Monthly In-Person Supervision Group, with Role-playing and Teaching Clinical Theory

Schedule: 1st Friday of the month, 2:00-3:30pm (Note change of time!); September through June
Location: 115 E 9th Str., 12P, NYC
Fee: $85/ month. Group is ongoing & open for new members. All mental health practitioners are welcome!

In this monthly group, group supervision is combined with experiential role-playing, as well as with Dr. Kavaler-Adler’s own teachings on object relations theory as applied to clinical and developmental processes. Members of the group benefit from explanations of concepts related to borderline, schizoid and narcissistic character disorders, distinguishing between splitting, projective identification, and neurotic modes of blocked affect and blocked psychic fantasy, due to repression and unconscious psychic conflict.

Other important concepts of the object relations clinical theory are discussed, such as: “projective-identification,” therapist’s “object survival,” the analyst as a “psychic container,” “the holding environment,” “primitive” vs. neurotic transferences, “primal envy” and its manifestation in treatment, “the transformational object,” “object internalization,” “objective vs. subjective countertransference,” empathy developing through the Winnicottian “capacity for concern” and Kleinian “depressive position,” capacity to process loss, and “existential guilt,” self-sabotage related to “unconscious loyalties” to patient’s internal parental objects, “the true self,” and “the capacity to be alone,” as well as such challenging topics as developmental mourning, envy, and erotic transference.

During the role-play, Dr. Kavaler-Adler takes the role of the psychotherapist, allowing the presenting group member to experience the process of being “inside the skin” of the patient. This allows the group member who is presenting a case process to feel his/her patient from the inside out, while this allows other group members to vividly experience the presented case, so that their own thoughts and feelings can become part of the dialogue about the process with the patient. Objective and subjective forms of countertransference are discussed. References to readings in the psychoanalytic and object relations literature are offered.

Monthly Virtual Supervision Groups

Schedule: First Friday of the month, 11:30am–1pm NEW; September – June

Schedule: Second Friday of the month, 11:30am–1pm; September – June
Location: Virtual participation -via Internet/phone – using Go-to-Meetings
Fee: $85/ month. Group is ongoing group & open for new members. All mental health practitioners are welcome!

This virtual group was begun at the request of two practitioners in Chicago. It operates through audio-video “Go to Meetings” (through Internet or phone) and offers all the benefits of the other monthly Friday supervision group, in terms of role-playing with Dr. Kavaler-Adler and theoretical teachings related to psychopathology, developmental issues, and clinical process theory. Members take turn presenting as in the other monthly Friday group.

This group is open to mental health professionals both outside the New York area, such as our Chicago members, and also to all those in New York City. Computer expert is on call for technical support, if needed.

Please note:

Individual supervision

(case-by-case or on-going) is available via video and audio conferencing.

These can be requested by email at drkavaleradler@gmail.com or by phone 212-674-5425.