Collaborative Language Systems

Collaborative Relationship and Dialogical Conversations

“The beauty of collaborating is that there are no set roles; there is a flexibility and fluidity that allows for leading and following to be in motion.”

 Collaborating requires room for each person to be unconditionally present, and for their contribution to be equally appreciated and valued.

 Feeling appreciated/valued-->sense of belonging--> Sense of participating--> Sense of co-owning

 Responding, a critical feature of dialog, is an interactive two-way process.

 We are always responding

Limitations?

4) Being public

• Clients desire to know what’s “behind” a therapist’s questions.
• Therapist is open and generous with their thoughts (Anderson, 1997, 2007)
• DISCLOSURE?!?!?!?

5) Living with uncertainty

• Avoid presumed problems and predestined solutions
• No structured “way of therapy”

6) Mutually transforming

• The process is not therapist-driven

7) Orienting toward everyday ordinary life

• Avoid description of major versus minor problems but as challenges that are part of life
• Avoid labels

Case Study

Limitations:

The Philosophical Stance Action Orienting Sensitivities

The Therapists Way of Being

 Attitude with which a therapist approaches therapy:

• The way we think about ourselves, the people we work with and the environment and process in which we engage them

 Philosophy of therapy than a theory

• An explanatory map that informs, predicts and yields standardized procedures, structured steps, categories, etc.).

 A way of being with versus a system of doing for, to or about.

 Shotter (1993): WITHNESS- thinking and-acting means being spontaneously responsive to another person and to unfolding events

• Knowing and acting “‘from within’ the moment” rather than aboutness
• Allows for spontaneous, on the spot responding not preplanned or technical responding
• NOW moments vs. Moments of Meeting (local and singular)

"Do nothing therapy"

• TOO indirect?
• Measuring Change?

Research (subjectivity)

Manualized treatment

Testable or Reliable

Reflective Teams

• Training
• Client Comfortability

Client, Kyle, was diagnosed with depression in his early adolescence. He has seen a psychiatrist for the last two years and is currently on medications for his depression, which he reports had been working until the past month where he has had more frequent mood swings and difficulty feeling satisfied in his life. Kyle’s parents separated and then divorced after his mother had an affair with her female couple’s therapist. He and his younger brother had to choose which parent to live with in high school which ended with his brother choosing to live with his father in a different state and he staying with his mother and her new girlfriend (the therapist) and her two other children. During high school he felt “caught in middle of his mother’s relationship” and he felt he was forced to play a parental role (“the man of the house”). His mother and her girlfriend frequently fought which was distressing for Kyle but he felt he needed to stay with his mother “to take care of her”. He says he resents her for the divorce and the severance of his relationship from his brother and father. He also feels as though he had “no order” in his household.

Recently, he had been attracted to a friend (in between being single and having multiple one night stands) but he disclosed he is too afraid she won’t be really interested in him if he were to pursue a relationship. He recently gave up any hopes of a real romantic relationship with his friend due to, what he saw as, “multiple obvious signs of interest” he gave in which she did not pursue more. He discloses he has always had issues maintaining friendships not surpassed by his difficulty in romantic relationships. He feels he is slipping into a “void” and is genuinely unhappy. Kyle has heavily researched psychology (and styles of therapy) because he has recently become interested in pursuing a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy or Counseling. He tells the therapist “I need you to be the expert and I need tangible goals in order to feel therapy is helpful”.

In small groups discuss the following for later large group discussion:

1. Where to start? How would you handle the first interview?

2. What’s the problem?

3. How would you work with the client and his needs/goals?

4. How would you include his depression and medication in therapy?

5. What pitfalls or red flags do you see with this client?

6. How would you handle his thoughts about “what therapy should look like”?

7. Would you work differently with a fellow mental health professional? Does it matter?

Think Collaboratively!

1) Let the conversation evolve

2) Provide a safe place (listen with kindness and respect)

3) Keep an open mind

4) Speak with clear intention

5) Be present

6) Be curious

7) Share your thoughts, feelings, and dreams

8) Suspend assumptions and biases

9) Listen to understand, connect, and appreciate

10) Make meaning together

11) Take time to be silent and reflect

12) Embrace mutuality honest joy

The philosophical stance has seven distinct interrelated features that serve as action-orienting sensitivities for the therapist’s way of being

1) Mutual inquiry

• “In there together” process
• Client telling, retelling, “new-telling”: “Story-Ball”
• Curiosity offered to participate NOT guide

2) Relational expertise

• Therapist opinion can be expressed

3) Not-knowing

• A therapist’s orientation to knowledge, primarily to three things

1) The way a therapist conceptualizes the creation of knowledge

2) The intent with which a therapist uses their knowledge

3) The manner, attitude, and timing with which they introduce it.

