The Shared Regressive State and Understanding-without-Reflection in Supervision

One of the transformational therapeutic experiences is the therapeutic dyad's immersion in and recovery from shared regressive states that are often provoked by an awakened childhood fear of breakdown. I suggest that the supervisory dyad has parallel transformational experiences – the shared regressive states that follow continuous incomprehension of the unfolding therapeutic reality. Moreover, when the supervisory partners immerse themselves in a shared regressive state, a unique, inclusive, embodied, unsymbolized, and procedural understanding-without-reflection emerges spontaneously. Analytic writers describe such an understanding as an unconscious knowledge, and existentialist writers describe it as prereflective consciousness. Before translating this unique understanding into a therapeutic narrative, the supervisor needs to recover from the regressive state and organize it according to discursive and logical analytic principles. From this perspective, the already existing experiential and analytic theoretical knowledge serves as a platform for creating new perceptions and analytic discourses.