Supervision of Art Psychotherapy by Schaverien Joy; Case Caroline;

Author:Schaverien, Joy; Case, Caroline;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2011-10-08T16:00:00+00:00

A note on idealisation

It was only as I finished writing that I realised I had chosen two examples for this chapter, where I was working with different presentations of idealisation as a supervisor. In the earlier example, a situation was discussed where the supervisor was idealised, as well as the client, by a newly qualified art therapist. This may occur as a result of anxiety about failure. Intense anxiety may cause splitting of aspects of the object as a defence. The client was idealised so that the anxieties about the outcome of the case and the whole situation at the workplace and whether art therapy would be proved to be successful could be managed. The supervisor is kept as an idealised `perfect object' and bad aspects of the supervisor split off onto another person. The supervisee then does not have to manage feelings of ambivalence towards the supervisor and the anxieties that these may arouse. It can be such a struggle to get art therapy established that this is sometimes a danger and in these cases supervision can provide a necessary grounding to experience. In the second example, Luke's father idealised his son but in such a way that he had become a vehicle for the father's needs, which was such a powerful dynamic that it was in danger of being enacted by the staff group. Idealisation will always involve the splitting off of ambivalent feelings, and can be a defence against envy or painful anxieties. To see the good and bad in someone we care for needs a certain maturity and bearing of the anxieties of the depressive position; at times of great stress we may slip back to splitting as a defence.

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