Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Chapter 2: Overview of systemic therapy and practice 1
Chapter 3 Social constructionist approaches to emotions and self 3
Chapter 4 The importance of context 5
Chapter 5 From neutrality and curiosity to self=other reflexivity 6
Chapter 6 Circular questioning 7
Chapter 7 Hypothesising and Systemic Story creation 9
Chapter 8 Future dreaming and appreciating abilities 9
Chapter 9 Tracking an Episode 10
Chapter 10 Change: an ethical stance 11
Chapter 1: Introduction
What meaning does the client give to the others behaviour
and all of their interactions
There is no definitive explanation, we are born into a
cluster of stories, we are in a cluster of contexts
All relationship happens in a context
Difference =knowledge, difference presupposes relationship
Chapter 2: Overview of systemic therapy and practice
Make sense of the ecology of the system, the meanings that
are given how everything fits together and the communication patterns that
evolve.
Cybernetics: systems are complicated and self regulating
So one person gives feedback, it is received by possibly
many people each giving their own meaning to it.
Explore how come people come to be described as lazy,
depressed etc, something that represents an internal state. These words represent how we communicate,
behave to other people not an internal state.
When people describe themselves with an internal state, what
brings you to say this and what effects does it have on other people.
Questions find about clients’ meaning, statements tell the
client what the therapist thinks and feels
In science there is cause and effect, one billiard ball has
energy that knocks into another and causes transfer of this energy. If you kick
a dog you never know how he is going to react the energy is with the
respondent, cause and effect are inverted
Bowlby: there is the assumption in mental life that some
kind of energy is at work, as this is how science works, Freuds hydraulics but
this has been discredited
Language is linear, and suggests linear causality, it has
subject and objects. Language is descriptive, static and linear and living
systems are dynamic and circular.
When we think we have
an explanation we give up looking for other descriptions
Avoid linguistic tyranny by replacing the verb to be with to
show
So to describe not explain
Terry calls me lazy, what behaviours do you show that lead
terry to say you are lazy, would other people agree, disagree, what would you
call untidy, has your tidy\untidiness changed, how would other loved ones
describe your behaviour
These questions show that words like lazy are descriptions
by someone within a relationship not an inherent quality
Positive connoting;
Problem with eating is a problem with your relationship with
food, what are other important relationships that you have what is the type of
relationship like, the pattern of communication. Positively connoting is to
work out how the problem, makes sense within the relationship.
Cause and effect someone is to blame
Relational effect no-one is to blame
In a systemic orientation we work with the idea that every
action is a communication and every communication is an invitation to other
people to respond in some way.
How do others interpret her behaviour and how do they
respond.
So positive connotation understands how a behaviour is
helpful to the system, the logical connotation works out the maintenance, what
keeps this going.
No-one can change easily under a negative connotation, e.g.
blame
‘everybody is doing the best they can, given all the
circumstances.’
Hedges, Fran. An Introduction to Systemic Therapy with
Individuals: A Social Constructionist Approach (Basic Texts in Counselling and
Psychotherapy) (Kindle Location 530). Palgrave Macmillan. Kindle Edition.
First order cybernetics the therapist is the expert.
Second order cybernetics the therapist is part of the
system.
Cybernetics=regulating system
What we hear in any communication ‘is in part determined by
what we expect and want to hear . . . by the history of the relationship (and
by the) . . . context’ (Watzlawick 1964: p. 66).
Chapter 3 Social constructionist approaches to emotions and self
Meaning is constructed in relationship, we may have broad
agreement with groups we belong to about the meaning of certain words but they may take on a more
specific meaning within our family.
Wittgenstein we find the meaning of a word through its use,
the meaning of a word is like family resemblance it contains a range of
definitions.
Emotions=Seen in our culture as internal, private, abstract,
primitive, and belonging more to women than to men,
Hedges, Fran. An Introduction to Systemic Therapy with
Individuals: A Social Constructionist Approach (Basic Texts in Counselling and
Psychotherapy) (Kindle Locations 664-665). Palgrave Macmillan. Kindle Edition.
Emotions are culturally and historically specific
Different types of emotions around the world, 5 types of
anger for instance. In the 17th century emotion meant agitated behaviour
of the crowd, then in the 19th century emotions had been feminised
and men didn’t have any emotions
If we accept that emotions are socially, historically and
culturally constructed we must explore the specific stories, communication
processes and contexts in which our clients have developed their ways of
feeling.
