Autonomy vs. guidance in supervision contexts: a case of ”false enemies”?

The aim of this paper is to discus the apparent controversy between two directions in the relationship supervisor/PhD student – a direction toward student’s freedom to organize and develop his or her work and another direction toward a control on that work from the supervisor’s side. It will be sustained that even though these two directions naturally point out to different routes, it might be of use to consider them as a sine-­‐qua-­‐non condition instead of a dichotomy one.