Beginning, development, and closure of therapeutic processes (first part)

(February 22, 2019)

Diego Tapia Figueroa, Ph.D. and Maritza Crespo Balderrama, M.A.

First part

In our daily therapeutic practice, we often ask ourselves about how to put the being of the therapist (or the person who provides care) at the service of the process of meaningful reflection and responsible transformation of the consultant. We work from a social-constructionist position (and, in that context, this sequence is an invitation to reflect with our readers; we trust that it contributes, that it is useful and serves as people will take it freely; it is not a step-by-step guide or a recipe book to follow; it is an invitation to a possible path, as others may exist) when we do it from:

• Curiosity: to understand and connect;
• Respect that dignifies and recognizes people;
• Acceptance (respect for their being);
• Trust in relationships, in dialogue, in the conversational process;
• Reflective dialogue with meaningful questions;
• Deep listening and understanding;
• A fine sensibility and a relational connection;
• Recognize and value differences;
• Leave the position of the expert, the hierarchy, the duty to be;
• Creativity;
• Good humor;
• We recognize the importance of inviting and offering the space for the expression of multiple voices; asking ourselves how we can promote the participation of other voices, of all the voices that are present.

In the process of therapy, we receive people with these words: 

“Welcome.” We often ask: what is the most significant thing that you think we should know about what you are like, about your history; to understand the kind of person you are and that maybe others haven’t noticed or missed out on you because you don’t pay enough attention to it? Other possible questions include: what would you like to talk about? How do you see the situation? Or also: how would you like to use this meeting? To the answers given throughout the 50-minute dialogue, we say: what does it mean to you? What part of the responsibility do you take?

As Harlene Anderson (1997) explains: the consultant is the expert in what he says about the content; he is the one who knows about his life experiences and the reasons that bring him to therapy. The therapist -with all these resources- is the specialist in the process: his expertise consists of creating a dialogical context, engaging with the consultant in a first-person conversation… A therapist becomes a resource for a way of being.

During therapy sessions, while one speaks or while we ask them something or make some reflection that accompanies the last thing they have just said, we can ask the consultants, for example: what internal dialogues were they having this moment while listening to the other person or while listening to us? Also: what do you want to do with your pain? And: what do you imagine you could say and do differently, from now on, to build the kind of relationships and lifestyle you would like to have? We listen connected, committed to the dialogic process; we ask, not to get information out of content, but to understand the relational connections, the processes. Once we ask a question, we remain quiet, listen silently, without interrupting; we do not give advice, we do not judge or criticize. We respect the pace and time of the consultants and the co-therapist.

Sheila McNamee (2017), speaking of the radical presence, invites us to think from a new place about these issues. There are multiple value systems. The idea of being reflective is to ask ourselves questions. It’s about being curious, respectful, open. It is not the goal, it is the means; the consequence of radical presence. It is not about having to reach an agreement, the important thing is to understand the perspective of the other. Not to understand the other, but to come to understand what is important to the other. Understanding is not cognitive but is on the side of feeling with.

How to stop seeing individuals and focus on relational processes? How do we detach ourselves from rigidity? How do we view complexity instead of continuing to seek uniformity? Can we leave the desire for uniformity and look for the vulnerability that happens in relational processes?

We understand the importance of:

• Do not pathologize or label or assume a role of expert and omnipotence.
• Try to work as a team.
• Permanently seek to do co-therapy.
• Prevent revictimizations; raise awareness of this risk.
• Know how to refer responsibly to the most appropriate institutions and professionals for each context and need.
• Seek to mobilize family, social, and institutional support networks.
• To think that each session can be the last: then we must see if it is guaranteed, for example, understanding -with respect- the creation of a bond and a context – an atmosphere – of trust and security, etc.; and whether it has helped to find the resources of the consultant himself; as well as whether they were provided with the information appropriate to their needs and urgencies; both in terms of their human, legal, health, protection rights, etc. 

It is not necessary -nor possible- for the therapist to be a paragon of integration and fulfillment in all aspects of his life. It is enough that he is exactly himself in this hour of their relationship, it is enough that in this fundamental sense he is what he truly is at this moment. We insist on the importance of gentleness in therapeutic dialogue:

1. Ask politely.
2. Listen with gentleness.
3. Speak gently.
4. Respond with gentleness.
5. Treat people gently.

We have responsibility for what we participate in. People should feel understood, supported, accepted, and heard. We ask ourselves from this relational ethic: could we collectively make something more, a significant difference that contributes to creating a deep connection, a new meaning to one’s own life? How to contribute with our questions to untie the relational knots, which oppress people’s lives?

