On supervision in groups with an emphasis on three group analytic principles
When I was asked if I would give a talk about my experience of being a supervisor and what goes on in my head while I supervise, I thought it would be more meaningful to have the whole group share these experiences and also give an experience of being observers to the group in action so to say. Our group has six members including myself and we meet every Tuesday from 8:00am to 9:30am. There is no pre-defined structure or agenda to the session apart from beginning and ending on time. Anyone can bring anything in to the group which is of concern to them and their work. The aim is not to find solutions, but to venture in to a collaborative quest and understand the nature of interactions in depth and have an experience of emerging awareness through the intersection of multiple realities of group members present. And with this in mind, I communicated to the faculty and students of a masters level practitioners’ course in training as supervisors at The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) – “What you could expect in this discussion is to hear us share about our experience collectively and individually in the role of being members of the group and of the facilitator. You could expect to see us make mistakes, talk about mistakes and embrace mistakes as part of the supervision experience. In fact, as I have just typed this out more spontaneously than well thought out, you could probably find mistakes in this write up, gaps in thoughts, inconsistencies and abrupt ending of sentences. What you could also expect is to see that the subjective experience of being therapists is incredibly valuable and the inter-relational wisdom, knowledge and sharing is as much evidence-based practice as any. With that, I invite you to explore…”
About a year ago I decided to begin two new supervision groups. The process began with an open invitation to attend a six-session closed group with five members in each group. In the first session the idea of Group Analytic thought was introduced as a philosophical framework within which supervision would take place. There were 24 people who signed up, divided randomly in to five groups. After the six sessions members were informed of the two, slow-open, unstructured, supervision groups and 10 of signed up and that’s how the two groups came to be born. Group Analysis, a psychotherapy I have immersed myself in for about two decades now, was not something which was known in India, although psychoanalysis has been around since the 1940s. So, it was through my interest in Therapeutic Communities and the influence of thinkers like of S.H. Foulkes, Liesel Hearst, Wilfred Bion, Malcolm Pines and many more of whom I have only read a little. But my interest has grown tremendously from thinkers like Farhad Dalal, Rex Haigh, Jan Lees, Angelika Gölz, Łukasz Dobromirski, Mike Tait, David Glyn, Teresa von Sommaruga Howard, Andy Downie, Lars Bo Jørgensen, Dick Blackwell, Tove Mathiesen, and many others through the Alternative Large Group (ALG), and members of the Creating Large Group Dialogue programme (CLGD), with whom I have had the fortune of knowing more intimately and talking with regularly. And it is from such conversations as these and more, that I continue to be immersed in the adventures of how an individual who is born in to a group-world, is continuously influenced by social processes and hence issues arising in this group-world so to say, and the enactments and re-enactments in a carefully co-created group setting facilitated by one or two persons.
As I understand it, there is no consensus of the definition of what group analysis is, a friend and colleague, once said there are as many group analyses as there are group analysts, and it is this particular aspect of not fixing something to say it is this or that, but to continuously attempt to understand each other’s experience of being in a group, which appealed to me a I took to it like a duck to water. What then guides a group analyst’s quest is a set of principles which they are free to apply as the group is conceptualised. I had decided that I would facilitate the supervision group in the same manner as I facilitate my therapy group, which meant, no turn taking to make case presentations but instead to allow members of my group, I don’t like to call them supervisees, to bring in whatever is on their mind with the shared understanding that the context in which all material will be analysed would be the landscape of psychotherapeutic practice.
And so, to me the starting principle is dynamic administration. It means the one who has conceived of the group in their mind, that is when the group begins its existence before the actual physical birth of the first session, has to now go about setting the structure for this group, like a bird picking the right set of twigs to construct the nest in which new members would be arriving soon. And if you have watched a bird in action, you can see that a lot is going on in its little head in the twig selection process. Not any twig will do, it has to be the right size for the right step in the construction process and most importantly, it needs to feel right. This painstaking construction, is sometimes aborted for a different tree or sometimes destroyed by a squirrel or sometimes completed and ready for hopeful little ones. This was the same with my supervision group being conceived and then born and I had to ask questions like, what the group size should be, where will it take place, how long, who gets in, how does one leave and other such questions which are a matter of design and construction of the group structure, which became my first task to facilitate an environment in which I imagined life and growth. And then on, they would, along with members of the group build on these first boundaries, other structures which would be of support to the exploration of the relating that happens between members.
