Supervisory And Clinical Encounters On The Affective Edge

Presented by Roy Barsness
Discussant: Karen Weisbard

Dr. Barsness will introduce his forthcoming work, Psychodynamic Supervision Theory and Practices: In a New Key (Routledge, 2025)—a groundbreaking model rooted in relational theory. This innovative approach reimagines supervision as a co-created experience in which neither the patient nor the supervisee is the central focus. Instead, the supervisor is embedded within the process as a co-participant, holding a reflective “Third Space” that integrates both clinical and leadership capacities. The presentation will also explore the primacy of affect over cognition and the importance of working directly within the intersubjective field.

Roy Barsness, Ph.D. is the Founder and Executive Director of the Contemporary Psychodynamic Institute. He is the author of the text: Core Competencies in Relational Psychoanalysis (Routledge 2018) and Psychodynamic Supervision Theory and Practices: In a New Key (Routledge, 2025). He has served as Academic Dean and Professor at The Seattle School of Theology, and Psychology, Professor and Clinical Director at Seattle Pacific University and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Washington, School of Psychiatry. He is also on the faculty of Sichuan Heguang Clinical Psychology Institute – China.

Karen Weisbard, Psy.D. is on the faculty of SPSI where she teaches, is a Consulting Analyst, and Chair of the Two-Year Certificate Program in Psychodynamic Theory, Practice, and Social Applicability. She also teaches at the Western Canada Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, the Two-Year Certificate Program in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Sichuan Heguang Clinical Psychology Institute, China, and ICPLA. She has a private practice in Seattle.