In co-therapy, the consultants experience joint learning with the two therapists who are present. They find that (as human beings and professionals) we often have different perspectives, perceptions, reflections, and feelings. That we embody a difference that means a challenge and a practical enrichment; that it is possible to say, act and be different without it being a threat, a personal attack, a disqualification, which involves power struggle or war. That this difference brings us new resources and is accepted and welcomed.

Working as co-therapists gives us great freedom to interact relationally, it makes us feel committed -through dialogue- in favor of the transformation process of the consultants (and ours). We are articulating a complementarity, which means, opening and generating reflections, jointly constructing meanings, alternatives, and possibilities, in this continuous being and being with: with oneself, with the colleague, with the consultants; in a relational-dialogical process that transforms all participants, each time, as if it were the first time; from amazement, curiosity, imagination, and creativity.

After the therapy session, we can ask some of these questions to the consultants: are there any topics that you would like to address or discuss next time? Are there any issues that you feel need to be addressed differently? Is there a topic that we could not understand as you would have liked? How will you know and how will you notice, if you have achieved what you needed with this process? What is significant about this session? What do you feel you are leaving again, in understanding your responsibilities, alternatives, possibilities, futures? What did you learn from yourself differently, saying and listening to each other, about your resources, strengths, capabilities?

Once the consultants leave (the session lasts 50 minutes and we respect this limit), for 10 minutes we open dialogue between the two of us, reflexively answering these questions and providing us with this feedback:

What differences did you notice in describing these relationships and contexts? What did you learn from yourself in this session? The three things I learned from you in this session were…? What would you have liked to say or do differently? What do you imagine could happen to these people and their relationships? How did this story touch you, what issues did you connect with, in this session?

We are often accompanied by a good coffee.

Second part 

(March 8, 2019)

At the end of the first session of a therapeutic process, we can also ask tentatively (we transcribe fragments of a couples therapy, from January):

Therapist (MCB): I was wondering, if this process that you are now beginning, came to an end, in the time that you consider it necessary and if it was successful: how would you notice it; how would you know what happened and if you have achieved what you expected?

María: that I would regain confidence in my decisions; that I would no longer be so afraid to live and to tell John what I need from him. That I would stop feeling guilty about everything.

Juan: that I would enjoy my relationship with María again. I could say what I feel even if María doesn’t like it. I would also stop feeling guilty about everything.

Therapist (MCB): Perhaps you want to regain confidence in the relationship and in what each one decides; face your fears and guilt, go through them, overcome them; put words in the relationship; have a voice of your own in the relationship, make it be heard and respected. Kind of? Did I understand correctly; is that what you would like to achieve in this process?

María and Juan: Yes. It is.

Therapist (DTF): Well, we hope to accompany you to reflect differently, to build together with other meanings in your relationship, in this process. Maybe, you want to come back next week; would you like to continue and commit to your therapy process?

María and Juan: Yes.

Before describing what could often happen from the second session onwards, we must comment that the positive response that the first part had -with requests to develop the topic- expands it and makes us reflect more on this topic; it commits us to continue (it will be a series of three parts) and share other ideas and possible ways to sustain a therapeutic practice capable of doing, what Harlene Anderson

(See: Harlene, conversations interrupted. Harlene Anderson. Rocío Chaveste and ML Papusa Molina, compilers. 2019 Taos Institute Publications/WorldShare Books), states:

… my change in thinking and talking about the philosophical stance. For years I said it’s a way of being. Now I realize that it is not that, they are ways of being and of becoming. This seemingly subtle grammatical shift draws attention to the notion of being static versus a fluid one. There is never one way to be, exist and respond with another. Our being is influenced by so many things and is unique to every encounter. The being must be plural. I also added becoming to further signify the dynamic nature of being. We are always on the path of becoming with the other and with ourselves… a special way to be present, tuned and receptive…. (p. 2)

Learning to be a therapist is learning to participate in the best possible way in a process of expansion and creation of meanings. Therapy to be effective must continually be recreated within the context of interaction. The therapist approaches each session as a unique situation, this includes what people present and the possible outcome of the therapy. From this position, the therapist does not cause a change in the consultant, but both are transformed through their interaction. Through a transformative dialogue (that’s therapy); understanding that everything moves and travels in language, everything is built and connected with language; language makes us propose questions, possibilities, future.

