ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a variety of ways to understand "emotion discourses" that position supervisors, therapists, and clients in systemic practice. Therapists are expected to be receptive and alive to all the experiences of the people who consult with them, as well as being reflective. In Transforming Emotion, Glenda Fredman highlights how therapists routinely see it as their responsibility to name, describe, and locate emotions, but that as systemic practitioners we need to reconsider these taken-for-granted approaches to emotion. Whilst reflexivity is an important feature of contemporary family therapy and supervision, perhaps it is important to recognize that it is not inevitably helpful. Supervision may also offer a space to reflect on emotional discourses noticed during therapy but not developed on at the time. Additionally the supervision system acts as one mind for the client/s with the therapist in the room functioning as a conduit between two systems united in a healing experience.
