C. Edward Watkins, Jr., University of North Texas Essentials of a Self Psychology Vision of Psychoanalytic Supervision: A Practice Review Introduction: In psychoanalytic self psychology, supervision has long been viewed as educational sine qua non in the teaching and learning of its practice. But when we think about supervision from the vantage point of self psychology, what crucial constructs and considerations most readily leap to mind? and What are some distinct ways in which self psychology has contributed to vision in psychoanalytic supervision? In this poster, I would like to address those questions by means of a practice review of the self psychology supervision literature. Method: To identify practice-relevant articles for examination, three steps were taken: (a) PEP Web, PsycInfo, MedLine, Education Research Complete, and Google Scholar database searches were conducted using “supervision” and “self psychology” as the key search words; (b) reference sections of identified papers were examined to further identify other appropriate articles for inclusion that might have been missed; and (c) both psychoanalytic and supervision journals were examined for any recent articles that might have appeared. The review time period spanned from 1980 (when the first self psychology/supervision paper appeared) up to beginning A total of 25 self psychology supervision publications was identified for inclusion. Effort was then made to: (a) examine all papers to determine their primary message or messages; (b) identify salient themes or points across papers; and (c) integrate those messages, themes, and points into a meaningful pastiche of self psychology in supervisory conceptualization and conduct. Results : Across the last approximate 35 years of professional activity, what specific features have come to best capture a self psychology vision of supervision? In answer to that question, the following eleven tenets appear to capture the essentials of a self psychology vision of psychoanalytic supervision : (a) the self is the preeminent organizing construct in supervisee learning; (b) the supervisee self is integrally implicated in all supervisory action; (c) where supervisee self-esteem and self-cohesion exist and are consistently nurtured, supervision learning is most apt to occur and be enlivened; (d) in serving as selfobjects, supervisors consistently support supervisee self-cohesion and self- esteem and increasingly foster supervisee growth through creating an optimal, growth-inducing educational milieu; (e) supervisee change and reorganization during supervision occur via repeated sequences of self disruption and restoration; (f) supervisors strive to empathically titrate any self disruption/restoration sequences with the supervisee’s level of professional development, self-cohesion, and self-esteem; (g) when such disruption becomes too great, it can be expected to increasingly jeopardize the likelihood of supervision learning; (h) fragmentation anxiety, demoralization, and feeling the self under attack would be common examples of problematic learning disruptions; (i) problematic learning disruptions can also disrupt the supervisor-supervisee alliance and precipitate a relationship empathic failure that requires redress; (j) where supervisor empathic failures occur, supervisor initiated measures of relational repair are ideally implemented with dispatch; and (k) empathic immersion is the primary means by which the supervisor is enabled to most effectively listen and respond to supervisees during supervision, diagnose their evolving learning needs, and most sensitively offer appropriate supervisory intervention. Discussion: Some of the primary features that seemingly define our contemporary self psychology supervisor might be identified as: Having passion for and commitment to supervision; striving to establish an active, co-participative working supervisory unit; striving to consistently support supervisee self- cohesion and self-esteem; listening ever attentively from a subject-centered stance and acting accordingly; serving as agent of integration and consolidation and purveyor of ideals; serving as professional role model, mentor, and nurturant leader; striving to consistently manifest optimal responsiveness; providing a host of facilitative supervisory behaviors and attitudes where appropriate and as needed (e.g., being flexible, respectful, genuine, encouraging, affirming, soothing, teaching, challenging); privileging self and self experience in understanding and guiding supervisee learning, understanding and informing supervisor action, and apprehending the totality of the supervisory triad and its intersection of subjectivities; privileging empathic immersion as the crucial mechanism of all supervisory action; sensitively attending to difference and diversity factors and tailoring supervision to best meet the unique needs of each supervisee; and consistently working to create an optimal and optimizing safe supervisory self space, where an optimal learning self, an optimal supervisory (mature) selfobject, and optimally functioning self/selfobject dyad can be allowed to emerge, gain ascendance, and provide the fuel that ultimately drives the entirety of the supervisory encounter. Conclusion: Some of these identified characteristics or features would ideally be part of any psychoanalytic supervision. But we clearly see distinctiveness here as well. Much like self psychology treatment, Kohut’s constructs have practical relevance for contemporary psychoanalytic supervision as well.