May 24, 2023
Relational and Social Constructionist Consortium of Ecuador (IRYSE)
Diego Tapia Figueroa, Ph.D. y Maritza Crespo Balderrama, M.A.
We base ourselves for this series, on this thesis, from which we extract -adapting them- the proposals and invitations to a different relational position for the construction of the process of transformative therapeutic dialogue.
How are social constructionism and collaborative and dialogic practices useful for the relational co-construction of space for therapeutic training and supervision? Tapia Figueroa, Diego, Thesis (2018) for the Ph.D. with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) and the TAOS INSTITUTE of the United States.
“The future has not yet been lived, and the invitation to imagine a desired future invites the possibility of contributing to building that future.
We must articulate more questions about the future than about the past.
Sheila McNamee (2017, personal communication)
Relational results in the process
Social constructionism, as pointed out by Kenneth Gergen (2014, p.8) in his interview with Liping Yang:
…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 seriously the proposed reality? Furthermore: …this process…is inevitably a form of social or political activism: any action carried out in a society forges its future in this way.
So, it can be understood that the discourses on ethics and politics are not individual issues or personal beliefs, but have to do with the processes of building relationships; guided by the interest of contributing to human well-being in a context in which multiple voices coordinate what they will define as “what is good and useful, what is ethically relational and what is politically transformative”. The actions with which worlds are built are social, practical human actions. It is with open dialogue that new ways of signifying these worlds -these new worlds of meaning- can be generated.
What is unknown can be turned into an ethical and aesthetic opportunity when one is able to speak to oneself, question oneself and narrate oneself in unprecedented ways, risking letting go of the crutches of certainties, of established and official knowledge, of everything that is within reach. People in the blindness of subalternity in the face of power, to which one is pleased and of which one is an accomplice, prevent us from discovering and co-creating new futures.
It is important to recognize that about these relational-social processes, there may be alternative descriptions for all research; other interpretations that build meaning, and new meanings are possible. There is no essential truth, nor absolute truth. The moment this journey begins, we agree to let go of the comfort of modernist thought and venture into the complexity of collaborative and dialogical, generative social practices, free of dogmas and fixed identities, as well as certainties and prejudices with its recipe for ” well thinking” functional to the status quo; and we responsibly assume the risk of sinking or arriving, choosing to legitimize, accept diversity and humanize, weaving connections with a relational language, what we create and what we do by not stop exploring.
Like any training and supervision process, the proposed co-investigation implies a critical and self-critical reflection on the therapeutic work that the co-investigators carry out daily with the families they care for. In this context, we frequently use metaphors to explain the meanings of these relationships.
A metaphor about the meaning of theater was appropriate to also speak about the meaning of the therapeutic process (of art, of therapy): it is listening to the noise of the world and returning it as music, as poetry. As John Shotter narrated it, quoting Tom Andersen, at the ISI 2015 meeting (testimony collected in my field diary) -in my adaptation-: “Words are like hands with which we touch people’s faces. And, at the same time, you can see people being touched by their own words.”
What happens during the meetings with the team of co-investigators is that, by rereading some of the suggested books, a different reflection begins. In addition to theoretically nourishing ourselves with the richness of these concepts, it is possible to broaden and deepen the understanding of the relational processes with the clients, investigate new forms of relational construction, and contextualize -from the social, cultural, and local language the ways of saying and making our lives social.
A dialogue with complexity
Every trip we take with other people opens up the understanding that we find in ourselves, thanks to the presence of others with us. The history of this movement is told through the dialogues of those who carried it out. Their meanings change with each new encounter if every conversation opens and expands. And, as co-researchers (facilitators of this training and in this collaborative/generative learning space) we have always sought to be in dialogue with the process under investigation; a qualitative dialogue with the strengths of what we were researching together.
The experience of jointly building a new relational culture in these spaces, in a specific period, is described as a process that is in continuous and permanent metamorphosis. At times, the multiple voices present appropriated this conversational space, starring in dialogues that became collaborative and at the same time transformed social, cultural, and therapeutic practices. On other occasions, the questions that challenged us aroused open and critical reflections on our own points of view and the ways of being with others in the different relational and work contexts.
These innovative ways of conversing were often a challenge for the professionals who came to this space of supervision, inter-vision, and co-vision every two weeks (as well as a threat to the power and hierarchical, abusive, and oppressive culture of their bosses) more even if it was their first time: to unite, to what is known, the complexity of maintaining the interest of those who stayed for a long time and encourage the inclusion of new people in the process.
Frequently, this joint learning made us share our curiosity about what -from social constructionism and collaborative-dialogical and generative practices- were offered as possibilities to create new ways of being with others, with a language oriented to the mobilization of strengths, alternatives, and own resources of each participant; to value local knowledge; to recognize and legitimize valuable and successful practices; to generate visions of the future and hope to transform communities with the participation of those who build them.
