July 7, 2023
Relational and Social Constructionist Consortium of Ecuador (IRYSE)
Diego Tapia Figueroa, Ph.D. y Maritza Crespo Balderrama, M.A.
“Remain curious, interested and reflective. The dialogue is performative, different experiences and resources of the participants, and versions of themselves are activated. As we have stated, dialogue builds its own future in the very process of being in dialogue. A dialogue is made, it is created in dialogic actions, the path is made by walking: the word is walked”.
Dora Fried Schnitman (2020b, 2021).
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.
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.
Contributions to the work of teams and operators
“The purpose of therapy is to help people tell their narratives in the first person, so that they can transform their identities into others that allow them to understand their life and their happenings, that open up many possible ways of being and acting in the world at any time and in any circumstance, and that help them achieve and express or execute their creativity or their sense of autonomy.”
Harlene Anderson (1999. p. 305)
Ask incessantly to generate new questions. This questioning can, perhaps, begin to produce a tentative, provisional response by opening the conversations by generating these other questions that seek to invite reflections and practical, socially responsible actions; questions that also remain current, for example:
How do I want to be with others? And how do I want them to be with me? How can the processes of dialogue and the focus on possibilities and potentialities transform our understanding of ourselves and others? “Considering yourself from the multiple perspectives that are available in your story: Which ones would you consider the most significant? How do you choose these? How have they worked in the creation of the options you have made, so far, in terms of education, love, work, and friendships? Which ones have been most useful? The most harmful ones?”
What responsibility do I have, to contribute -without prejudice, from now on- to build the relational styles that I would like and deserve?
What different life do I want, from this moment, with the others, for myself? How will I build it with those I choose as significant in this new story in the making?
What would be transformed, if we subvert all the conditions in which human beings are exploited, oppressed, humiliated, and alienated… since their early childhood?
“Every time, it is with utopia that philosophy becomes political, and carries its maximum extreme the criticism of its time. Utopia is not separated from its infinite movement…” Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (1997, p. 101).
It is to commit to generating multiple and varied conversations, which question the dominant perspectives that sustain social control, also from therapy, paying particular attention to the different ways in which the established power policy is manifested; permanently questioning the existing social discourse.
Now, this moment of tomorrow (“To be or not to be: here’s the dilemma… To die!…, to sleep! Sleep!…to sleep!… Maybe dreaming!…” (Shakespeare, 2003, p. 130). The pleasure of conversations with whom we build this society, the pleasure of permanent conversations with others, and the infinite pleasure of reading, writing, and critical reflection, allow us to continue, from the complexity, these generative and transformative dialogues initiated with this type of co-research.
Shakespeare proposes to reflect differently and critically from a philosophy of complexity, with a language capable of setting uncertainty in motion and displaying the pleasure of interrogating without ease, with confidence in the intelligence of potential readers of Ecuadorian culture and other cultures. Reflecting with humility and recognizing the limits of this effort devoted to the conjunctural and provisional from a local context capable of developing processes rich in perspectives and complexities. That an investigation, arising in these latitudes, ceases to be only simple and very concrete and that researchers are happy to contribute with their own view.
Writing from the “periphery” also implies responsibly assuming the right to complex or “philosophical” concepts, free from a colonizing and paternalistic conception of knowledge; authorized to the world of difficult concepts, to the joy of endless thinking. Something like saying: “The intellects of Ecuador and Latin America do not need only simple ideas, that do not challenge them or question them with complex conceptual categories. They need, like everyone else, regardless of their culture, ideas, and concepts that challenge the enhancement of their skills, resources, and strengths.”
It is possible to invite to accept that rigorous research can incorporate and integrate not only social-constructionist philosophical conceptions, but also reflections from literature, cinema, art, or poetry that are not unjustified, unnecessary, or free.
In Ecuador, contexts are difficult for research, xenophobia and the colonizing gaze are mixed as what the north points out to them, that power that owns the only true knowledge -made of rigid and vertical hypotheses and diagnoses, hard quantitative data, unquestionable experts with a knowledge valid for all cultures and at all historical moments- can grant permission to exist to other perspectives as long as its superiority is acknowledged; as long as its dominance is accepted, and the only right to start the conversation, pre-determine its content, and decide the conclusions is decided by “experts”. Their conviction: the questions are superfluous, and the reflections are considered superfluous. Here, those who hold power, guarantee the status quo. In this sense, it will also be important that Universities in the world, and the Academy are not restricted by a single orientation of thought or line of research. The space for consistently argued criticism that embodies and models the University and the Academy, is an invitation to the multiplicity of perspectives and dialogue with diversity, respect, and transformation.
