Reflections on Psychodynamic Supervision: Monitoring “Vital Signs” of Progress and Adapting to Individual Differences
Many approaches to clinical supervision conceptualize supervisory competence in terms of mastering techniques or skill sets. Improvement is then equated with measured symptom reduction in the supervisee’s clients. But the central focus of psychoanalytic supervision has not traditionally been on either the teaching of specific skills or the reduction of measurable symptoms. Instead, the analytic literature has emphasized relational and developmental goals, such as creating safety in the supervisory alliance, fostering professional and personal growth, facilitating supervisees’ integration of their clinical interventions with their individual personalities, appreciating the implications of personality differences for technique, and attending to progress that goes beyond symptom amelioration. This class addresses how mentors monitor improvement in overall mental health and attend to differences of personality, power, and other factors between supervisor and supervisee and between supervisee and patient. It aims to be relevant to the practical and professional needs of both supervisors and supervisees.
Nancy McWilliams is a distinguished affiliate faculty member at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Applied & Professional Psychology and has a private practice in Lambertville, NJ. She is author of Psychoanalytic Diagnosis (1994; 2011), Psychoanalytic Case Formulation (1999), Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (2004), and Psychoanalytic Supervision (2021), all with Guilford Press. She has edited, coauthored, or contributed to several other books, and is Associate Editor of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (2006; 2nd ed. 2017). A former president of APA’s Division 39 (Psychoanalysis), she is on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Psychology.
Dr. McWilliams’s awards include the Gradiva prize (1999), the Erikson Scholar award (2016), Goethe Scholarship Award (2012), Rosalee Weiss award for contributions to practice (2004), Laughlin distinguished teacher award (2007), Hans Strupp award for teaching, practice and writing (2014), and three awards from Division 39 of the American Psychological Association: Leadership (2005), Scholarship (2012), and International Academic Excellence (2021). She has appeared in three APA videos of master therapists and was a plenary speaker for the 2015 APA convention.
A graduate of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, Dr. McWilliams is also affiliated with the Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New Jersey and is on the Board of Trustees of the Austen Riggs Center. She is an honorary member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the Moscow Psychoanalytic Society, the Institute for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy of Turin, Italy, and the Warsaw Scientific Association for Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. Her writings have been translated into 20 languages, and she has taught in 30 countries.