The matrix is another such principle which, like the movie, describes the communications between members of a group like that of a neural network in which nerve cells fire away, each one touching at least a thousand others and each of those touching a thousand each creating a web of communications which need us members of the group to make meaning of. Although I run six supervision groups a week, I am the same human being entering each, but am I the same person in each? As each group has different members, me being the common one to all, what then makes me a different me in each group? How does each member and their practice and their framework and their own personal beliefs and attitudes influence each other and me and how do we then bring thought in to the nature of relationship each one has with those who are in therapy with them? There is nothing simplistic about this and there is no expert here who can tease it all out and present to the members on a neatly laid out dining table and offer a menu to choose from in dealing with their patients, I don’t like this word either, but I find it hard to replace with something more apt for now.
The next, group-as-a-whole. In a wolf pack, wolves are fantastic creatures who live in groups all their lives with grandparents, parents, children, cousins, aunts, and uncles all led by an alpha couple, the experience of living, learning, playing and working all happens together and continuously. “For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack”, a quote by Rudyard Kipling from Jungle Book, is one which I often recall when I feel overwhelmed as a facilitator. In a supervision group, the individual members need to draw from the group what is essential for them and fulfil their individual need, be autonomous and be able to develop their own independent thought, and at the same time, is a part of a larger whole all the time assimilating and contributing to others development and growth, most of which happens beyond our control and beyond our awareness. The meaning of working with a patient in your mind or a group of patients in your mind in a supervision group is then left to surface freely while being stimulated by each members contribution. “This reminds me of…” is a very common phrase used in our group, and sometimes, an individual member’s concerns may have led to addressing someone else’s even though they hadn’t brought it up overtly. As each member grows in their capacity as a therapist, the group also grows in its capacity to think about the material which gets brought in, all material being a matter for analysis by the group and for the group. And so, the groups’ experience of growth and change, is always larger than the sum of the individual members’ independent journey.
The above principles are not sequential, each is in play with the other all the time and as a facilitator of my supervision group, I need to find a way to adapt them in to the context and conversation we are having with each other. All of the learning and insight in the supervision group happens in the transference and multiple counter-transferences through mechanisms like projection, projective identification, mirroring, resonance, pairing, splitting, cohesion and coherence. These are a lot of technical terms, which we never use in the supervision itself, however, if one looks closely, you will be able to watch them being applied through exchanges between members of the group. What I do like about this way of supervision is that it resonates the therapy experience. This allows for members to bring up their own personal difficulties and sometimes the group can function as a space to work through some of these difficulties or even just be a space for these to be heard thus bring the awareness that there is no clear boundary between personal therapy and supervision. It is in our minds that this is not a therapy group, it is a supervision group, and yet can be a therapeutic space for members. My own learning about this way of doing group analysis comes from my experience of being in supervision with two group analysts. These years of working with them have undoubtedly influenced my development as a group analytic thinker, in my therapy and supervision groups. It is in the open playing field which they hold week after week after week where I bring all of myself and my work to get to the business of philosophical quest about what is going on between me and my patients and me and them as supervisors. This is what informs my understanding of group analysis.
With the above introduction to the faculty and students of TISS, we, our Tuesday Group, arrived at a zoom meeting on the 12th of October 2021, to do what we usually do while others sat around and participated from a so-called outer circle, first listening and watching quietly for 45 minutes and then interacting with us for the next 45 minutes. This format, commonly known as a Fishbowl, was a new experience for all of us – the student group, the faculty, our supervision group, including me. What follows below is the experience, ideas and thoughts of each of the members of our group.
