In the preceding chapter, we examined how the participants of the multi-client counselling sessions manage the participation frameworks in a particular questioning practice arising from Family Systems Theory. The following two chapters will apply a similar perspective. However, we will now examine another questioning technique, and thereby move the focus to the counsellors' production and reception roles in two-counsellor sessions.

In two-counsellor sessions, the activities of the counsellors are basically the same as in one-counsellor sessions. Regardless of their number, counsellors mainly ask questions of the clients, or produce statements conveying information or advice. When there are two counsellors present in a session, the co-counsellors' contribution to these activities is organized in a particular way.

In what follows, we will focus on co-counsellors' questions which employ a specific questioning format based on Family Systems Theory. This arises from a practice called live open supervision, and it involves the co-counsellors' questions being targeted to the client(s) but addressed to the main counsellor.

Live open supervision

‘Live supervision’, the principles of which were briefly described in the Introduction, is an important part of Family Systems practice. To apply live supervision in the ordinary way, the professionals need to use two adjacent rooms, connected by a one-way screen. The counsellors of the Haemophilia Centre, however, do not have such facilities at their disposal. Therefore, they use their own application of live supervision, which could be called ‘live open supervision’ (Olson and Pegg 1979; Smith and Kingston 1980). In the absence of the one-way screen, the counsellors and other professionals at the Haemophilia Centre sit in the same room with the family.