We began the second therapy session (and each new session), asking them: Therapist (MCB): how do you feel today, this moment, here? What have you thought differently this week, about our previous conversation?

María: that if I feel guilty it is not because there is something wrong with me; it has to do with how Juan and I treat each other; and those fears increase if we do not face them.

Therapist (MCB): what did you do differently these days and would you like to tell us? What would you like to talk about today?

Juan: I have thought right about my responsibilities, as you told us, about what has not been said between us. I know that if I want to improve, feel better, I must speak. I want us to be able to start telling each other what each one needs as a couple.

Therapist (DTF): what new things do you notice about the relationship between you that you haven’t seen before?

Juan: when María wanted to fight with me -before reacting, as she always knew how to do- I said to myself: breathe, be calm, listen and don’t scream, don’t run away. And she calmed down and we were able to talk.

Therapist (DTF): how did you manage to do this and how did it feel to achieve it? What did this achievement of yours mean to you?

Juan: thinking before reacting. I felt at peace, without fear. Not bad.

Therapist (DTF): Maria, what do you think of what John says. What is your perception of this that John describes?

María: Yes, that’s right. I provoked him and since he did not react as I expected, that reassured me. Then we were able to talk more calmly. Although I have felt very sad.

Therapist (MCB): if I understood well (even if we are two therapists, we assume the responsibility of speaking in the first person, with each reflection we make) you say that you feel sad: is it so, did I understand well?

María: yes; and I don’t understand why.

Therapist (DTF): could you explain what that sadness means, how it manifests, what makes you, or does it prevent you from doing it? Now that you look at that sadness differently: what would this sadness say, what would it tell us about you, about the relationships between you, and your current life?

And so many questions. As we already mentioned: the question we ask connects with the last thing that has just been said by the consultants. We don’t have a prepared battery of questions or standardized protocols to follow. These are questions generated by the conversational relationship itself. We care about proposing questions that challenge the relational knots that oppress people and their contexts; questions that risk (with respect) to bother the established.

“Therapy, from this paradigm, is a transformative dialogue… it is the intentional genesis of meanings and narratives that can transform the construction of the consultants’ experience through collaborative dialogue”. (Kenneth Gergen, 2011, p. 75) Gergen specifies: “The therapist’s ability lies rather in knowing how and not in knowing what…, in his fluidity within the relationship, in his ability to collaborate in the creation of new futures.

SIGNIFICANT QUESTIONS FOR SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST THERAPY

How do you meet a person being a foreigner in their life and vice versa? How together, temporarily, can we create to find a way to transform together?

The need to have time to find our own words: the need to have time for the other to find their own words.

Find a way to be with the other, which invites you to transform with the other.

The challenge is to listen to what others say, assess their perspectives, and ask questions that modify the meaning.

How do you create genuine trust, not as a strategic goal, but as a condition of a relational bond?

Open yourself to the opportunity not to stay the same; take the possibility of becoming someone different.

Dialogue with the question, from the complexity; to understand that living also means learning to live in uncertainty.

Reflexivity; creation of a dialogical space, where you can give and receive a NO, without fear of damaging the relationship; but, on the contrary, as something that allows improving the relationship.

Prefer to keep a broad vision, with an open conversation. Be careful in what is being articulated as a theory because they can think of the person from that place.

A set of resources, of voices, with their resources, are convened and mobilized; then comes uncertainty, and we don’t know where the necessary resource will come from. What is possible, to the extent that we move.

It is a therapy whose main tool is based on questions, questions neither rhetorical nor pedagogical; they are questions, which open up creative possibilities, which expand the possibilities of responsible interrelationships; with the awareness that the consequences of our words and our actions affect others. In the words of David Epston: “Every time we ask a question, we are generating a possible version of a life”. It is a joint collaboration between therapist and consultants, to discern with criteria, the multiple hows, that allow crossing the present dilemmas; and, to build, as authors of their history, a new relational life, based on mutual respect, good treatment, acceptance of differences. These are questions that make people feel invited to a conversation, of belonging.

Each therapeutic encounter questions us in different ways. It is a conversation about what matters to the people, in which we try to be the person we like to be, and at the same time, be able to offer the conditions, to co-create the relational context, so that the clients are who they would like to be. In a collaborative dialogue that is not afraid to face the complex contradictions of the human condition, from a perspective that privileges responsiveness, responsibility, the continuous and honest interrogation about other senses and meanings, to contribute to new lifestyles.

