Reasoning with your supervisee

[aixelsyd]

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[redbaron]

It seems that trying to reason with one's supervisee is similar to striking one's knuckles into a brick wall...the surface remains hard and you only get bloody knuckles.

I wonder if the supervisee ever feels that way about the supervisor.

However, I believe relations of supervision can be of the good and bad sort, just like in any relation, perhaps, so this reasoning thing is not always the case.

Hmmm. sometimes that's true. (I'm married to my supervisee). I'm generally really okay with things. He, however, does get frustrated with me and I almost can't even tell you why. Usually I perceive him as getting all worked up about nothing. He makes mountains out of molehills and thinks everything's a big deal. I feel like most of our issues are related to temperaments, him being EJ and me being IP. Me=lazy Him=frantic I just want to have fun, relax and enjoy. He wants to accomplish things. Or something like that.

[FDG]

It depends. I think, as the theory says, that the worst possible outcome is realized when the supervisee is in a position of authority over the supervisor - in this case the given INFp would never listen to my "advice", and unfortunately many of the matters that his position entailed were pretty typical issues. Whenever I've been on par with them, though, I've had zero problems; I don't generally go around trying to change people's lives or telling them how to behave or think, though, so I don't know what it means "trying to smash a brick wall" in terms of informally dealing with people.

[redbaron]

It depends. I think, as the theory says, that the worst possible outcome is realized when the supervisee is in a position of authority over the supervisor - in this case the given INFp would never listen to my "advice", and unfortunately many of the matters that his position entailed were pretty typical issues. Whenever I've been on par with them, though, I've had zero problems; I don't generally go around trying to change people's lives or telling them how to behave or think, though, so I don't know what it means "trying to smash a brick wall" in terms of informally dealing with people.

Really though, how can anyone have problems with an INFp?

[FDG]

Really though, how can anyone have problems with an INFp?

Ahaha yes that's also true, INFps are probably the least likely type to quarrel with a stranger.

[redbaron]

Well, hypothetically, if I am ILI, then that makes my father my supervisee. I can see his point in most cases and respect it as long as he stays civil, but I am in the position of subversion. Occasionally I can get a point across if I stick with why my point serves a practical benefit, but I cannot use my Ni because then it is treated as garbage. The only way our relationship works out is if I force myself to agree with him as I have a tendency to see his ideas as missing a large point. We get very impatient with each other and he complains that "his ideas are never good enough" or I know everything better, and that he can't win with me though it's often when I point out something I felt he didn't see. It's possible that we are really conflictors, but to me, a lot of this sounds like a relation of supervision and a competitive one at that.

this sounds familiar. Often I don't know where he's coming from, what he's complaining about, why he thinks that I think that he can't win when I'm only trying to help, it's not about winning. I feel like we come from two entirely different perspectives.

So after saying all that, I did mention in my op that I think supervision relations can have two sides to them. They can be relatively positive relations or rather negative. In any case, these relations can go south when the supervisee starts sending a lot of criticism on the supervisors' role function while disregarding and invalidating their use of the first function. When the supervisee is in a superior position of authority over the supervisor, things can become conflict ridden. I think subtypes can strongly affect how these relations play out, the worst being an extroverted subtype extrovert with an introvert subtype introvert. The best, theoretically, would be with the introvert subtype extrovert with an extrovert subtype introvert, I think.

this is what my husband and I are. there's good and there's bad. I am starting to think, however, that the bad is much worse for the supervisee than the supervisor.