• Communicates “this is a possibility” rather than “this IS”

Its a wrap!

Therapy and Change:

 "Infinity of the unsaid" adds to problem

• Insight

 The realization of change in meaning requires communicative action, dialogue, and discourse

 Change = “not yet said”

 Treatment vs. Growth

• Filled with risk and uncertainty

REFERENCES:

Anderson, H. (2012). Collaborative Relationships and Dialogic Conversations Ideas for a Relationally Responsive Practice. Family Process. Vol. 51. No. 1. FPI, Inc.

Anderson, H. Goolishian, H. A. (1988). Human Systems and Linguistic Systems: Preliminary and Evolving Ideas about the Implications of Clinical Theory. Vol. 27 (4). Pg. 371-393. Family Process.

Anderson, H. Goolishian, H. A., Pulliam, G., Winderman, L. The Galveston Family Institute: Some Personal and Historical Perspectives. Ch. 5. Pg. 97-122.

Levin, S. B., Carleton, D. Collaborative Therapy with Couples: A Postmodern and Social Constructionist Approach. Ch. 24. Houston Galveston Institute.

Nichols, M. P. (2010). Family Therapy Concepts and Methods. 9th Ed. Pearson Education.

Patterson, K. Crucial Conversations. (2002). 12 Guidelines: Power of Circle. Houston Galveston Institute Handout.

Interconnected Perspective-Oriented Assumptions

From Ordinary to Therapeutic Conversations:

 The meaning that derives from conversation is always dependent on a number of evolving issues:

1) The occasion of the conversation

2) The relationship of the participants to each other

3) What each knows of the situation and intent of the others

4) What the participants hope to accomplish

5) The applicable social and cultural conventions

6) The ever changing intended meanings of participants

Therapeutic Conversations:

1) The therapist keeps inquiry within the parameters of the problem as described by the clients

2) The therapist entertains multiple and contradictory ideas simultaneously

3) The therapist chooses cooperative rather than uncooperative language

4) The therapist learns, understands, and converses in the client’s language (language= clients experience)

5) The therapist is a respectful listener who does not understand too quickly (if ever)

6) The therapist asks questions, the answer to which require new questions

7) The therapist takes the responsibility for the creation of a conversational context that allows for mutual collaboration in the problem-defining process

8) The therapist maintains a dialogical conversation with himself/herself

Collaborative Language Systems:

 Believes in doing therapy WITH clients not TO them

• Anderson’s “not knowing stance”
• Mutual expertise

 “There is no ONE interpretation of a “patients” symptoms, dreams, fantasies (by clinicians)

 The analytic method is constructed and synthetic

• Therapists “knowledge” is organized, constructed, and fitted together by therapist alone or collaboratively with the client(s)

 Challenges authoritarianism

Tom Anderson and Reflective Teams

• Norwegian Therapist
• Attempt to hide nothing from clients
• Moved behind the mirror consultation INTO the session
• Provides an open environment (Family is part of the team)

Collaborative Problem Definition:

 The problem is an objection to something/someone the client is trying to do something about

 Problem only exists if there is a communicative action/complaint/concern

 Therapist responsibility = coevolution of a conversational context that allows for a problem–defining process

 Problem descriptions must be WORKABLE (unravel)

Problem vs. Problems:

 Multiple descriptions of “the problem” exists (various interpretations)

 Problems= linguistic events around which there is often conflicting interpretations

 Problem definitions are fluid (Avoid certainties)

Meta-Narratives and Knowledge Are Not Fundamental and Definitive

• Grand knowledge narratives and universal truth challenge

Generalizing Dominant Discourses and Universal Truths Is Seductive and Risky

• Temptation and consequences of grand narrative

Knowledge and Language Are Relational, Generative Social Processes

• Language is active and creative rather than static and representational.
• Change (transformation) is generated in language; it is filled with uncertainty and risk.

Local Knowledge Is Privileged

• Local knowledge includes narratives created and used within a community of persons

Dialog, Knowledge, and Language Are Inherently Transforming

• Local understandings come from within the conversation (transformative)
• “Transformation” or “transforming” as opposed to “change” or “changing” (Avoid from– to action)

Self Is a Relational–Dialogical Concept

• We speak, think, and act as the multiplicity of voices
• Perspective permits more freedom and flexibility

Think about it...