The social-constructionist position proposes: act, listen, reflect, and say -dialogue- with curiosity and respect, with confidence in the resources and strengths of the people and communities of this local culture, with the critical passion that does not resign itself to “scientific” sub-alternity and with the genuine desire to learn with others; to open spaces of transformative dialogue. This research is also an invitation to say differently and with criteria, from new places, postures, and perspectives; to speak with one’s voice, to legitimize otherness; to the metamorphosis of the senses and meanings in a continuous and enriching co-construction that weaves the dialogical and relational. Accepting the right to create meanings and coordinate them together, to dissent, contradict and choose; relying on consistent arguments, without prejudices of class, ethnicity, gender, language, culture, socioeconomic and educational conditions, and other considerations; say and do honestly.
To paraphrase Kenneth Gergen (2017), you have to ask yourself: Do research for what and for whom? What is the purpose of the investigation? Relational research is aimed at creating the future and not at seeing the past. It has to do with: What kind of society do we want to build? Who do we want to see involved? Don’t focus on looking at the past but on what kind of co-constructions we want to reach. Relational research must be seen as an orientation, a sensitivity about whether we live in a relational world: What kind of world are we having, and what world do we want to create? Things make sense depending on what you do with what I tell you or do.
I can do the action, but you have to give it something back so that it can have meaning. When we coordinate our actions, the world comes to life.
We are talking about these trips in this co-research, about committing ourselves responsibly, to the joint construction of a community and a society with justice and equity. To create new relational possibilities that generate possible futures, relationally embodying this invitation to live the rich complexity of difference. “…I’m here or there, or somewhere else. In my beginning.”
“The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.”
“…The only wisdom we can hope to be able to acquire to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.”
T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Starting with this question: How are social constructionism and collaborative and dialogical practices useful for the relational co-construction of a therapeutic training and supervision space? The initial question led to other questions like this: How to bring our resources to this dialogue, which has a transformative purpose? The manifestation of this multiplicity and complexity is what was sought to enhance in the meetings with the co-researchers.
From this generative perspective, it is understood that the relational is the basis of everything social, and from there arise the meanings that will allow being understood to develop new constructions for coordinated action, mobilizing all the resources that nourish the conversations, asking if there are other ways to conceive the future, to generate possibilities that allow being together in a complex social world that becomes its own because we take responsibility that this is not only a way of being in the world, but it is a way of being in the world with others; a relationally ethical, politically responsible way.
What we would remember when we meet again (imaginarily), could be this: In the forms of relationship and communication that we experience, only dialogue can be considered good treatment as the first option. All other forms of relationship are mistreatment and mean exclusion. Through dialogue, an attitude of curiosity about differences is promoted. Constructionism makes possible a way of being with others in the world, which is useful because it allows us to ask ourselves new questions that allow us to surrender to curiosity.
If we co-create a space like this again, we would take care to preserve this type of understanding and relational processes: There are multiple perspectives, which allows multiple meanings to arise, which in turn will create multiple possibilities. Social construction suggests many ways to see things, that’s why we talk about resources. The constructionist orientation invites to strengthen, increasingly, the relational; to weave binding processes, create the generative conditions to be present in relationships, and assume responsibility for the results of these relationships. We transform ourselves relationally, into dialogue, to become (different) what we would like to be with others.
We are oriented towards the creation of spaces of possibilities connected with the meanings of life, from a shared learning language, generating options on how to contribute in innovative ways with the communities, in the local culture and assuming that it is not only about choosing an effective path but in how we continue the joint reflection on that path.
These dialogical/generative perspectives are focused on what happens “between” people because that is where relational processes arise. It is in these dialogues that we are dedicated to understanding the differences in different ways. Dialogic and generative practices are proposed as a way of living together in the world, aware that we can only be through dialogue.
Because the question remains: What are we creating together, to generate the possibilities of a present with ethical and political relational conditions, which mean equity, justice, responsibility, and dignity? How do we connect through dialogue, to create possibilities for different futures, respectful of human rights and the social and relational commitments of its participants?
One of the lessons was that before asking questions, it is important to accumulate experiences to ask and learn to be silent when the questions speak to us. Every story is important and deserves to be heard; emphasizing what people feel, think, do, and relate to. With an attitude of constant openness to dialogue with others, with what the conversation produces. And the question of how to continue challenges us as long as and as it refers us to relationships with others because how to continue can find tentative answers only when it includes the “with”. It is not possible to continue if it is not a relational continuation.
