Supervision in Transference-Focused Psychotherapy.

Transference-focused psychotherapy is a modified psychoanalytic psychotherapy for patients with borderline personality disorder as well as patients with impaired personality functioning. Supervision of candidates and psychotherapists is regarded as mandatory and employs video recording of all sessions. The supervisor's task is to be aware of the patient's external reality as well as of the treatment frame. Only after the setting is protected in this way, the treatment process is focused with an emphasis on the therapeutic relationship (transference) in the here-and-now. The parallel process (relational patterns from the treatment that repeat within the supervisory process) is used to understand the treatment process and to create an affective experience as well as cognitive understanding within the supervisee.