(November 26, 2022)
Relational and Social Constructionist Consortium of Ecuador (IRYSE)
Diego Tapia Figueroa, Ph.D. and Maritza Crespo Balderrama, M.A.
“”Yes, because, what is ethics but the practice of freedom, the reflective practice of freedom?… Freedom is the ontological condition of ethics. But ethics is the reflective form that freedom takes.”
(Foucault, 2010, p. 1030)
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.
Language is what allows us to be and builds us; It is in living dialogue that life speaks.
In choosing constructionist positions, the effort is oriented to the deconstruction of versions that tend to generalize and that respond to a modernist version of the assumptions about truth, the scientific, and the rational.
Ethics and politics are involved in all the interrelations in which we participate and the choice of social constructionism -by interweaving these connections- invites a way of being ethically and politically consistent with the joint construction of other futures, which means: contributing to the well-being of local communities.
Collaborative conversation requires sharing, trusting, and actively participating to create meaning. When someone actively listens to others, the conversation flows and becomes meaningful to the interlocutors.
The manifestation of this multiplicity and complexity is what is sought to be enhanced in the meetings that take place in a process with the co-researchers.
In the words of Tom Strong (2003): “Collaborating means keeping what we say or do very close to what the client proposes, much less to what our theories establish” (p. 134).
Among the goals of the research process is to create and weave relational connections, trust, curiosity, and mutual respect among all participants. This respect is also related to the will to enrich human sensitivity, with a language of affection between the interlocutors. Something complex, because, it entails levels of reciprocity; that is: good treatment, gentleness, appreciation, authenticity, and acceptance of differences.
From this perspective, it is understood that the relational is the basis of everything social; from there, the meanings that will allow understanding each other to develop new constructions for coordinated action, arise; by mobilizing all the resources that enrich the conversations, asking if there are other ways of conceiving the future, of generating alternatives that allow us to be together in a complex social world that becomes its own because it is transformed together.
Harlene Anderson invites us to reflect on what -in her words- she explains in this text published in Spanish in 2012, about the meaning of transformation: “Change or transformation is generated in language, is part of the participatory process of understanding and is full of uncertainty and risk.” (p. 4). It is the creative and different dialogues, the conversations guided by the connection with others, that contribute to the construction of that collaborative way of being, which expands relational possibilities and generates unthinkable future worlds.
The methodology used in relational research is supported by dialogic analysis:
The expert character of a therapist lies in his ability to create and facilitate dialogic spaces and processes. The focus of responsibility is on the forms of relationships that invite these processes and expand them. The focus is not on content. The decisive thing in this expertise lies in the position assumed by the therapist. This position is best described as a philosophical stance: a way of meeting, reflecting together, and talking to the people a therapist works with. It is a posture characterized by an authentic, spontaneous, and natural way of acting. Through this attitude, tone, and position, one is saying to the other: “I respect you”, “You have something valuable to tell me” and “I would like to hear it” (Anderson, 2013, p. 64).
It is in the relational process that mutual transformation occurs, (as social constructionism suggests) and the way it can be experienced together.
In effect, constructionists try to understand the understanding of things and, in doing so, offer tools or discourses that can be used for many purposes. The metaphor of constructionism as a great umbrella under which there is room to shelter all forms of creating reality, and even to welcome the apparent reality of constructionism itself (Gergen and Gergen, 2011, p.108).
There is great importance in thinking critically about one’s own theoretical assumptions and the need to open the panorama to other ways of conceptualizing and understanding research.
Relational, means that it is an investigation to produce transformations in the relational contexts that participate in the research. And we are clear that it is a process that never ends, it is a process of infinite dialogue.
Kenneth Gergen (2016), referring to John Shotter, makes us reflect on academic contexts and their complexities:
Is there any kind of violence in debates and intellectual discussions; in colloquia, classrooms, university seminars, or academic texts? Is there anything implicit in the current ways we relate to each other in academic life that makes us fear? Is there anything in our current circumstances that makes us (or at least some of us) eager to possess certainty in our own words, or take a stand? From my experience, I think so. (Gergen, 2016, p. 342)
Dialogue as the first option in the construction of relational ethics.
Freedom exists where dreams begin. The ethical question is this: How do we want to live? It is about choosing because once we have chosen, we take responsibility and sustain it, trusting the people with whom we relate and work. From this point, we live trusting that it is possible to dialogue with a free, open person, who does not weigh what he hears and who can therefore give hope.
Relational ethics can be seen as this human sensitivity in relationships (being present with the other) to understand people in a committed dialogue, which makes us co-responsible for caring for them. Because it is in this dialogue that resides the interest in the construction of new rich ways of connection between those who converse differently, which has to do with relational ethics: what do we build together that means well-being? this question explains the way in which ethics is understood from social constructionist positions, and has served as part of the methodological support in the meetings with co-researchers.