Background

Key positions and Assumptions that therapists bring to relationships with clients

 Views clients as experts on their own lives

 Is curious, open and not-knowing

 Offers ideas as ‘food for thought’ and invitations to meaning-making

 Attends to each participants’ unique and rich meanings and values

 Privileges shared and local knowledge

 Views therapy-participants as partners in shared inquiries leading to joint action and decision-making

 Believes that transformation occurs as meaning and language shifts

 Understands and explores all perspectives without judgment or supporting one over another

 Is flexible about who attends therapy, when and how often to meet.

 Is interested in all that are in conversation about the concerns or problem (clients, referral sources, family, friends, ect.)

In the Chair

Language Systems and Theory:

 Social role and structure NOT based in empirical social reality

 Language and communication are basic tools as Problem-Organizing, Problem Dis-Solving Systems:

• Look beyond systems that are predefined on the basis of social definition
• Look at linguistic coupling
• Take into account boundaries punctured by social structure and role
• New meaning created under constant evolution to meaning

Some Implications for Clinical Theory:

 How we THINK about therapy is important

 Traditional theory/practice constrain creative abilities to think/work effectively

Dr. Harry Goolishian

Therapist Role:

 Participant observer

 Participant manager of conversation

Diagnosis and Problem Definition:

 Avoid objectivity

 Lack of consensus (Diagnosis)

Where to go from here?

Moving Forward

Theoretical Streams of Thought and Practice

 Collaboration has become a popular term, and accepted way of working, in the general public and in various fields

 Collaboration = anything from being a silent partner to being a full- and co-participant with shared responsibility for the outcomes of a particular activity.

 Collaborative Therapy is a philosophical stance that includes our ways of being, thinking and working that go beyond therapy and technique.

 Harold Goolishian and Harlene Anderson (1988, 1990, and 1992) first used the term co-evolution.

• Ongoing process of meaning-making between client and therapist
• Non-hierarchical theraputtic relationship
• Clients are the experts on their lives, their problem-situation, their hopes and dreams
• Relational processes are individually, socially and culturally scripted, which carry power but not ‘truth’.

 Conversations in CLS open new possibilities through shared inquiries based on unique meanings and narratives

Lets REALLY talk

What is CURIOSITY??

Where it all began

Birth of Collaborative Language:

 Dr. Harry Goolishain and Dr. Harlene Anderson (Lynn Hoffman) (1980’s and 1990’s)

 (1988) Chronic Illness treatment failures and court or agency-mandated cases (domestic and sexual abuse)

 Evolution of groups of therapist (Psychoanalytic, MIT, Cybernetics)

• "The definition of the PROBLEM has changed"
• Brief and problem focused
• Focus on interaction patterns not as helpful

 U of T Medical Branch (diverse client “problems’” psychiatric/SES/etc.)

 Democratized the therapist/client relationship

 Moved therapist position to more egalitarian

And so.... the Galveston Family Institute was created!

Dr. Harlene Anderson

 Move away from the traditional and towards extension of underlying assumptions

 Meaning Derived from Patterns of Social Organization

• Sociocultural systems (Social Constructionism)
• Social “onion theory” (homeostatic maintenance of conditions)
• Empiricism vs. Objective Reality (Truth vs. truth)

Constructivism:

 Subjectivity vs. Objectivity

 Ambiguous human experience

 Assigned meaning

 Exploration of individual perspectives and problems instead of patterns of interaction

 MEANING is key

Social Constructionism:

 Kenneth Gergen (1985)

 Incorporated others influence on individual reality

 Power of social interaction in generalizing meaning for people

 Our beliefs are fluid and fluctuate with changes in our social context

 NO absolute truths

 Focus of therapy from action to cognition's

Three Implications of CLS:

1) Invites explorations of origins of beliefs and meanings in clients narratives

2) Therapy is a linguistic exercise

3) Therapy should be collaborative

• Narrative Therapy = an extension of social construction

Current foundational Premises:

1) Human systems are language-generating, and simultaneously, meaning generating systems

2) Meaning and understanding are socially and intersubjectively constructed

3) Any system is one that has developed around some “problem” and will be engaged in evolving language and meaning specific to its organization and specific to its dis-solution around “the problem” (Problem vs. social structure)

4) Therapy is a linguistic event that takes place in what we call a “therapeutic conversation"

5) The role of the therapist is that of a master conversational artist (an architect of dialogue) whose expertise is in CREATING A SPACE for and facilitating a dialogical conversation

Collaborative Language Systems

Brittani Oliver, MA

Alliant International University