Tom Andersen says:

I want to talk to people like they haven’t talked to themselves or each other… We do not speak to clients; we talk to the people and do things with the people… How do I want to be with others? And how do I want them to be with me? Speaking differently means, among other things, listening differently. I want to understand, and I want to offer understanding.

Fewer stories about what happened and more embodied understanding. Less attention to what they say happened before, and more attention to what is being lived with people here and now, with and without words. Therapy is also confronting in favor of the client´s process; “disturb” (introduce significant differences that mobilize other reflections, and the resources of the client), disturb the relational system -if it is cruel and unfair-. To disturb is to introduce complexity and uncertainty, to question the established, to expand the worldview, to generate responsible alternatives, with creativity. It is important to challenge the incongruity of the clients: to allow them to become aware of the difference between what is thought, what is said, and what is done. That the value of one’s own words be recovered, that responsibility for actions and their consequences on others can be recovered.

At the end of the sessions, we asked each other: what did I learn that was important to me, from this person and his strengths, from this context and relational culture? It must be said that in addition to a good coffee, once the conversation is over and while reflecting on the process of co-therapy, what we like is to share and enjoy also, a bar of Ecuadorian chocolate (dark); so, that the experience and the reflective conversational dialogue, tastes better.

Third part

(March 22, 2019)

That’s why I value this short phrase: “I don’t know.” It’s brief, but it flies on powerful wings.”

(Wislawa Szymborska)

In this third, and final part, we want to include brief examples on the question from the tentative and the dialogue held in the “not knowing”; in a democratizing process, without the hierarchical power of expert owners of truths and essences.

Let’s start by saying that tentativity implies not sustaining the therapeutic session in the certainty, held by the therapists (we, in addition, work in co-therapy) and the theoretical knowledge of how to do it. To be tentative is, fundamentally, to give respect, value, give importance and credibility to the word and experience of those who come to therapy, as they are the only connoisseurs of their “truths and realities”.

In this context, every question, every word, every opinion we make is, precisely, only an opinion that seeks, among other things, to promote and recognize the opinion, the word and the question of the other, about their own life and their context.

MCB Therapist: I wonder if -from what you just told us- would it seem like you’re looking for something, is that what you want to express? 

María: I don’t know if I’m looking for anything, what I would like is for us to be able to find the space to talk about what is important to us as a couple.

MCB Therapist: I don’t know if I understand, can explain it to me; what does this mean Maria, what is important?

María: We only talk about what is urgent in terms of the family. Not of our stuff. Only in this space did he say something, and when I wanted to talk, he doesn’t seem to understand me.

MCB Therapist: Juan, what were you thinking, what internal dialogues did you have, as you listened to María?

Juan: yes, she is right, we do not have time. We both get tired to be with the children, but if she wants to talk, she could tell me something.

DTF Therapist: Could you, Juan, perhaps, tell us if you are also in a searching process, and if so, what is important for you to search and how would it connect with your relationship?

Seeing, every occasion, each therapy with each consultant, as an opportunity to present questions asked from this position of tentativity and “not knowing”, promotes -with enthusiasm- a way of talking openly to seek other perspectives to understand the actions that the consultants develop in their contexts of couple and family. This posture of not knowing requires stopping dominant professional and personal discourses to abandon premature stereotypes. We have chosen to trust the process instead of pretending to control it, opting to talk from curiosity, with a relational sensitivity; connecting to accompany them on a journey that takes us to unthinkable, new horizons. And it’s a journey where we’ve always been on the move, we’ve never come to an end. This is also why it has been a transformative journey.

Conceptual humility, which recognizes and accepts not only one’s own “not knowing”; the deep ignorance that accompanies us, and includes the validation and positive assessment of the questions of others; their doubts and their alternatives, lead to practical humility to accompany these dialogues about one’s resources (humility is nourished by genuine curiosity). 

DTF Therapist: María, if you described the kind of relationship you would like to live with John, what would it be like; how would it differ from the one you have now?

Maria: a relationship in which we could get back to the encounter we had together before everything happened. When we could talk, I felt like he was listening to me and that mattered to him. 

MCB Therapist: It may seem strange to ask this, but I am curious to understand: What did you do differently when this happened?

