Foreword: Supervision in Gestalt Practice

I am very excited to be coordinating Part One of this special issue of Gestalt Review, focusing on individual and group supervision in Gestalt practice.1 Even as I write these words, I am questioning my use of the qualifier very. It seems to be unnecessary, reflecting a possible unaware holding of anxiety or excitement. One of my favorite supervisors, Isadore From (self-described as the first Gestalt patient and one of the founders of Gestalt therapy who supervised many therapists throughout the United States and Europe), taught me to be aware of “softeners” in written and spoken language. Although From has been deceased for many years, I am surprised and pleased that his teachings still live inside me.I am bringing up this anecdote because one of the hallmarks of good supervision is that it has impact. In other words, the learning sticks. This learning is grounded in an ability to be able to self-reflect, to be curious about one’s self and others, to be able to notice patterns, and to be in the here and now. Above all, it includes a capacity to appreciate context: the present surroundings, the culture, and the field. This appreciation births an attitude that guides Gestalt practitioners in their interactions with self and others.Ongoing supervision, whether informal, unstructured and ordinary, or more formal, involving an explicit structure and assigned roles, allows the practitioner to step outside of experience, as outlined earlier. It is essential not just for Gestalt therapists but also for anyone in the psychological change business, including coaches and organizational consultants.Here is one question I hope the reader will keep in mind when reading the articles included in this issue: “What makes a supervision experience successful?” As I contemplated that question, I looked back over my numerous experiences as a supervisee. I focused on four long-term group supervision experiences, all with the same supervisor and all lasting a minimum of five years. I would term two successful and two unsuccessful.What stood out immediately was that the failures lacked a sufficient interpersonal group focus. The relational pattern consisted primarily of the supervisor dealing with each supervisee, one at a time. Not enough attention was paid to group dynamics, especially emerging interpersonal difficulties. Some were obvious to all, others were hidden, but overall most were not acknowledged.In one problematic experience, one of the four individuals in the supervision group had a minimal ability to self-reflect. The rest of us did not appreciate the negative impact this inability had on the group until this individual missed a session. We became the group I had hoped for when I had originally joined. At the end of the session, as we processed this positive experience partially fueled by the absentee member, we struggled with how to proceed. I voted to have a group discussion with the absent individual present. The leader and the two other members were against my suggestion. (It should be pointed out that the absentee member had been in therapy with one of the other group members, and all of us had been in therapy with the leader. This lack of boundary clarity, in my experience, is part of our Gestalt heritage, for good and bad.) After much discussion, we chose collectively to end the group temporarily, without ever addressing the individual or the issue. We decided we would begin meeting again in a year without the problematic individual. I still question the ethics and wisdom of that decision. We did begin meeting again after a year, and the group functioned well.In the other failed group, there were complicated relationships among the six members that included two married couples. All of us had known each other outside of the confines of the group, and both of the married couples eventually divorced. Discussion of outside relationships was discouraged by the leader, although it clearly impacted the group dynamics. We never addressed many of the issues around power and intimacy that often emerged, and trust was never established. The group eventually decided to disband.When I look back at the two successful long-term supervision groups I belonged to, the leader and the group paid attention to group dynamics. Interpersonal difficulties were acknowledged as normal and largely resolved. Both of these groups met for many years, sadly ending with the death of the leader and most of the participants.The articles, written primarily by senior Gestalt practitioners from five countries (Argentina, Austria, Italy, Russia, and the United States), differ in many ways. For example, some are more focused on the body and others more on cognition. Yet, they have much in common. They all value process and the Gestalt concept of good form. All emphasize the importance of building trust so that the supervisees have enough support to look into themselves, explore the places where they get stuck, and recognize where they repeat old, ingrained patterns without awareness. And, of course, this unaware repetition (countertransference) is created not just by the supervisee but also by the past interactions with the client and others (see Melnick 2003). It also involves the present situation, including the leader and all the group members.All supervision grapples with how to gain insight into the client system, for it is part of our job as practitioners to understand the inner dynamics of our clients. This desire to understand often involves labeling. Thus, we simplify and break down the complexity of people into sometimes relatively benign labels, such as introvert, thinker, or feeler, or into more serious labels, such as narcissist, borderline, or schizophrenic. As Gestalt practitioners, we understand that traditional labeling oversimplifies. As Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb discusses (in this issue), assessment is important whether it is in the form of a traditional diagnosis or more phenomenological and process-oriented. A diagnosis helps the therapist appreciate what is habitual in clients’ interactions with others: for example, how they are aligned in their body, how they manage hierarchy and intimacy, how they experience emotions such as joy and rejection.Of course, we are aware that labeling can often oversimplify individuals and experiences (Melnick and Fall 2008). Gestaltists have long struggled regarding how to find a way of describing problematic behaviors by utilizing a process-oriented approach (Melnick and Nevis 1992; 1998). I agree with Ruella Frank (in this issue), who moves beyond the labeling of individuals to advocating diagnosis of the relational field.Nancy Amendt-Lyon’s