ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the experience of the supervisory process in the context of a rigorously designed research project set up to compare the outcome of individual analytic child psychotherapy and systemic family therapy in the treatment of childhood depression. The framework of the research project meant that the clinical/supervision team needed to attend to contextual dissonances in terms of structure and responsibility. A key principle of systemic psychotherapy is the notion of "live" supervision in which the therapist working with a family is part of a team who actively participate in the therapeutic process, either in the room or from behind a one-way mirror. Systemic psychotherapists are traditionally interested in relationships and patterns that contribute to symptoms and diagnoses. Family therapists working in child and adolescent mental health services visually focus on the interactions between family members and the repetitive patterns that have developed over time.
