Psychodynamic Theory: The Nurse Practitioner-Doctor Dynamic

Thanks for your response. There is a distinction between collaborating, and supervising. Collaborating with peers does not necessarily place me in a dependent position, and it is my choice to collaborate. But nurse practitioners forced by law into being supervised by physicians is not a choice and places them in a dependent position. Using psychodynamic theory the nurse practitioner-doctor dynamic can be viewed as a power relationship, where transference is possible. In transference, the person in the dependent position reacts to the person that is supervising as an authority figure and can overly rely on the supervising person (Butts & Rich, 2015). The Bloomberg article points out that many nurse practitioners find it demeaning to not be