My maternal grandparents are in a relationship of supervision. They have occasional disputes where the SLI can be frustrated at the ESE's drama but they've learned to live with each other.
My paternal grandparents are in a relationship of duality.
My parents were in a relationship of supervision. I think it hit my Dad (SLI) pretty hard during the divorce. After seeing how quickly my mother moved on, I was never quite sure whether he was finally calming down or dead inside.
In family relations where the parent is of Supervisee type to the child, and their relationship is otherwise good, it leaves a feeling in the child of being provided for and protected but not fulfilled intellectually and emotionally by the parent.
Interesting theory. I could see that working out well in a parent/child relationship, especially when you consider how the supervisee is older and in a more mature mental state, functions wise.
I started this thread out of the realization that I'm totally infatuated by ESFps romantically and was hoping Socionics could shed some light on this issue. My relationships with them may have seemed one sided, but for some reason, I've never looked back in regret, no matter how crazy things got.
I've been looking into how Socionics implements all 8 functions into our personality types, the Super-Ego block in particular.
Weak conscious functions (by Z. Freud’s theory – Superego) – the third and the fourth. They serve for a person’s adapting in a society. Here the social rules and expectations are important. A person is never sure in the contents of these functions as he is not sure in his compliance with the social demands.
The third function is the role one. A person plays a role to adapt himself in unusual conditions, tries to be bright in this function.
The fourth function is a painful point, the place of the least resistance. It is difficult to perceive information in this function adequately, to work creatively here, that is why it is better not to criticize a person on the matters connected with it. Even praise is hard to receive on the painful point. Here we can draw an analogy with physical pain: it is better not to touch the place which is hurt at all – neither for the purpose of stroking nor pricking.
Is it possible that I'm wanting to explore the weakest of my shadow functions, (Se) in a safe way that isn't through my conflictor? I feel like I can achieve this through my supervisor since we both have an ego function in common, (Fi) to keep us both on a relatively similar wavelength.
Supervision partners often look like good friends. The reason for this is that in these relations both partners can sense their social value: the Supervisor as a "guardian angel", without whom the Supervisee will get into trouble, and the Supervisee as the object of attention.
I've noticed this in a few other supervision relationships too. I know an ISFj/ENFp couple who argue all the time, though the ENFp isn't really that phased by any of it. ISFj will post a lot of depressing Facebook statuses about how "a real boyfriend should stop giving other girls so many attention," in which case, ENFp continues his carefree lifestyle, unaffected by any of these accusations.
In relations of Supervision it may also appear as if the Supervisor patronises the Supervisee, which can be quite obtrusive for the latter. When there are more than two people present, the Supervisee often attempts to release themselves from the control of the Supervisor by starting arguments for the sake of it or by attempting to manoeuvre themselves into the commanding position. Unfortunately, these attempts lead nowhere. The Supervisor may think instead that the Supervisee simply requires more attention.