Let’s look at a brief exchange with Juan:

DTF Therapist: Juan, it comes to my mind the impression that you feel that you are not valued for what you do or your intentions: is it so?

Juan: Exactly. I don’t feel valued, there is always a “but”, it’s never enough, it’s all complaints and claims. I wish she could recognize some of what I do as positive. And also, that she enjoys and lets me enjoy the good things that we have. 

MCB Therapist: Juan, is that right? It must be difficult then, for you, to be able to converse with your partner. If you could locate three things that you would like María to hear about you, what would they be?

Social constructionism is a position that contextualizes the way of practicing therapy, of interrelating in different social contexts. One could take the risk of saying that almost all models of psychotherapy are a valid resource for the social-constructionist therapist, when they are conceived as a set of metaphors and tentative orientations, historically and culturally limited, and not as an absolute science that imposes concepts and a single “correct” form of intervention. A social constructionist perspective for the practice of therapy means a posture in which reality -in any of the complex senses that human beings give it- is never out there in an immutable way, independent of our ways of knowing it.

Dora Fried Schnitman argues:

For the therapist, the question is how to build alternatives in seemingly closed situations (how to promote creative solutions that build new realities). The challenge is the creation of what does not yet exist, beyond the available possibilities, through the generation of a dialogue – internal and external – transformative.

See “Diploma in perspective and generative professional practice”-

http://www.fundacioninterfas.org/capacitacion/?p=3295)  :

We do it with appreciative Dialogues that are the co-creative search for the potential, the best of the people, teams, organizations, and systems in which they find themselves. It’s a thoughtful conversation. Through meaningful questions, successful experiences of the past are narrated; the positive stories of the present are told; the possibilities that we want to build together for the future are counted. The process needs participation, democracy, good humor, flexibility (and everyone’s dreams are present), valuing what does work, and imagining what could be. Asking ourselves: what do we bring differently in this local context? In this relational process: “let’s promote creativity, participation, recognition, learning, reflection, and innovation”. A way of living together in the world, aware that we can only be through dialogue.

There is a need for a responsible ethical and political dimension: to assume a critical stance towards the existing status quo; to oppressive cultural constructions; to a society that seeks to homologate and silence differences, a cruel and unjust society. We cannot cover up the fact that in the “psy” world, there are more and more cynical merchants and abusive and unethical exploiters, whose only interest is to make money from their clients, manipulate them, create dependency, teach them to live according to their recipe book of standardized platitudes. Therapy is not there to do “the dirty work” of the state and institutions (the family, the church, education, the police) and give them ideological alibis; it is not to impose social conformism and justify those who maintain abusive hierarchical power, nor to anesthetize and have as zombies the “troublemakers”, nor to prevent putting pain in words, nor to censure the desire for freedom; neither to contribute to social control nor to tame or “normalize” or keep in a position of subalternity the different, the intelligent and the rebellious.

It is clear: without critical thinking, without social justice, without generating equity and dignity, without social transformations for the construction of the common wellbeing, it is more of the same. It might be helpful for us as therapists to ask ourselves and answer honestly: what are we most afraid of? What are the resources and strengths we recognize in ourselves? Do we have a satisfying life of our own outside of work?

According to Harlene Anderson (2017), in this therapy it is important to assume an action-oriented posture:

• Treat each relationship as if it were unique
• Take responsibility for inviting collaborative relationships (context) and dialogic conversations (process)
• This allows the consultant to be the center of attention
• Offer questions, opinions, perceptions, and suggestions as a way to engage in the conversation and tentatively
• Avoid assuming or understanding too quickly, keep the posture of a curious learner
• Have a dialogic conversation with yourself as the first step toward dialogue
• Keep the inquiry within the parameters of the consultant’s agenda
• Simultaneously offer multiple and contradictory ideas
• Use consistent language
• Think, listen and speak responsively, assertively

Excerpt from a closing session of a therapy process:

MCB Therapist: can you think about a moment of learning, a different reflection, that you are going to take with you from this process that we are now concluding?

María: When I realized that I am co-responsible for what happens in my relationship with Juan. I take with me the question you asked us: what could we do differently -each one- to build the relationship we would like to have?

Juan: To realize, reflecting among the four of us, the cultural mandates that we have. Learning to differentiate what oppresses us culturally and takes away from us the life we want.

MCB Therapist: how is this conversation we’re having useful to you? 

