Supervision of Psychotherapy

Here, the author wishes to discuss some dynamics observed in psychotherapy supervision of chronic schizophrenic patients. The supervisory relationship was defined as three-way, or three-story relationship involving three persons linked by a middle person who sees both party. A varying degree of emotional involvement was observed in this relationship, although nobody was free from possible entanglement. The degree of emotional involvement was observed to be least in the supervisor, and the most in the patient. The therapist was considered to be in the middle of this relationship. It was observed that three major emotional reactions, tentatively called “measles syndrome,”“depletion syndrome,” and “squeezed-in-the-middle syndrome” were frequent occurrence in this particular three-way, or three-story, relationship. Definitions and illustrations of these symptoms were described in the case examples given in the article.