Reflecting Team
Updated 2026-08-11
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
The reflecting team, developed by Andersen in family therapy, has an observing team discuss their observations of the therapist and family while the family listens in, after which the family responds. The mechanism is multiplicity: the family hears several perspectives on itself spoken in its presence rather than about it in its absence, and the plurality of views loosens the fixed story the family arrived with, because no single perspective can be treated as the verdict.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Talk in front of them: let the observation happen where the client can hear it. - Keep it open: use tentative and hypothetical language rather than conclusions. - Invite the response: the client's reaction is part of the method.
Anchor fast decisions
A fixed problem story survives because it is private and singular. Multiple perspectives heard simultaneously cannot all be right, which forces the listener to hold several views at once, and that plurality opens the space in which a new story can form. The reflection works because it is witnessed, not because it is correct.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- doi.orghttps://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.1987.00415.xverified
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