Hedges, Fran. An Introduction to Systemic Therapy with
Individuals: A Social Constructionist Approach (Basic Texts in Counselling and
Psychotherapy) (Kindle Locations 721-723). Palgrave Macmillan. Kindle Edition.
Emotion: who is communicated with and what is being said,
and what request is being made.
When taking a self opinion, who would agree with you, who
would disagree with you. You might also ask what comes to mind when you have
your self opinion. So what story is it part of? When do you feel most, this
self opinion?
Emotions aren’t abstract they are actual moments of feeling
and expression
Averill=emotions are short lived experiences
Emotions are reified, we get beguiled by language, I am
angry
Emotions are discursive acts
The way to understand emotion is
1.
Bodily sensation
2.
Characteristic display
3.
The words we choose to describe the emotion
4.
The social act( communication)s
Bodily sensations
Some emotions are seen as stronger when they have a stronger
bodily sensation, e.g. anger, anxiety, but some emotions have no bodily
sensation e.g. hope. Some bodily feelings e.g. tiredness aren’t an emotion.
Anger and love are emotions that are described as controlling behaviour.
Contextual rules
We learn ways of behaving with our emotion in different
circumstances, indeed how we display in a certain circumstances adds to the
meaning of the emotion.
Words we choose to describe the emotion
This says what the behaviour and physical feeling expresses,
we are interpreting what we did and feel and expressing it to another, or to
ourselves
Social act
What is being communicated by the emotion and who I communicate to
Our emotions come in episodes that have beginnings, middles
and ends.
You can think of association in terms of family resemblances,
this resembles that, so this comes becomes experienced at the same time as
that.
A family resemblance doesn’t mean one thread connects, but
rather in the overlapping of many fibres. What this means is that there isn’t a thing
called anger, but rather family resemblances between different anger incidents.
We are born into an arena with conventions for certain
situations. So as we speak, we speak on
the basis of previous utterances, and speak on the basis of what is expected in
a certain situation.
When someone says they had to do x,yz, this usually
indicates a rule being followed. So an emotional expression has global meaning
in terms of it being learnt and talked about within a society and has a local
meaning in terms of how it was talked about within the groups that the person
is a member of. Asking what certain
people think about his expression shows these various positions, so someone in
your society, someone in your family, your partner.
Our self is created with culture, race, gender, etc. It
creates expected patterns of conversation and behaviour. Patterns of
conversation within various groups produce the self that we know ourselves to
be.
Gergen:
Three views of self
Romantic: hidden depths, mystery, passion: meaning, love,
inspiration
Enlightenment: rational, fixed, knowable, consistent
Post modern: multiple selves and contradictory , continuous construction
Japan has 260 ways to describe social relationship, leads to
a richer sense of self.
Self in UK, come from a Judaeo Christian idea, about moral
agency, social responsibility and obligation. A network of obligations and
commitment.
Language gives us the sense of agency and it reduces to our
sense of identity, I did x, because I’m that kind of person. I cause I am
responsible for something.
The position we occupy in the world, leads us to feel
certain emotions and creates our sense of self.
A position is a set of rights, responsibilities with respect
to what one may say in a certain context. You don’t need any intra psychic
information to find out why someone acted the way that they did.
Social factors determine what discourses we can join
Chapter 4 The importance of context
Words only have meaning in context. Context is therefore key
to a social constructionist approach.
There are no universal meanings, rather than we are given
certain meanings, that we then adapt in our local experience, and re-use
differently in different context, although there is a family resemblance. Context is the process of weaving together of
words.
In certain contexts I connect to certain stories about
myself, there is a family resemblance to me in meetings, or me as a therapist.
Etc This then leads to ways I may think, act and the like.
We are never in one conversation, we are in the nexus of
many conversations. Each with its own meaning and action.
3 contexts that exist within a therapeutic conversation
1.
Context of Time
2.
Context of Place
3.
The context of the definition of a relationship
We use context markers to indicate what conversational
context we are in:
The welcoming noise about weather
The starting of session, the sitting down, looking directly,
asking how you like to use our time today
The ending of session, that’s about all, the getting ready to leave
to toom.
We simultaneously act out of a numerous contexts and into
numerous other contexts that we imagine, invent
Multiple
contexts
Moving
through different contexts with someone changes meaning, can cause
misunderstanding without clarifying the rules of engagement, but can allow
creativity.
