supervision as co-creation
DANIELA TERRILE
In the document “Some Thoughts on Supervision” I could find a rich quantity of material I can connect to mycelium supervision. For curiosity this document has been written by Darian Leader a psychoanalyst practicing in London. He is President of the College of Psychoanalysts – UK, a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research and Honorary Visiting Professor at the School of Human and Life Sciences, Roehampton University. His books include Freud’s Footnotes (Faber and Faber, 2000), Why Do People Get Ill? (with David Corfield) (Hamish Hamilton, 2007) and The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression (Hamish Hamilton, 2008).
1. Resisting Standardisation – Mycelium vs. Market Models
The text critiques how modern supervision is being reduced to a knowledge-transfer, skill-standardisation model
Mycelium connection: Mycelium thrives through decentralised intelligence, not top-down transfer. Each hypha learns and adapts locally while staying connected to the wider network. Similarly, in mycelium supervision, supervision is not a sterile transfer but a living ecosystem where supervisee and supervisor co-evolve, resisting reduction to a market product.
2. Unconscious Dynamics as Hidden Networks
The document of Darian Leader emphasizes that supervision cannot be reduced to technical skill because unconscious processes, transference and countertransference shape it.
🔗 Mycelium connection: Unconscious dynamics resemble the hidden underground fungal networks—invisible, yet determining growth, connection, and nourishment. Mycelium supervision acknowledges these invisible relational fields and brings them into awareness, much like revealing the unseen “wood-wide web” beneath a forest.
3. Dialectic Instead of Hierarchy
The history section describes supervision seminars in Vienna where both trainee and senior could be equally fallible, emphasizing dialectic over hierarchy.
🔗 Mycelium connection: In mycelial structures there is no single “master hypha.” Power and nutrients circulate horizontally, enabling resilience. Mycelium supervision reframes supervision as a non-hierarchical exchange, where growth happens through shared exploration, not imposed authority.
If traditional models of supervision risk reducing the process to a sterile transfer of knowledge, mycelium supervision reminds us that growth emerges from the hidden, relational networks—like the unconscious dynamics in supervision—that connect supervisor, supervisee, and client. Just as mycelium resists centralization, supervision flourishes when it is treated as a living, dialectical exchange rather than a hierarchical imposition. We might reflect on the beauty of creation as a multidimensional system, continuously unfolding in ways that extend far beyond our current understanding.