Aruna Kalahastri
When Anando spoke about a possibility of being a part of an experiential teach at TISS I was super excited. We had a call with the TISS team to know what this workshop was meant to offer and what to expect. I could not attend the call neither could I participate in the workshop which took place a few days after. However, in my absence I was present.
I remember getting a mail from Anando introducing our team to the TISS faculty and the feeling I experienced. I remember feeling anxious on reading this mail, this anxiety I feel stemmed from the fact that though I had my master’s degree in psychology, I lacked a doctorate! I told myself that my willingness to learn and my own life experiences is sufficient to be a therapist. This awareness gave me permission to be excited about this new opportunity.
Supervision may mean different things in different contexts. Most of the times supervision is evaluative. It holds the perspective that the supervisor has the expert knowledge the ability to discover what is right or wrong with the supervisee and the client. A top-down approach. In this approach the life experiences of the supervisee and the client is largely discounted, and emphasis is placed on diagnosis and interventions. I have also been a part of collaborative supervision spaces like this one which facilitates growth and transformation.
I feel in this supervision group we make space for and are interested in how each of us are experiencing the work being supervised. We value what each one shares and curious on how a client impacts each of us. We are situating what is shared in our life and working as a collective helping one and other understand multiple perspectives and interpretations. This supervision process promotes agency.
So, to me this opportunity with TISS is taking this process to the next level and exploring these ideas with a larger group. I was disappointed that I could not put away my social obligations and prioritize my need to be there in the workshop. I was furious and probably submitting my writing late is my way of expressing this anger. I was not conscious of that till the moment I typed it here. I was also with the group in spirit, I remember texting Anando on that day and wishing the group. In my absence I was very present.
Lyn Elsa Georgy
This was an interesting experience, to put it mildly i.e., to share our group process, which is personal and something which we built over a year, to be raw and vulnerable in front of an audience who is largely coming from a mind space that they are about to witness a (typical) psychotherapy supervision group. It was scary and exciting and daunting at so many levels.
- Would they get the unique space we have built?
- Would they respect something I hold high in my mind and almost sacred?
My supervision spaces are at the outset a space for my professional development, but they are also places I get personal and vulnerable so that I can grow professionally. I truly believe that the psychotherapist who is also (hopefully) a psychotherapist in supervision- (as a supervisor/supervisee) is THE psychotherapeutic instrument. I feel it’s important that the therapist is aware of this and tries to bring together all aspects of her or his personality and be open to learning spaces to become this instrument. This gives them the unique capacity to be honed by experience and thus create a relationship that helps other people grow, heal, and expand the range of possibilities in their lives. Supervision, to me, is not just for professional growth, I do grow personally as well. I see these spaces as bridges that connect the personal and the professional within, and out there- bridges to all the wonderful members who I can inspire and can be inspired by; than ‘classes’ where I am taught something. I am a supervisor myself and this is what I try to do with my supervisees as well.
This experience was, ironically, something out of the box and in turn taught me a lot as well. I learnt that the supervision process is on a continuum, almost like a journey, and we all have to start from where we are in the given moment. Others may or may not fully understand how we engage, and that’s alright. I can use dialogue in such instances. And dialogue doesn’t necessarily mean problem resolution but more on the lines of acknowledging there is something and we are in it together. I learnt I can be in the moment anywhere, even when there is a live audience. I learnt I just have to be me, and being anything or anyone else is inauthentic and doesn’t really do me or anyone else any good. I learnt I can embarrass myself, but that’s the only way I will learn. I learnt though I will always have to be aware of the primary role I’m called to play – I’m ‘the supervisor’ in one group, a ‘supervisee’ in another, and in this space – in bringing together my both my experiences, I managed to come to this clarity that am a continuous being- both the supervisor and supervisee, in all spaces irrespective of the basic premise which is pre-set. Am grateful for the experience and the insights it has prompted in me. and I hope to continue learning and being.