Simply, it narrates how, in a specific context of a local culture of Ecuadorian society, in a certain historical time, with a team that changed members at a continuous rate, and with an inter and multidisciplinary network, which was made and recomposed; every fortnight in meetings in which they said they took learning, words that surprised them, attitudes that they liked, it was possible -modestly- to invite a transformative dialogue that had the following protagonists, in this space of supervision, inter-vision, and co-vision:
1. The team of technicians and the Network that was created.
2. The philosophy and orientations of social constructionism and collaborative and dialogic practices.
3. A facilitator of relational processes.
4. The own stories of each of the participants in these meetings were expressed through narratives.
5. The stories of families with whom the team of technicians and the Network worked, presented by the members of the technical teams.
The criteria for choosing the positive senses for the construction of well-being have responded to a critical reflective exercise on the meaning of what is important, what has value, and what is considered good or useful; asking us constant questions about the spaces where these conversations took place, about who carried them out, and for whom they could be useful.
As facilitators of these dialogic processes, one of our orientations has been to seek (from relational curiosity and openness) to understand the complexity of these relationships and the meanings that were being generated. We wanted to be participatory partners in this collaborative/generative learning process. Democratic, respectful interlocutors capable of contributing to mobilizing existing resources in the relational context that was inaugurated in each meeting.
In the words of Kenneth Gergen (2016):
Being responsible for relationships is above all supporting the process of joint creation of meaning. In relational responsibility, we avoid the implicit narcissism of ethical calls to “care for the self”. We also avoid the I/other division as a result of the imperative to “take care of the other”. When we are responsible for relationships, we abandon the individualistic tradition, and caring for the relationship becomes the main thing. (p.538)
This process becomes a common discovery of the value of knowing and being with each of the people who participate in different ways and at different moments of the interrelationships. A shared search for reflective questions, to say what was happening between us, and to express -with respect and confidence- what had not been openly said about themselves and about working together. Emphasizing the questioning of the sense of hierarchy, questioning relationships based on a hierarchical social order (dominant discourses), proposing and creating egalitarian, democratic, responsible, and open relationships in which each participant experienced a sense of belonging, recognition, and freedom to express freely and openly what he thought, what he felt, what he would like to happen in each meeting.
We insist on the invitation to build a space to think critically about the traditional ways of training and working of professional teams by questioning -from practice- the orthodox conception that sustains that training is the space to reproduce and repeat the characteristic that sustains relationships of domination: hierarchy, located as the center of those experiences.
We promote the creation of a time and place for the questioning of fear that is confused with respect, where the organizational structure is enthroned as what is considered important to preserve in relationships, which constitutes an eminently modernist worldview and which shore up the status quo.
Conformism and resignation, as well as subordination, are the consequences of these unequal ways of working; that is why it is so important to deconstruct any hierarchical relationship with families and among team colleagues, and invite a different relational style, of being with the other, of doing with; to care responsibly for relationships, committing to the well-being of people.
What is common in the (modernist) cultural beliefs of the Ecuadorian context about hierarchies as a reference for professional seriousness, clinical and social solvency, of what is correct -it is good and is good- also corresponds to the belief that there are scientific theoretical categories -the orthodox and traditional ones, those of expert diagnoses- that have a theoretical-practical-methodological-functional superiority over other perspectives, which are not recognized by the modernist statute as scientific and responsible with those they label as “patients”.
The conviction and certainty of “being holders of scientific truth”, of true knowledge and expertise on the lifestyle that each “patient” should lead, clarify how the relationships between technicians -clinical psychologists and social workers- are understood; who consider themselves truly professionals, and the rest of the people (who are labelled under categories such as self-help therapy, postmodern, coaching, etc.) who consider others work without planning and objectives, methodology or tools and techniques.
This is usually the relational context (and, by assuming this orientation, the acceptance, and choice of a certain ethical and political position in these relational processes is being defined) to which professionals in social areas in Ecuador are accustomed and with whom we converse in each meeting, questioning them and asking them questions that allow us to get out of the deeply reductionist, disrespectful and oriented to social control visions.
The reflective dialogues -both about their own beliefs and theories and about professional practices- are accompanied by texts by authors and theorists of social constructionism and collaborative-dialogical and generative practices. Open to the innovative questions that these texts asked us when we talked with them in each meeting, looking together at their usefulness for dialogue with families and actions in their context and culture, and evaluating what they offered for our relational, conversational, and collaborative/generative learning processes.
In the words of Sheila McNamee (Virtual Conference, Taos Relational Research Network, 2016): “If, on the other hand, a resource is used as an invitation to create possibilities to ‘get on together’, then our attempts are relationship oriented .”