Juan: to confirm what we have achieved with María, to maintain it.

María: it helps me regain trust and hope in the couple and family we have with Juan.

Four other possibilities to close with these open questions:

DTF Therapist:

First possibility: I wondered if we met again in three years: what would be different in your relationship, how do you imagine the relationship between you will be?

Second possibility: I don’t know if you would like to hear our personal opinion of how we see each of you, our perception of each of your strengths and your relationship, and your relational contexts? (What we tell them, highlights their strengths and resources; we tell them about our learnings from their experiences and reflections)

MCB Therapist:

Third possibility: what did not help in this process? What would you have liked to discuss or develop more? What has the dialogue with us brought you, what has been useful to you, what has helped you in this process?

Fourth possibility: if other people came along with issues similar to the ones you have brought and confronted here: what would you suggest to us to say and do; what do you think could serve and be useful to those people?

Sheila McNamee (2018) argues:

It’s producing something in the relationship that makes sense to everyone involved… The anxiety of doing “the right thing” prevents us from being radically present in the relationship and realizing what happens, because we are too worried about doing it “right”… Build, as therapists, a relationship that is meaningful to the client and that contributes to finding and building other meaningful relationships… We should be able to act in the same way we do with our professional responsibility as in our entire life; be able to commit and invest time in relationships… Stop thinking about what you can’t do and start thinking about what you can do… Not getting hooked on what you can’t, but looking at the possibilities and how to create them… To be radically present with us, to recognize our limits, and to be radically present to recognize the possibilities of creating dialogic spaces where possible.

When closing the process and saying goodbye, we give each other (spontaneously) a farewell hug with the consultants. It must be said that when we close a therapy process, we can go that day (only the two co-therapists), if possible, to have ice cream, a beer, or a coffee; and, of course, we talk about other topics.

(Epilogue)

(April 5, 2019)

 “Trust, like art, never comes from having all the answers, but from being open to all questions.”

(Wallace Stevens)