Pankaj Suneja
I am still exploring the nature of supervision in psychotherapy work and also the group supervision sessions at Hank Nunn Institute that I have been part of has been facilitating this exploration further in a group setting. In individual supervision, I have been learning that the boundary between personal and professional blurs because of the nature of the work we do as psychotherapists. Especially if the orientation of the psychotherapist is relational, humanistic and psychodynamic which means that therapist as a person is present to the patient in wholeness with his being, thoughts and feelings that are evoked in response to sharing of the patient.
I learn that the therapist works from his own inner life in facilitating the patient’s inner life from a space of conflict, suffocation and stuckness to flow, containment and expansion. And so, the supervision becomes a space for holding the therapist’s inner life of which patient is part. Perhaps a therapist is carrying many patients and each of them are communicating with each other as well in the psyche of the therapist. The inter connectedness of the dyad of therapist-patient is carried in the supervision and in the presence of supervisor, it becomes a triad.
In group supervision at Hank Nunn Institute, I find a community and sense of belonging with other therapists who are also carrying their patients, have similar or different challenges and yearning to constantly grow. The group process helps to extend the insight to working with patient and also in the inner life of therapist. I find it very useful to explore the context of therapist, where they are coming from, their orientation, their cultural roots, their language, their sexuality and relationship patterns, the challenges of their present life and how it influences, nourishes or adds depth to the work with patients. I feel that in group setting, by listening and participating in group process, a therapist can become more as person in presence of other therapists.
The experience of facilitating supervision workshop at TISS through performative group process was new to me. To begin with, it felt like I am part of a circus that will perform in presence of audience. We never have sessions whether individual or groups in presence of an audience of learners. I feel it is more challenging to stay authentic and genuine in presence of an audience. It is easy to be swayed by the expectation of audience to perform in a certain way. At the same time, if the act is with honesty, deeper conviction and authenticity, then it has power to affect the being of the audience in strong way. And thus, this experience of performance can be enlivening for both the performers and audience.
I felt the group experience was quite fulfilling as many themes opened up, quite spontaneously, in the group process dialogue that were pertinent to me in that moment. In group, I learnt that being quiet and listening patiently to sharing and underlying process is important part of working in group. An individual psychotherapy works because it brings an isolated experience of an individual in relationality. And similarly, the group spaces work because they bring the isolated individuals in the community and with this sense of togetherness and belonging, healing can take place. And so those who are listening and perhaps not sharing much are also vital to community because they are holding the space and sharing when and where something deeper is evoked in them. The group supervision space also allows this kind of dynamics. And so, group supervision brings the community of therapist together who engages relationally with each other that facilitates development.
Prathitha Gangadharan
I don’t remember too much now and probably that is the way I deal with challenges, by blocking out and I don’t know what!!
Having said that, I am open to risk taking and putting myself out there and seeing how I can emerge or even if I can emerge. It helped that Anando said that he would draw me out as needed, so the pressure of turning up was taken away. Once we got into the flow of doing supervision, it didn’t matter that we were being watched.
The questions from the audience after the session were intriguing as it seemed like their supervision spaces were, maybe, too structured? I like a balance which I find in most of my supervision spaces. Would that be a function of how we cocreate relationships and look for more of what we are used to?
Vinti Varma
We didn’t have any ‘plan’ to guide us on what we will do in the workshop and it was understood that we will treat it as any other session (though shorter than our usual 90 minutes session). When I joined the workshop, my head was still full of something that we had discussed that very morning in our supervision session. Anando, while talking of boundaries, had said that when rules come before structure, they can be messy; but when structures are in place first, rules emerge as and when needed, and can be dynamic. Put like this, it was a simple yet fascinating idea for me. And it remained with me for the rest of the day. (I even interpreted a client’s issue using this language). In the evening I started the session in the workshop with a statement around this idea and then immediately started feeling anxious. “Here we are, the supervision group members, trying to showcase how a psychodynamic group supervision session goes and here I am, starting the session talking about what’s foremost on my mind without giving any context or providing an explanation”. (To think of it now, that’s exactly how our weekly sessions go). As the session progressed, I found my anxiety reducing. I realised that our supervision group is a space that cannot be showcased in 45 minutes. It has to be experienced over a period of time and there are no shortcuts to it.
Anando Chatterji
As I read what the other members of our group wrote, I thought of my experience which felt somewhat like a blur because I was simply inside this fish-bowl with the group, just mildly aware that there were curious eyes watching us from the outside. I was also aware for a moment that this is not the usual teaching format in a classroom and that I was expected to be “the” expert parting knowledge to others, while here I was saying that knowledge is not just passed on, but occurs in the experience of sharing together. I was not giving away “key take away points”, instead saying, whatever you, at this time in your life, are able to absorb from this experience is what you go away with. A bit like a creature in the dark foraging through the forest floor and sometimes finding interesting things and sometimes just enjoying the ordinary. I enjoyed the ordinary that evening.
I remember that in the post discussion there were many puzzled gazes, what’s the theory, what’s the intervention, what skills were being used, was that a technique, how do we find solutions for our patients and so on. As our group responded to most of these in the gentlest of ways to say, this is all it is, just a regular weekly time for us to get together to think about what concerns us about what matters to us. One member of the student group said, it was beyond her imagination that so much depth could emerge from unstructured conversations, which look easy from the outside, but for some reason feel daunting from the inside!
What was also interesting for me was that, in the writings of the members of the group, I noticed being alluded to and wondered about it. At first the dependency on me felt uncomfortable, but then I also realised that what I say in the group seems to impact and affect the members quite intensely. And sometimes that can be useful, but at other times I could potentially hurt someone or be experienced as harsh and uncaring. This makes me feel very vulnerable. I am faced with the reality of the larger social matrix of being an urban-upper middle class-educated-upper caste-Hindu man, the privilege, the shame and the guilt associated with my identity, my history and my present. I wondered whether this is what I had acted out when I accepted the invitation of the faculty and students. But I am also grateful to my group members for containing my acting out and allowing for some destruction to take place in our group. I am gaining from this as much…
Aruna Kalahastri, Psychotherapist
Lyn Elsa Georgy, Clinical Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Psychotherapy Supervisor
Pankaj Suneja, Psychologist
Prathitha Gangadharan, Provisional Teaching & Supervising Transactional Analysis (PTSTA), Psychotherapy, Trainee Group Analysis, Hank Nunn Institute (accredited by Institute of Group Analysis, UK)
Vinti Varma, Counselling Psychologist and Finance Counsellor.
Anando Chatterji, Group and Therapeutic Community Psychotherapist
The references to all concepts I have used here are from my conversations in my own supervision with Angelika Gölz and Andy Downie and my many, often spontaneous, conversations with Farhad Dalal, Rex Haigh, Jan Lees, Angelika Gölz, Łukasz Dobromirski, Mike Tait, David Glyn, Teresa von Sommaruga Howard,Andy Downie, Lars Bo Jørgensen, Dick Blackwell, Tove Mathiesen, members of the ALG and the CLGD.
Alternative Large Group is a weekly leaderless large group which I have volunteered to host it from here in India. It has been running since the 5th of July, 2020 and has between 45 and 65 members, from about 23 countries and people from various professions, all interested in the larger social context they work within
Creating Large Group Dialogue in Organisations and Society is a programme led by Teresa von Sommaruga Howard and Mike Tait to bring together the potential of the large group with our work on management and leadership. It will not only enable participants to facilitate dialogue in any setting of their choosing but it will also place them at the leading edge of sophisticated approaches to management and organisational development.
Tata Institute of Social Sciences is a social science university founded in 1936 by Sir Dorabjee Tata Trust to create human service professionals for addressing the emerging needs of Indian society. TISS offers some of the most contemporary and socially relevant, globally acknowledged study programs in social sciences and applied human service professions.
Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936. (1991). The Jungle Book. New York :Arcade Pub.