic landscape as well as the development of self and identity. This chapter aims to elucidate, via a case study, how the aforementioned aspects play a significant role in the patients’ lived-life experience and states that therefore an intercultural supervision space is essential
The case follows the treatment of a British/Lebanese/ Asian/ Muslim female patient, whose objects exist within a matrix of dialectic tensions, both internally and externally. It illustrates essential elements of supervision where issues pertaining to the psychosocial environment are openly explored, enabling the supervisee to gain useful insights into unconscious processes to deepen the dyadic intersubjective relationship between therapist and patient. Overall, the chapter evidences how intercultural supervision enables the supervisee to work through some of the challenges presented in working with a patient from London's diverse multicultural environment.
