Psychoanalysis passed its heyday in the seventies and has been usurped by short term cognitive-behavioural therapies. Despite this trend, recently there has been a small growth of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Aotearoa New Zealand. This presentation describes my experience of employing a psychoanalytic sensibility in teaching and supervising intern counselling psychologists in a cognitive-behaviourally dominated university system. Vignettes are used to illustrate where differences between the psychoanalytic and cognitive-behavioural worldviews arose in supervision and how I attempted to deal with them.
Theoretical differences discussed include; the client’s free association and therapist’s evenly hovering attention vs. authoritative and technique driven direction provided by the therapist; a relational focus, including links to past relationships and the transference/countertransference vs. the therapeutic relationship as a means to reinforce the client’s engagement with goal and future oriented work; process and interpretation vs. explicit guidance and advice; focus on affect and defences against it vs. the centrality of cognition and cognitive errors; and the exploration of fantasy life vs. techniques directed at symptom reduction.