Supervising Psychoanalytic/Neuropsychoanalytic Trainees

My first supervision of psychoanalytic therapy students came shortly after I began practicing as a psychoanalytic psychotherapy.  I prepared to do supervision by obtaining five years of analytic therapy supervision myself, followed by a year of supervision of my supervision. Supervision of your supervision means an experienced supervisor coaches you in providing supervision to students. I also was approved by the State Board of Counseling to be a LPC Supervisor. 

I remember a student who was doing a masters degree in counseling in order to become an LPC ( Licensed Professional Counselor.) As in most LPC training programs, the students are taught the dozen or so major theories of psychotherapy, and the common principles of psychotherapy technique. Psychoanalytic theory and practice is just one of those twelve orientations to psychotherapy. Luckily this student was quite interested in psychoanalytic work.

So we began. He started as a practicum student, remained on as an intern, and then decided to do his residency with us as well. All of this supervision took five years. Having little experience in supervising student therapists through these various competency levels, I was not confident in how to proceed. So at first I basically supervised him and others the way I was supervised. I did read a half dozen books on psychoanalytic supervision along the way. I will share those titles later. The structure I decided on was this: We would meet weekly for an hour. The first week would be didactic, and I would teach him psychoanalytic theory and psychotherapy technique. The second week would be more traditional supervision where he would bring in his therapy cases for us to discuss. We would precede with that format for the full five years.

 Of course to pass the LPC Exam in VA you have to know the other eleven therapy orientations as well. We agreed to explore those orientations enough to pass the Exam! My supervisee's patients were patients in our Center. He had his own office and got great experience in group private practice. 

I supervised the above trainee for 5 years. After him, I was fortunate over the years to be able to supervise 13 more interns and residents in analytic therapy. 

About 2017, I started studying neuropsychoanalysis/psychotherapy.  By 2025 I felt I knew enough to supervisee trainees in neuropsychoanalysis/psychotherapy. I used my unpublished book/training manual, which was a compilation  of my blog posts on the subject, as the basis for the training. I still today in 2026, and in semi retirement, consult with other psychoanalytic  clinicians interested in learning neuropsychoanalysis/psychotherapy. If you are interested in this consultation, leave a comment here on my blog or email me at calanmeltonw@gmail.com.