Anyone following the recent developments of systemic thinking will be aware that activity has not been restricted to Europe and America. Systemic therapists and writers from both Australia and New Zealand are now making a major impact on the field, particularly in the way they explore therapy as an exchange between "real" people; with gender and with ethical values; and embedded within specific cultural experiences. These people are challenging the traditional way we see clients and the context of therapy. Over the years, systemic? therapists have theorized extensively about the client family as a system and have more recently addressed the use of self in therapy, but there has been very little attention paid to the therapeutic relationship between the two.

Editors' Foreword -- Foreword -- Introduction -- New Explorations-Mainly Theory -- Leaving well alone: a systemic perspective on the therapeutic relationship -- Understanding the therapeutic relationship: using psychoanalytic ideas in the systemic context -- Empathy and the therapeutic relationship in systemic-oriented therapies: a historical and clinical overview -- Embedded and embodied in the therapeutic relationship: understanding the therapist's use of self systemically -- To embrace paradox (once more, with feeling): a commentary on narrative/conversational therapies and the therapeutic relationship -- Discussion Paper I -- New Explorations-Mainly Practice -- The therapeutic moment: a double-sided drama -- A systemic therapy unravelled: in through the out door -- From both sides now: the therapeutic relationship from the viewpoint of therapist and client -- Cross-purposes: relationship patterns in public welfare -- Personal relationships in systemic supervision -- Discussion Paper II