article, “Parallel Process, Field Forces, and Reversed Roles in Gestalt Supervision,” opens this module on supervision. I appreciate her highlighting the importance of experiment and, even more importantly, the embracing of an experimental attitude. This approach allows supervisees to be curious about the novel and to try something new in behavioral terms. It contrasts with an overly structured redundancy found in poor supervision. I also value Amendt-Lyon’s discussion of the importance of Gestalt therapists’ focus on self-care: being able constantly to self-assess, create support, and, above all, live a life filled with learning. This learning includes a focus on professional development, including ongoing supervision, and leads to the development of a personal style that gives each of us a sense of uniqueness. Amendt-Lyon’s reversed roles model of group supervision is worth noting. It emphasizes various forms of role-play, including creating semi-structured experiments that give liveliness to her work. In addition, everyone has an active role, and the group is able not only to focus on the supervisee and the supervision issue but also to look at the dynamics within the group.2 Noteworthy, too, is that Nifont B. Dolgopolov (in this issue) also uses the psychodramatic technique of role reversal, which he says, “usually leads therapists to find out what they need to know about the client.”Ruella Frank’s contribution, “Somatic Supervision: A Living Body Approach,” places emphasis on movement, on sensing and perceiving experience, and on how the body creatively and spontaneously adjusts in relation to its “surround,” its environment. As one who has struggled to bring in sensory experience while engaging with clients over the internet, I appreciated her creative use of cyberspace to do bodywork in this online venue. She adjusts to this lack of face-to-face contact in many ways, for example, by having supervisees videotape sessions (with the clients’ permission), which are then selectively shared with others in the group. The mutual experience of all viewing the therapy tape together helps to generate group cohesiveness.3 I found Frank’s description of how she grounds and locates herself before beginning a session and her continuous focus on “self in relation” somewhat unique to our Gestalt methodology.I am excited to present Laurie Fitzpatrick’s piece, “What I Learned in Supervision: Reflections of a Nontraditional Participant,” in which she reminisces about her experience of being in a supervision group composed not primarily of therapists but of coaches. She discusses what it is like to be a supervisee, listing the learnings both in terms of herself and of working with clients. Here, again, it is easy to see how a supervision group can border on being more of a psychotherapy group. I appreciated her acknowledgment of the difficulty in managing dual relationships which are common in supervision experiences.Diego G. Brandolín begins his article, “Clinical Supervision in Gestalt Therapy: A Methodological Proposal Toward the Formalization of the Process,” by discussing some of the differences between psychotherapy and supervision. He speaks of how some of the therapy-governing bodies, including the American Psychological Association, are attempting to formalize and standardize the task of supervision (in fact, the European Association is now accrediting supervision training programs). He then describes his development as a supervisor in his native country of Argentina, emphasizing some of the political dimensions of his work. Like many of the other authors in this issue, he outlines the positive benefits of group over individual supervision. One important topic he emphasizes is the entering and exiting of group members in order for the group to progress with a minimum of disruption (a subject also discussed by Fitzpatrick in this issue). Brandolín specifically outlines the roles of supervisor and supervisee in his structured way of conducting the sessions.Nifont Dolgopolov opens his fascinating paper, published posthumously—“Functional Model of Supervision in Gestalt Therapy”—by describing the state of psychotherapy in Russia and underlining the beginnings of the therapeutic and supervisory enterprise. I particularly valued his distinction between academic psychology and the scientific method and that of psychotherapeutic practice which is more dynamic and interactional. He outlines three different types of supervision. In the first, supervision is no different from psychotherapy: the relationship is described as supervisor/supervisee as opposed to therapist/client. The second approach places “treatment” of the supervisee not as a direct goal but as focused on training and professional practice. The third approach combines the first two: psychotherapy, training, and dialogue. Dolgopolov separates out common issues that supervisees bring into supervision and how the supervisor deals with them. He also discusses the evaluative aspects of supervision and how to respond to common supervision issues.Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb’s article, “Supervision as a ‘Situation’: Recognition of the Therapist’s Intentionality,” begins with a well-appreciated, extensive review of the literature on psychotherapy supervision, comparing the Gestalt approach with that of psychoanalytically oriented practitioners. Spagnuolo Lobb carefully examines the many goals of supervision, starting with the basic and traditional ones of educating, increasing competence, monitoring patient care, and protecting the community from incompetent clinicians. Other common goals include assessing and diagnosing patients (found primarily in psychodynamic orientations) and, above all, protecting their well-being. Spagnuolo Lobb convincingly describes supervision as a dynamic process filled with learning and lays stress on the overriding importance of the present and of the situation.Michael Kramer’s Afterword to Part One is titled “Clinical Supervision and Case Consultation: Critical Similarities and Differences.” Kramer describes these differences in terms of procedural dynamics and the leader’s ethical and legal obligations, relying on the evolving standards of the American Psychological Association as it increasingly pays attention to establishing guidelines for the hierarchical relationship inherent in the supervisor/consultant–supervisee relationship.As I end this introduction, I am aware of how much I learned by reading and responding to these articles. I am also aware of many similarities and some differences. Yet, they are all clearly Gestalt-oriented, sharing many of our concepts, values, and processes. I close by summarizing some of them: