Supervision and its Vicissitudes

'What is so beautifully exemplified in this entire sequence of chapters that I have depicted is how supervision, a process conceptually grounded in the psychoanalytic understanding of mental functioning, is nonetheless a distinct process of its own, applicable generally to the whole range of helping situations from the psychoanalyses carried out by the most intensively trained, to the nursing care and emotional support from caregivers in settings for the dying - although, of course, in each of the settings described in these various chapters.'- Robert S. Wallerstein, from his Foreword'Previous publications on supervision have often stressed the poverty of the literature available. We hope that this publication will contribute to the evidence that the topic of supervision is one that is now undergoing an exciting phase of much more open investigation and conceptualization. These developments in supervision should lead to considerable benefits in the coming years for those who work in public health settings, where they are exposed to powerful psychological and emotional strains in themselves and their patients, as well as to those who offer formal psychotherapies in both public and private settings.'- Brian Martindale, from his Editor's Introduction