ABSTRACT
This chapter is about the feeling of safety. What is it? How can we recognise it? How can we describe it, especially for someone who tells us they do not know what safety feels like? In particular, we shall explore how we can feel ‘felt’ in our relationships with therapists and supervisors, and similarly, and perhaps less well recognised, with our clients and supervisees. Relational mutuality in our therapeutic work can bridge different roles, responsibilities and power dynamics, in ways that support the growth of self-esteem, relational esteem and resilient responding. Systemically speaking, if we address how therapists and supervisors can be helpful and effective in their practice, we realise their responsibilities are nested within wider professional, familial and community supports. If we ask how communities can be supportive of effective practice, we see immediately how these roles are nested within wider social, economic and political norms and realities that shape such community support. Culture in this wider sense influences the development of a range of coping responses and in therapy and supervision we focus on creating the secure base so that we can all better respond to what our culture requires of us.