Some of the final learnings, for the time being, of this process are for example: a) not to start the process only at the request of the one who directs or maintains the hierarchy of the institution, but, to make previous meetings so that the need arises from all the participants; b) not to confront from the beginning the modernist and positivist theoretical and practical certainties of the participants; c) not to question from the beginning the prejudices of class, ethnicity, gender, etc.; d) not let injustices, for example, wages, be a matter that some members of the participating technical teams face in isolation.
Also, we would do more of the following: invite them to give updated answers to this type of question: How can you contribute, in a significant way, so that what happens here, is what you expect, and what you would like? Can you think of a moment of learning, a different reflection, that you are going to take away from this meeting? How useful can dialogue and generative practice have in this specific context?
We have also learned that, with dialogues, rather than seeking consensus and agreements, the important thing is to build together other and new ways of understanding each other, of coordinating the social actions that we need to develop and that allows us to solve together the dilemmas that the families and the teams we work with are going through.
Also, we would add this: work with more examples (and dialogue them reflexively with each other) from other fields: good literature, philosophy, good cinema, and art. And, leave the exclusive space of the work environment: that, as a learning community, we can build joint spaces of care for the caregiver; from time to time, for example, eat in groups; take a short walk; write and publish documents in which each of the participants, directly narrate their own different stories.
Because what it’s all about is incorporating the relational being in all contexts, inviting a collaborative/generational dialogue. Constantly and passionately seeking to open possibilities and open sensitivities. Ask ourselves continually: what is what matters; what is valuable? From a reflective pragmatism, ask ourselves: What is it that we want to create and that matters to others, that it has value for others? For this, Relational Ethics also contributes: instead of enclosing and limiting what we are doing, we open the possibilities of everything that can be done and that we can build together. In different ways, our challenges are in accepting and embracing uncertainty and dialoguing from complexity, relying on relationships, on relational processes.
Continue together, in a discourse respectful of otherness, diversity, and multiplicity: polysemy; a discourse that engages with the other as a way of sharing the meaningful, from curiosity and openness that initiates conversations instead of restricting them, that includes all voices in new transformative conversations.
With a relational ethic, which makes us wonder: What do we contribute differently in this local context? How can we take care of our relationships, so that we can jointly create life, meaningful life? What kind of future can I contribute to? I have sought to understand dialogue as a new way of accepting differences. Expanding relational contexts, generating new things; coordinating complexity with respect; with curiosity about the diverse; fostering a creative look in favor of resources and strengths; talking about the necessary social transformations.
They are unexpected learning and dialogues that can take us so far as to learn to see each other as if it were the first time and relate to understanding something of what happens to us and that deserves that we put words with meaning, other meanings, unpublished.
When you ask yourself, you question yourself, you question everything, and you arrive at the important topic: relational ethics, responsibility towards others, and co-responsibility in the construction of common well-being. And, from the dialogues, new meanings arise for what being present with the other contributes: curiosity, different meanings, innovations, and creative possibilities.
Follow the path with the richness of the contribution of this network of valuable relationships, and with the joy of the meaningful conversations that continue in other ways in the new encounters that we build, in the connections with which we commit ourselves and take responsibility; that contribute to continuing creating the good life that we all deserve. Dialogue in these contexts, by generating the joint construction of meanings and the social pragmatics necessary to transform social conditions and relational contexts, is in itself, a dialogical process, as well as a transformative process that allows us to co-construct a life that deserves to be lived with joy. To permanently restart the joint construction of other new and complex ways of being with others in this shared human world.
To reflect is to create another way of reflecting. As a free person, I responsibly affirm the questions: What are we going to do significantly? What do we need to do differently? How to live with respect and curiosity? How to live with complexity and uncertainty? What future do we want to build? Can we and do we want to produce what we are, as something creative, as the future, jointly trying to discover relational possibilities? With new words, liberating questions, and transforming dialogues, a new future is possible for being with others, building other possible dreams; rhizomatic reflections, honest writings; generating intense relationships, weaving multiple significant connections, and poetic moments.
“In this summation of multiple voices that dissolve in the air, I find the openings that tell me that the possibilities are endless. Joy is possible, that strange form of uncertainty. All questions live in the complexity and uncertainty of the human condition. It is a burning question. Creating a language north of the future.”
“Today, which is tomorrow, I welcome you to this intelligent and infinite conversation.”
(DTF, 2017)
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Tapia Figueroa, Diego, Tesis (2018) para el Ph.D. con la Universidad Libre de Bruselas (VUB) y el TAOS INSTITUTE de EEUU.
7º DIPLOMADO EN PERSPECTIVA Y PRÁCTICA PROFESIONAL DIALÓGICO GENERATIVA 2022-2023. Certificación Internacional Universitario
http://www.fundacioninterfas.org/capacitacion/?p=4427
English translation of Bruno Tapia Naranjo.