Chapter 5 From neutrality and curiosity to self=other reflexivity
Milan groups
3 principles: curiosity, circularity and neutrality
Neutrality:
not accepting one position as more true than another, so you can never be
neutral but if you continue to generate new interpretations then this is
demonstrating neutrality as you don’t think your opinion is the one
Neutrality
was originally conceived of by the Milan team as seeing that everyone in the
system is doing the best they can given the circumstances. This was used
as an idea to prevent the siding with anyone member of the system as this shuts
down curiosity.
First order
cybernetics easy to pathologies, blame, and be punitive. The biggest challenge
is to see things not from your clients point of view but from others within
their system.
Asking what
would bob think if they could see you, gets other points of view, this can help
provide further information, can provide how this may affect the relationship
between bob and Mary
So you may
want to ask questions about people involved with the thing which shows systemic
effects, you may want to ask about how other people would see things, which can
generate other ideas and perspectives and can help restructure and connect with
the clients own thoughts.
Whilst being
neutral, exploring areas the client or you think are unjust seems helpful.
An
invitation to curiosity
Being
curious allows us to connect to different explanations and not to get stuck.
Curiosity is perpetual doubt so could be destabilising, helps empathy and
understanding. Its very hard to change when you’re held to blame
Showing
irreverence to our prejudices.
We can never
be free of prejudice. Prejudices are like heat seeking missiles that home in on
models that confirm pre-existing beliefs about the world.
When clients
are stuck we are too wedded to our own prejudices
Irony to the
discourse
Instead of
neutrality, critique the theories that you are using whilst you are using them.
Reflexivity
is that which turns back on itself, which takes account of itself.
Notice how
you talk in public about your client and also in private, but will determine
how you re open to them.
Use
reflecting team principles to generate ideas, you can take themed team members
what would the psychiatrist say?
The fifth
province is a place where you can say the unsayable and think the unthinkable,
it was original a place where Celts and druids could work through their
differences.
Chapter 6 Circular questioning
Circular questioning
allows us to enter the interpersonal systemic frame
Looking at
the internal world separates you from your relationships.
Family is
the crucible where we generate our identity and learn how the world works. Its also the most powerful system of which we
belong.
Genograms
help explore relations, myths, and possible connection to personal identity.
Genogram
Who is
closest to who, what similarities and dissimilarities do you have. In a
genogram there may also be connections out to not physical\biological entities.
Timelines
help you notice when and with whom you feel happier or less happy, close or
less close.
You can make
connections and distinctions between how you and significant relationships view
the present, future and past.
Questions
you can ask would be how does the change in relationship change how you saw
yourself.
The language
of relationship, is the language of patterns, not what is. This helps make
sense of how a person responds in certain conversations, contexts and sequences
of action.
Interpersonal
relationships are feedback loops which have a certain pattern and certain
information.
We think
within person due to psychoanalysis relationship with science and the way
language is constructed. A relationship
is a feedback loop. To be part of a relationship things need to be observable
as they count as either behaviour or feedback, both critical for relationship.
Information
is difference, difference is relationship
To get more
information you change relationship, so you touch a sport then move your
fingers around it to get more information.
When things change, what sense do you make of them.
Difference
creates meaning and to have difference you need to have one thing relate to
another, e.g. quiet
Circular
questions target perceptions of difference not facts.
Absence can
be a communication, silence is a communication, we cannot not communicate. Language is linear, life is circular and
dynamic.
Language is linear as you have subject and object, cause and
effect, before and after. Its clean and a singular in direction.
To avoid linguistic tyranny replace the verb to be, with to
show or seems, appears . What we say about a person is a function of a
relationship.
How do you show your sadness
What would your tears say
Who do they most want to say this to
Who notices what is shown. What is it like for them
Punctuation
In a long sequence of events, then people add punctuation to
make it seem, one persons leads, or is in charge, or independent, to shape the
direction of the interaction, active and passive. However this punctuation is arbitrary in
terms of before and after, cause and effect.
Disagreements as to how to punctuate is the cause of many
disagreements. X caused it, y caused it
To an observer they might see a series of interchanges
however to the members of those interchanges there is punctuation and a web of
expectation of others behaviour.
Stimulus and response depend on looking at short
interactions but if you take a longer perspective everything is both stimulus,
response and reinforcement.
