Supervision of Family Therapy and Systemic Practice

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Starting off in Supervision

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Beginning the Supervisory Relationship Within Family Therapy Training: Engaging Individuals, Groups and Settings

      • Jim Sheehan

      Pages 3-26

   3. Starting Supervision

      • Inger Ulleberg, Per Jensen

      Pages 27-42

3. The Supervision Process: Listening, Action and Reflection

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 43-43

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   2. Asking Questions in Supervision

      • Inger Ulleberg, Per Jensen

      Pages 45-67

   3. Listening and Silence in Supervision

      • Inger Ulleberg, Per Jensen

      Pages 69-89

   4. The Resonance from Personal Life in Family Therapy Supervision

      • Inger Ulleberg, Per Jensen

      Pages 91-105

   5. The Reflecting Team Approach: Different Uses in Live Supervision and Group Supervision with both Family Therapy Trainees and Practitioners

      • Halvor de Flon

      Pages 107-120

   6. Creating a Dialogical Culture for Supervision

      • Anne Hedvig Vedeler

      Pages 121-141

   7. The Supervisor’s Power and Moments of Learning

      • Tone Grøver

      Pages 143-159

4. Supervision in Special Contexts of Practice

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 161-161

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   2. Supervision and Domestic Violence: Therapy with Individuals, Couples and Families

      • Arlene Vetere

      Pages 163-172

   3. Systemic Supervision with Groups in Child Protection Contexts

      • Randi Frieda Bagge

      Pages 173-184

   4. An Approach to Supervision Practice with Therapists Who Work with Pregnant Substance-Abusing Women in Voluntary and Compulsory Treatment Settings

      • Siv Merete Myra

      Pages 185-194

   5. Group Supervision with Couple Therapists Located in Rural Areas in Norway: Exploring Memories, Bodily Sensations and the Richness of a Non-linear Language

      • Anne Kyong Sook Øfsti

      Pages 195-203

   6. Research Supervision

      • Arlene Vetere, Jim Sheehan

      Pages 205-216

5. Looking after Ourselves as Supervisors and Supervisees

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 217-217

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   2. An Attachment Narrative Approach to Systemically Informed Supervision Practice

      • Arlene Vetere

      Pages 219-226

   3. When the Supervision Process Falters and Breaks Down: Pathways to Repair

      • Gudmund Fossli, Hans Christian Michaelsen

      Pages 227-260

This much-needed volume examines the process and practice of supervision in family therapy, with special emphasis on systemic practice. Expert trainers and supervisors from diverse disciplines take a systemic tour of the relationships between supervisor, therapist, and client, analyzing the core skills of effective, meaningful supervision—including questioning, listening, and reflecting—and their impact on therapy. These skills and others are applied to supervising therapy with individuals, couples, and families in areas including substance abuse, domestic violence, and research settings. Throughout the book, contributors share self-care strategies, so supervisors can stay engaged and creative, meet the many challenges entailed in their work, and avoid burnout.

Among the topics covered:

• The resonance from personal life in family therapy supervision.
  
• Creating a dialogical culture for supervision.
  
• The supervisor’s power and moments of learning.
  
• Supervision and domestic violence: therapy with individuals, couples, and families.
  
• Systemic supervision with groups in child protection contexts.
  
• When the supervision process falters and breaks down: pathways to repair.
  

The highly practical information in Supervision of Family Therapy and Systemic Practice is adaptable by readers to their particular supervisory or training needs. Novice and veteran mental health, social care, and social work practitioners and psychotherapists, will find it a substantial resource.

• Family therapy supervision
• Systemic supervisor training
• Supervisor reflexivity
• Systemic supervision of therapeutic work
• Family and couple therapy
• Systemic family therapy
• Supervision and domestic violence
• Peer consultation in family therapy supervision

“This is a needed addition to the relatively scarce literature on supervision in family therapy, especially form a systemic perspective! Written in a clear and practical way and, at the same time, at a high academic level, it reflects the experience and the knowledge of its contributors and qualifies it to as a go-to resource for present and future systemic supervisors in the field of family therapy.” (Ileana Ungureanu, Doody's Book Reviews, August, 2018)

• VID Specialized University, Oslo, Norway

  Arlene Vetere, Jim Sheehan

Arlene Vetere, PhD, is a Professor of Family Therapy and Systemic Practice at Diakonhjemmet University College, Oslo, Norway, Visiting Professor of Clinical Psychology at Universita degli Studi, Bergamo, Italy and Affiliate Professor of Family Atudies at the University of Malta. She is a practicing clinical psychologist, systemic family psychotherapist, and family therapy supervisor and trainer. She has published 9 books, 48 peer reviewed journal articles, and 20 book chapters. She has recently co-edited with Peter Stratton (2016) ‘Interacting Selves: Systemic concepts and solutions for personal and professional development in counselling and psychotherapy’, Routledge, (to which, Per Jensen, Jim Sheehan and Anne Hedvig Vedeler contributed chapters). Arlene was president of EFTA (European Family Therapy Association) from 2004-2010.


Jim Sheehan, PhD, is Professor of Family Therapy and Systemic Practice at Diakonhjemmet University College, Oslo, Norway. He has been Director of Family Therapy Training at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Dublin, Ireland for 25 years from 1987 to 2012. Over the last 30 years he has supervised family therapists at all levels of qualifying training and post qualification experience. His research and publications in the area include a study of mature trainee’s experiences of learning within qualifying family therapy training as well as a consideration of the way supervision dialogues contribute to the ongoing personal and professional development of family therapy supervisors. 

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