We talk with curiosity (with relational intelligence), open to explore and discover new meanings, in encounters in which what is important is this human-relational sensitivity to understand the other, to generate a dialogical process that creatively produces different meanings to face important issues of people’s life contexts; to find different alternatives to their conflicts and to resolve their issues that are blocked, stagnant or in apparent cruel and unfair paralysis; all these issues are talked about to coordinate differences and generate possibilities.
Voices on the Collaborative/generative learning process
The meeting process in this space of supervision, inter-vision, and co-vision has different interactive moments. The effort to facilitate a multiplicity of discourses in each meeting so that the plurality of ways in which one can interact with others and treat them is recognized, reflecting on one’s practices to recognize and value new knowledge, to legitimize one’s local knowledge, has been one of how we have sought to strengthen the technical teams involved in the investigation process; so that the practices that were generated were more plural and relationally oriented.
Understanding that contexts and the world is a task that is in permanent mutation and transformation which also entails the effort to assume that it is -in social interactions- a network of meanings that is being built, in which we actively participate; with a permanently reflective, participatory, inclusive discourse, to develop actions capable of contributing to the construction of relational contexts, with well-being for all its participants, valuing local knowledge. That is why this training is developed as a continuous collaborative learning process, with interventions that are sufficiently contextualized and focused on mobilizing resources and strengths.
It is a process of collective construction in which each one of the members can make visible their transforming power and recognize their importance in the practice of social relations for all.
Sheila McNamee -2014-, cited by Helena Maffei Cruz (2014, p. 319) tells us:
Instead of placing my focus on the content of my courses, I am now more focused on building a sense of community in my classroom. I go into each course asking how the students and I are going to “connect” so that together we can create a sense of learning, knowledge generation, and personal and social transformation.
This is one of the fundamental differences between content and process, where the content is usually information and notions, tools and techniques, methods and protocols; instead, the process is the tendencies, the relationships, the contexts, the interweaving, the construction with the other, the sense of belonging and community. And what is humanly relevant is the connection with the other, connecting so that learning makes sense because it is collaborative /generative. After all, knowledge is created and transformations are generated in each of the participants and society.
We have also learned that, with dialogues, rather than seeking consensus and agreements, what is important is to build together different and new ways of understanding each other, of coordinating ourselves for the social actions that we need to develop and that allow us to solve together the problems that families are going through and the teams we work with.
In this joint process, we have carried out truly collaborative, significant learning that generates alternatives, and new possibilities. One of the fundamental ones: recognizing that choosing curiosity means mobilizing the resources that relationships offer, and the strengths that the participants share.
SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Andersen, T. (2013). A sentence in five lines. On the production of meanings from the perspective of relationship, prejudice, and bewitchment. In Deissler, K. & McNamee, S. (Ed) Filo and Sofia in dialogue. (pp. 76-83) Ohio, USA: Ed. Taos Institute Publication.
Anderson, H. (1999). Conversation, language, and possibilities. A postmodern approach to therapy. Buenos Aires, Argentina, Editorial Amorrortu.
Fried Schnitman, D. (Ed.) (2017), Dialogues for transformation: project development and generative research aimed at building futures in Ibero-America – Volume 3. Ohio, USA: Ed. A Taos Institute Publication. World Share Books.
Gergen, K (2016). The relational Being. Beyond the Self and the Community. Bilbao, Spain: Editorial Desclée de Brouwer, SA
Gergen, K (2014). From Mirroring to World-Making: Research as Future Forming, Retrieved from: https://taoslearning.ning.com/groups2/global-relational-research-network/virtual-symposium-2018
IRYSE (2018) Blog of the Relational and Socioconstructionist Institute of Ecuador (IRYSE): https://iryse.org/
Maffei , H. & Azair , V. (2014). Formacao: a collaborative process between trainees and trainers. In Guanes-Lorenzi, C; Moscheta , M; Vorradi -Webster, C; Vilela e Souza, L ( Org .). Social constructionism: discourse, practice, and production of knowledge. ( pp . 305-323). Rio de Janeiro: NOOS Institute.
McNamee, S (2016). Resources for Facilitating Differing Worldviews, Taos Institute December 2016. Retrieved from: http://www.taosinstitute.net/Websites/taos/files/Content/5868649/Resources_for_Facilitating_Multiple_Worldviews_(McNamee).pdf
McNamee, S. (2013). The social poetry of research committed to the relationship. Research as conversation. In Deissler, K. & McNamee, S. (Ed) Filo y Sofía in dialogue: the social poetry of therapeutic conversation (pp. 102-109). Ohio, USA: Ed. Taos Institute Publication.
Shotter, J. (2001). Conversational realities: the construction of life through language. Buenos Aires, Argentina. Editorial Amorortu.
Tapia Figueroa, Diego, Thesis (2018) for the Ph.D. with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) and the TAOS INSTITUTE of the USA.
English translation of Bruno Tapia Naranjo.
