This final issue of our relaunch Volume comprises a fascinating exploration of how the training process leads the trainee towards constructing a self as a therapist. We start with a thoughtful presentation by Per Jensen of the research issues underlying current controversies about the factors that are important in psychotherapy. He points to the neglect of the individual therapist in the dominant research paradigms and how this means that we do not have a sound basis for considering the role of the relationships between the therapist’s private and professional lives.

Then we have a group of three papers on transgenerational processes. Jacques Pluymaekers and Chantal Nève-Hanquet introduce the “The Landscape Genogram” as used in their training and supervision for the personal development of trainees. They describe the process by which increasing awareness of how the family of origin informs the current self of the therapist, enables the trainee to avoid repetition, and cultivates resonance with the client without inappropriate self-disclosure. Rodolfo de Bernart and Cristina Dobrowolski describe how shifting the focus from the verbal channel towards images helps the trainee to enter the internal image of their own family and that of their clients. They offer interesting examples of their widely admired technique called “conjoint family drawing”. Next, Anne Chouhy tackles the way that trainees can be helped to regulate their cognitive and emotional responses to their family history. The theoretically rich account is illustrated with helpful diagrams to show how connections are made and then processed so that they will not interfere with the therapy. A particular value of this paper is the way it demonstrates how current knowledge of brain functioning helps explain the power of less conscious transgenerational memories.

The next paper, by Katia Charalabaki broadens the considerations to the historical relationship of therapy theory to training practice. The issues are introduced through five challenging questions that have arisen during training. They are analysed in terms of the social process through which they originated, and which provide some lessons in how to use them for the personal and professional development of the therapists. Jenia Georgieva and Roumen Georgiev describe the influence and example of George and Vasso Vassiliou in connecting cultural context, personal development of the trainee, and balanced functioning as a therapist. These connections are worked out in the tensions between considering trainees as individuals and at the same time as group members.

The final papers each take a specific issue and approach to personal and professional development of the trainee. Nicole Sprocq Demarcq describes her work with Yveline Rey using the interview technique of “The floating objects”. A great variety of enactments is described and is used to generate a creative approach to systemic practice. Luigi Onnis, Paolo Mari, and Benedetta Menenti bring the Volume to a conclusion by describing a sequence of ways of working with the personal development of the therapist. They argue that these processes should usually be incorporated into the training rather than undertaken through a personal therapy. The article pays particular attention to imaginative ways of working with the trainee’s own family story so that it can become ‘re-elaborated’, so fostering a curiosity and attention towards the self.

Peter Stratton and Kyriaki Polychroni,
Joint Editors