ABSTRACT
Empathy is also demonstrated by the therapist letting family members know that she understands their experience by re¯ection of the feelings expressed in the session. This af®rms the individual's experience and at the same time intensi®es the awareness of it, so that a feeling of authenticity is experienced. This type of re¯ection provides feedback to one person about what one person understands another person is feeling. Hence it also serves as a means by which the therapist can check out her perceptions of the client's position. It is, therefore, a process by which an individual's internal frame of reference is clari®ed within the context of ®rstly a relationship to the therapist and secondly within the context of the relationship to the other family members who are observing the therapist re¯ecting the feeling of that particular individual. For the therapist it begins with thinking and feeling with the individual, that is, a focus on the `I' of the individual, and this then moves to thinking and feeling about the individual in context; initially this is a focus on the relationship between the therapist and the individual, a focus on the `me and you'. The systemic therapist goes on to encourage the individual to consider the `me ± us' dimension by ensuring that other family members are asked questions on that particular issue. This process of re¯ecting on feelings links the experience of individual family members to a collaborative, but often unexpressed, `us' dimension of interaction. Each individual therefore hears a re¯ection of his or her own statements and re¯ections of the statements of others. Thus a typical re¯ection of feeling sequence will be:
Therapist: Asks a question of A. A: Answers. Therapist: Re¯ects the feeling from A.
