IJSP Number 6, 2024

46 place and to the rightextent. But what boundaries and demarcations should we be aware of and take into account when we act in a supervisory capacity? The distinction is essentially to be foundin the professional context and the associated goals. A client who seeks therapeutic help has a personal problem which they are tryingto solve with the help of a psychotherapist. The client is a seeker of help, the psychotherapist is a helper. A supervisee uses the framework of supervision to confront a professional problem. She wants to better understand the practical situation presented, gain new perspectives and get advice that will enable her to act more effectively. She needs clarity and certainty about the next steps she can take in order to be responsible and helpful to her clients in her therapeutic work. The supervisee is a questioner, the supervisor supportsher in finding answers and solutions. In the therapeutic space, the work concerns the entire living space of the person. It is usually about healing in a comprehensive sense. The framework of supervision, however, is oriented towards the field of work; the starting point is overcoming professional difficulties. Although the supervisee's living space is just as important here, the focus is on the field of work. Biographical understanding therefore also plays an important role in the supervisory process, but in this setting the focus is onprocesses of identity formation with regard to the professional role and social learning. In the field of supervision, we find a triangular relationship between the supervisee, their work assignment and the supervisor. The supervisor has to ensure that the goal of the work assignment, which was introduced by the supervisee, is fulfilled. This is what has priority, the point of reference. In the case of team or group supervision,we are almost naturally aware of this, but less so in the case of individual supervision. However, it is also crucial to stress the boundary to therapeutic work. These three cornerstones (supervisor, supervisee, work assignment) reveal a difference to psychotherapeutic work, the aim of which is to find adequate solutions or strategies for coping with the professional situation. This in turn means that the unconscious meaning of a situation, in the sense of a therapeutic objective, is only significant if it is related to completing a professional work assignment, in terms ofqualified professional action. It might happen that the supervisee's individual past comes into play or that the supervisor-supervisee relationship comes to the fore, e.g. through spontaneously occurring transference. It is therefore all the more important not to lose sight of the actual point of reference in order to avoid drifting into a therapeutic setting. Questioning and analyzing different feelings or projections “ in the here-and-now” of supervision, which limits or impairs the supervisee's ability to perceive and subsequently to act, is part of the original supervisor's work. It is part of a supervisor's work to deal with these phenomena in a competent manner, even if we would may consider this competence to be rather therapeutic.