Bakhtin (n.d.) argues, in his work on Dostoevsky, cited by Walter Zitterbarth (2013), that:
To be means to relate in dialogue with others. When the dialogue ceases, everything stops. For this reason, in principle, dialogue cannot and must not cease. In Dostoyevsky’s novels, everything converges in dialogue as a meeting point, in dialogic opposition as the center. Everything is a medium, dialogue is only the goal. An individual voice does not end or decide anything. Two voices are the minimum of life, the minimum of being (Zitterbarth, 2013, p. 95).
Dialogue means that two people are interconnected. It is to look at the relational field that is organized when one is linked to the other, because to the extent that we connect, new aspects are generated for understanding, and new links are produced to develop new forms of collaboration. It is in this space and relational context -with a reflective level- where the words of one of the interlocutors make sense by the relationship-connection they establish with the words of the other interlocutor.
Language is what allows us to be and builds us; It is in living dialogue that life speaks. By relating dialogically, we build ourselves socially. Only dialogue opens the possibilities of encountering, respectfully, diversity and recognizes that the other, is a genuine interlocutor because it is in this action with others –dialogue– that being exists.
Sheila McNamee in an interview at the University of Manizales in Colombia comments:
Dialogue, from social constructionism, is used as always linked with generative social transformation, we would not connect dialogue to something that is not generative or to open possibilities (…) We create a space where people can really pay attention to the ways in which they are creating and understanding together; and also, we create a space in which people can search about differences. That does not mean that dialogue solves the problem or that people reach agreements, but that people are invited to new ways of understanding differences: and that is really what dialogue is all about. (McNamee, 2012).
The coordination -through generative dialogue- of processes that enable participatory, inclusive, and collaborative relationships, implies a fundamentally proactive attitude; It recognizes and stimulates the capacities of the participants and faces the complexity of the different cultural contexts (local) with a sense of hope. Dialogue is a question about the new; It means that it is deeply creative and mobilizes the resources of the consultants by promoting, from curiosity, a sense of innovation and productive exploration in order to understand differences.
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? Reflection demands always passing through discourse and memory.
Ethical awareness means asking and choosing
In the words of Marcelo Pakman (2011, pp. 37-38), an Argentine psychotherapist:
Again and again, we explore and discover that the possibilities of the being, go through and are mobilized in meaningful dialogue, in reflective conversation, and that conversational co-construction summons the responsibilities of the participants and shapes the relational process. As therapists, we face the relational-professional ethics of a dialogue with differences, creating this safe and reliable space, where new links and connections are generated, for a social-relational exchange that opens and expands possibilities.
The therapist and historian Paolo Bertrando (2011, p. 5) states: “(…) We inhabit different worlds, and we need dialogue –we need to enter into the difficult struggle that is dialogue itself– so that those worlds communicate with each other.”
Faced with contemporary homologation, prevailing conformism, and the complacent repetition of commonplaces, what is important is to propose reflective conversations about what people, in their culture, consider necessary, good, and valid; to claim the legitimacy of the differences, that these worlds -unknown and strange- enrich us, as long as we can name the difficulties, contradictions, antagonisms, without fearing that dialogue (which is not to force agreements) deepens otherness, while it is the only possibility of legitimizing these different worlds; worlds that recognize and share a process of knowledge and learning that recreates them, gives them consistency and allows them to have a life of their own.
In contemporary society (which has devalued the word to pure exhibitionism, to pure marketing, if not to victimizing complaints or blackmailing and irresponsible blame) the type of transformative dialogue called therapy is, in itself, due to the complexity of the process of questioning the unsaid, deeply political and ethical; moreover, 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, as a dialogical process, a revolutionary process, which allows us to co-construct a life that deserves to be lived with joy.
As the philosopher Roger-Pol Droit (2010, p. 37) proposes:
Ethics is, in the first place, concern for others, the interest that their existence, their presence, their expectations, their desires, their dignity, and their freedom arouse… Basically, it is based on respect for others. The core of ethical reflection has to do with the fact that human beings are multiple, and that they relate to each other in very different ways.
Ethics means: one is when one acts; You are what you do. The goal is not to impose rules, but to develop critical thinking. It is not about giving easy answers, but about learning to ask new questions, on which you can build. According to the Spanish philosopher Fernando Savater (1999):
If I conceive ethics as my art of living in relation to others, without whom I would not be me because no one can be me without you or without him, then I am no longer living it as coercion, but as an expression of freedom (p. 136).
