Eric Peters on Volkan as a Supervisor and Teacher

Molly Castelloe (MC): What was supervision like with Vamık Volkan at Austen Riggs in Massachusetts?

Eric J. Peters (EJP): Vamık has been invaluable for my clinical education. Before I even met him, I had read a lot of his work and now [2011] I’ve had the privilege to be a supervisee with him. I think what Vamık brings to the table is how to bridge the clinical and the group work. He has an uncanny intuitive capacity. He knows the inner workings of a human being almost as if he can see it—like it’s spatial, like he can see with x-ray vision into the internal life of a person; he’s good at helping me understand how to do that. Then helping me locate myself with a patient so I can sit in their internal world and get an utterly human experience of being with that person.

MC: What’s he like as a teacher?

EJP: I really enjoy him. He knows what he’s looking for and he goes after it. Sometimes people accuse him of being tunnelvisioned. But I found his approach useful and I appreciate that he wants to cut through the bullshit. He says, “give me the life history.” You start telling it. He says “no, no, no, crap.” So he’s very clear about what he wants from you and he helps you think in a certain way. I’ve never found it limiting, partly maybe because I like to think that I can work in a similar way as Vamık, with much less experience, but with sort of a similar tone. I want to believe that. He’s a clear thinker and he’s a clear talker, yet he does it in a sweet

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way. I think people would be surprised how sweet he is with his patients, and the way he helps me talk to my patients. There’s a sweetness to him that I think can be missed because he is sometimes larger than life. Also, he’s a big guy. He’s very kind and generous. “Maybe it’s the gray hair,” he says; the gray hair gives him wisdom.

MC: How do his theories of groups apply to your personal life?

EJP: Well, let me ask you a question. Have you ever been in a relationship where it wasn’t a good thing to be able to notice where you were both the aggressor and the victim? I think the most dangerous place to be is to think that you are completely a victim or completely the righteous savior of some kind. For how long in this society could we only view some of the struggles by the Palestinians in the Middle East from the lens of: they’re terrorists and they don’t have any legitimate right. That’s a dangerous way to look at the world.

The question our medical director Edward Shapiro is fond of saying is, “ask yourself how the patient is right,” when they’re enraged with you or when they’re upset about something. When you’re having a fight with your girlfriend or boyfriend, how are they right? I try to ask myself the question, how are the Palestinians right? That doesn’t necessarily mean the Israelis are wrong. But asking yourself, “how they’re right” keeps them in your mind. It keeps them human in your mind.

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