ABSTRACT
Systemic therapy has been responsible for the production of thousands of words and has absorbed the time and energy of theoreticians and practitioners the world over. When considering the nature of the relationship between client and therapist, this balance seems particularly inappropriate. This chapter begins to address this imbalance, and aims to follow the growing trend in systemic therapy to honour clients’ knowledge and to respect this in more equal dialogues. It addresses the themes that are typically raised by systemic therapists about the therapeutic relationship, and explores the experience of a small group of clients with respect to these themes. The chapter focuses on six major themes: power and control, therapist responsibility, neutrality and the therapist’s view, the process of change and the most important elements of the therapy, respect by the therapist of the client and her system, and affect and intimacy.
