A written supervision agreement for psychoanalytic supervision?

The supervision agreement (also referred to as a contract), while long mentioned as an important part of psychoanalytic supervision, has yet to be addressed in any substantive or concrete way in the psychoanalytic supervision literature. What exactly is a psychoanalytic supervision agreement? Why does it matter? What are its components? How do you implement such an agreement? We consider these questions subsequently, our purpose being to accentuate the written (as opposed to verbal) psychoanalytic supervision agreement as central to (a) making increasingly probable a good supervision beginning and (b) providing a facilitative framework and anchoring container within which the work of supervision can be enabled. We propose that the written supervision agreement, while conceivably valuable at any stage of supervisee development, can be of greatest value to those beginning to provide psychoanalytic treatment services and receive psychoanalytic supervision (i.e. Novice phase supervisees). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]