• To practice social constructionism, we focus on the RELATIONSHIP between us, not on things or anyone in particular but on what together, as a result of the relationship (of dialogue), we can achieve.
• We constantly look for alternatives that we can build, knowing the limitations that arise, but seeking to overcome them through dialogue; listening, having mutual acceptance, and the positive vision of interrelationships.
• From the reflective pragmatics of social constructionism, we focus on the WITH, which is interwoven relationally. We co-build together and expand the possibilities with dialogue for the co-creation of new futures.
• The therapeutic process is based on the relationship, fully trusting in dialogue to build complexity and articulates possibilities in these exchanges, which seek the joint construction of meanings; opening a space of dignity for the words and dilemmas of the consultants. We open ourselves to the being of others -from this not knowing- which interrogates in us what is said by others. Opening a place of understanding, respect, curiosity, security, trust, and acceptance for them to tell their story, with their voice. And, also to make room for silence, to listen deeply, is to also listen to silences, without anxiety.
• We talk through questions that open the possibilities that openness and understanding of differences give us. The question -transformative dialogue- opens up freedom, with its responsible practice in relationships. With the questions (respectful, new, different, open, curious, creative, reflective, meaningful) we interrogate -questioning- the established, seeking justice, equity, dignity in relationships.
• In every human interrelationship, whether we say it or not, we seek: love, affection, connection, interweaving, bonds, acceptance, respect, belonging, freedom, recognition, understanding, joy, companionship, trust, security, intelligence, relational ethics (“Because simple existence -insistence, better- routine, biological, needs the beloved and kind presence to ascend to human life. Without the proximity of love, we are far from ourselves” -Fernando Savater, 2019-).
• As Celiane Camargo-Borges (2014) explains: “The dialogical epistemology of social constructionism is interested in the creation of conversational practices that can build possible paths for people to stay together. It is interested in the use of a discourse that is not persuasive, but one that can be shared, so that conversations are not closed, but those new inclusive possibilities are opened for these conversations”. 
• Understand therapy as a complex and subtle exchange of interpersonal meanings, as the space to join clients in building a complete and deep horizon fed by the often-confusing stories in which they are emotionally involved, and act.
• Jan Defehr (2008) states: “The method, in the practice of collaborative therapy, is always ‘on the way’, it is always a ‘premiere’, it is always used for ‘the first time’ that arises from a particular historical dialogical situation.”
• The processes of therapy, working with a diversity of people, from this social-constructionist perspective, is an invitation to shared freedom, in which the “truth” dissolves, and what is important is the different dialogue about what we can build together; with curiosity and respect. And, the generative is in the joint co-construction of solutions.
• For Harlene Anderson (1999): “… my conceptualization of therapy: a language system and a linguistic event that brings people together in a collaborative relationship and conversation—a joint search for possibilities.”
• Decide to choose to maintain the posture of a curious learner and a dialogic conversation with oneself as the first step towards dialogue with others; discover the beauty that is embodied in the development of an attitude and an aesthetic look at life. Within a dialogical ethic and aesthetics, where alternative relationships are generated, to promote social, artistic, and political transformations.
• Therapy is proposed, then, as a space that is open to social, cultural, political, ethical, and aesthetic life; space for reflection capable of freeing up resources that emancipate and therefore generate responsibilities for the creation of the contexts of social justice. It is to decide that therapy serves to be in the world from an affirmative position, not conformist or uncritical, rather, positively committed to those who create the possibilities of a social new life.
• In the words of Kenneth Gergen (2016): “What is at stake is not to repair the mind, from a relational perspective, but the relational transformation…”. Social constructionism, as noted by Kenneth Gergen (2014) “… it does ask professionals of all kinds two central questions: how and for whom is what you do useful? And what are the socio-political – ethical – implications of taking the proposed reality seriously?” And, in addition: “… this process… it is unfailingly a form of social or political activism: any action that takes place in a society thus forges its future.”
• Dora Fried Schnitman (2017) argues that: “it’s about putting the focus on the positive and making it grow. This position involves opening to the new, the unexpected… The place of the generative operator is that of facilitator or manager of a process that provides new possibilities for understanding, coordination, interaction, and action. It attends to the responses of the clients by promoting transformative processes: new knowledge and actions”.
• They are learning processes, in which unthinkable senses are generated because the experience is connected with the new. Creative processes, capable of noticing what´s different, of inviting others to a space of creativity. Processes of permanent deconstruction, to highlight power relations. Confront, disrupt the habit of not questioning ourselves. Processes of dialogue give a place to differences so that they acquire new meanings when reflected in their multiple and complex relational contexts.
• Marilene Grandesso (2017) argues: “Working, therefore, as a therapist invites you to position yourself as responsible for creating spaces for dialogue, walking together with the client in search of the reconstruction of meanings. This position places the therapist as responsible for the organization of the conversation and the creation of a conversational context, in an interaction of questions, answers, and reflective processes, as the way to favor the mobilization of resources of individuals, families, communities, and networks”. 
• For Sheila McNamee (2018) it is about: “To create dialogic situations and contexts the only useful thing is: curiosity, being open to listening to the difference, being reflective about what I am thinking about the situation … How to get involved in a dialogic situation? With the Radical Presence: What do we do together to be present with each other in the situation? It is not only to be present with all that I am and open to the other but also to accept the vulnerability of the situation and the desire, to desire to be in a situation of challenge, where the goal is not to impose what I think or accept what the other thinks but how together we create a space where the two parties can participate and meet”. 
• To conclude (dialogues never end, they are only momentarily interrupted and then continue to metamorphose): it is to invite processes of dialogue (and to embrace uncertainty) that develop relational trust, to the sensitive and intelligent deconstruction of official, oppressive histories; open to pragmatic questions and reflect if what we do and say in therapy, consultants and therapists could answer honestly:

1. Provide?

2. Matter?

3. Are they useful?

4. What is the different, transformative, and meaningful thing we say and do together?

5. How can we take care of our relationships, so that we can jointly create life, meaningful life?

6. How to use these ideas, not only to liberate ourselves but to make them useful to society?

7. What happened, how did the relationships that generated transformations take place?

8. What kind of future can I contribute to?

Final note: The importance of self-care as well as taking care of relationships; taking care of the dignity of people is fundamental for therapists and all professionals in the social fields; this means: having a life of your own outside of work; someone to love and who loves you; read good literature, watch good movies, listen to good music; have friends and support networks to count on; travel; eat well; sleep well; enjoy and allow others to enjoy. And, in this philosophy, that is to be with others in practice, in all relationships and contexts, which is not only to work but to live it with others: choose dialogue as the first option; the dialogic relationship with that other transforms me; people are invited to new ways of understanding differences: that’s what dialogue is all about.

English translation of Bruno Tapia Naranjo