Chapter 7 Hypothesising and Systemic Story creation
You should hypothesise on the basis of your clients
presentation. Everyone basis their engagement with the world on a hypothesis.
The worth of a hypothesis with a client that it creates a resonance for those
involved. Although it does seem from the
multitude of description and complex reciprocity that a hypothesis veers in the
face of description towards explanation.
Hypothesis draw from four sources
1.
Data
2.
Theory
3.
Therapist experience
4.
Personality (Personal givens)
When we fall in love with our hypothesis we stop being
curious.
Exploring neglected voices, what would they say about x, enables
you and the client not to fall in love with particular theory.
So whilst there can be multiple hypothesis that can fit a story
you cant get all hypothesis to fit a story, some are not helpful.
Hypothesis must be helpful and appreciative
A good hypothesis should produce news of difference.
In the not telling who are you protecting from your
feelings.
Chapter 8 Future dreaming and appreciating abilities
The future influences more the way . . . we live in the
present than anything that happened in the past Lang and McAdam (1997)
Imagination is more important than knowledge Albert Einstein
To have no possible futures is to be impoverished.
The end forms the present and does not purely reside in the
future.
As you prepare as an archer, or a house builder you are led
by how you want things to be.
Problems can be frustrated hopes and dreams
Explore the desired future and how problems are getting in
the way of that.
When working with the future it is easy to show the
deficiencies in the past and present so rather you need to build on the best of
what is.
Future orientated questions can enable clients to produce\engage
with possibilities for the present
What if you did know as a counter to I don’t know, as it can
attach the client to knowledge they have but haven’t considered.
Fixed rule language games=chess, playing it reinforces the
rules
Dreaming conversations create worlds of imagination that can
be walked into.
A goal that has a stop command usually has a negative
connotation in it, so stop stealing=thief, strong being anxious=weak, stop being
angry=nasty. What kind of future do you want.
What would your dream of the future look like?
As you imagine the future, then look back from there to ask
what did you do to help you get there. Alternatively what helped you get there,
who helped you get there.
As you looked back what skills helped you get here, maybe
skills you didn’t realise at the time.
Future work can be used with complex issues
Chapter 9 Tracking an Episode
When you talk about something being deep in your life, or a
deep issue, you are talking about your relation to it, it has many complex
links, it is related to the past
Stories and making sense of things. When we think\understand
something this can be an outcome of personal, cultural, family, gender stories
about what happens, or should happen.
Every metaphor is based on a model.
Metaphors, hold theory, hold fixed ways of seeing the world
Clients talk in many languages, words, tone, body,
behavioural…
When we are in conversation with another we are playing a
guessing game, what episode is happening here, what is going on here, are we
playing the funny game, the supportive game, the moaning game etc. Likewise the
personal meaning is significant if we are arguing if we stay together, then
this episode was a bad patch, if we don’t stay together then this is indicative
that we should break up
Disagreements about how to punctuate are at the root of many
couples disagreements. Punctuation means taking the mass of events, and adding
cause and effect, adding in episodical information. Punctuation lets us make
sense of the complexity
The constituents of an episode are time, boundary and
structure. Time is when an episode starts and ends, boundary is what’s inside
and what’s outside and structure is what’s the pattern of the episode, the
story if you like.
Scripts are the patterns that we receive socially,
difficulty can come when there are script conflicts and also script conflicts
with our own personal goals.
Every episode has multiple layers of context, multiple stories
that make sense of it, multiple frames.
A URP is an unwanted repetitive pattern.
There is both a grammar of language, how to put sentences together
,and a grammar in living of how emotions and behaviours and rules go together.
The substance of our social world is moral, we act as we
think we should, how we think is right.
If someone says they couldn’t help themselves then this is
the sign of deontic logic, a moral force of what should be done is at play.
RAC has a clash of two systems, what should be done in terms
of behaviour and what I should do in terms of response, leading to frustration.
Chapter 10 Change: an ethical stance
How do you stay with the client and yet be with their desire
to change
Therapists are looking for big change and miss small change,
therapists can notice stuckness but not notice change.
When a client resists a therapists then the therapist is
pursuing their desires not the clients.
There are 3 aspects of therapeutic change
1.
Emotions
2.
Stories
3.
Behaviours
No story is complete, there is an infinitude of the unsaid,
of possibilities
What we mean by information is difference that makes a
difference
Change happens when you introduce an idea that is not too
similar and not too different.
No comments :
Post a Comment