Ethical conscience means asking oneself, and choosing: from what feeling do I decide to propose myself in each relationship? from complaints, from anger, from joy? Ethics is being aware in each of us that the consequences of our actions and words affect others. For there to be free development, we need to communicate and feel connected, we need to dialogue with each other, with authenticity. The one who gives the most is the one who earns the most. We win by giving. In a new process of expansion and creation of constructive meanings. In a permanent joint and transformative dialogue.
In the forms of relationships that we experience, only dialogue as the first option can be considered good treatment. All other forms of relationship are abuse and signify exclusion. Because we need to find our own different answers to these questions:
Why do we choose to be someone’s partner? And why do we bring children into the world? What can we do with ourselves to accompany our children with respect? What responsibility do I have, to contribute -without prejudice, from now on- to build positive social relationships, which I would like and deserve? What would it change, if we subverted all the conditions in which human beings are exploited, oppressed, humiliated, and alienated, from their early childhood? (Tapia Figueroa, 2011, p. 11).
When we relationally orient our world and transform our worldview and our relational understanding, we create a cultural difference that generates collective well-being. By dialoguing differently, we understand that the meaning of life is woven into the relationship we build with others and that when we contribute to relationships we can develop our meaningful experiences. The constructionist perspective constructs perception as a consequence of the relationship of joint collaboration. Sheila McNamee, (2015) points out that:
The ethical and political questions are: can we open in our relationships with people discourses of possibilities, instead of discourses of oppression and repression? Can relational ethics address personal issues, while addressing political, social, and economic issues? (Collected in my field diary June 2015).
Relational ethics is conceived as an ethics of discursive potential since we live in discourses of which we are often not aware, which are the dominant discourses. We live in a relational world that is socially constructed through the coordination of people.
Transformative dialogue introduces us to relational ethics in which we position ourselves with our resources as imagining possible (also political) futures, being critically reflective of our inner voices and what we are doing with others, coordinating our multiplicity, speaking from our history, from our lives, as opposed to speaking from our abstract values and beliefs. (McNamee, collected in my June 2015 field diary.)
It is valued to stimulate reflection and self-reflection that allows us to question our certainties, in an internal dialogue that asks new questions about them, that questions whether they continue to be useful in these encounters, in these moments of one’s own life, relationships, and experiences. Also, think about how to participate in innovative ways to create with others genuine dialogues -generators- that open up possibilities.
If we adhere to relational ethics, we can move forward, because we realize that at every moment, we have the possibility of coordinating our activities in new ways, which will create new meanings. (McNamee, collected in my June 2015 field diary.)
We seek to get involved in relationships by committing to them, which means taking care of them. This (being relationally reflective) entails the invitation for all the people we work with to actively participate in a relational process.
Everyone had the same opportunity and space. McNamee at ISI, 2015 said: “The lack of balance, of being equal in the relationship, is not ethical. As well as not looking at the political, economic and social issues that surround us. As Foucault says: dominant discourses exist because we make them exist” (collected in my field diary, June 2015).
By conversing thoughtfully and maintaining the conversation in a meaningful way, we generate understanding by creating the context for co-responsibility in the relational process.
By inviting, with respectful dialogue and with good humor, to challenge the dominant discourse, it is possible to begin to open up to other unthinkable and unprecedented alternatives.
SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, H. (1999). Conversation, language and possibilities. A postmodern approach to therapy. Buenos Aires, Argentina Editorial Amorrortu.
Bertrando, P (2011). The dialogue that moves and transforms. Mexico: Editorial Pax.
Gergen, K (1996). Realities and relationships. Approaches to social construction. Barcelona, Spain. Editorial Paidós.
Gergen, J. (2011). Build reality. The future of psychotherapy. Barcelona, Spain: Editorial Paidós.
Gergen, K. & Gergen, M. (2011). Reflections on social construction. Barcelona Spain:Editorial Paidós.
Gergen, K (2014). From Mirroring to World-Making: Research as Future Forming, Recuperado de: https://taoslearning.ning.com/groups2/global-relational-research-network/virtual-symposium-2018
Gergen, K (2016). The Relational Self. Beyond the Self and the Community. Bilbao, Spain: Editorial Desclée de Brouwer, S.A.
IRYSE (2018) Blog of the Relational and Socioconstructionist Institute of Ecuador (IRYSE): https://iryse.org/
McNamee, S. (2013). The social poetry of research committed to relationship. Research as conversation. In Deissler, K. & McNamee, S. (Ed) Filo and Sofia in dialogue: the social poetry of therapeutic conversation (pp. 102-109). Ohio, USA: Ed. Taos Institute Publication.
Packman, M. (2011). Words that remain, words to come. Micropolitics and poetics in psychotherapy. Barcelona, Spain, Editorial Gedisa.
Pol Droit, R. (2010). Ethics explained to everyone. Barcelona, Spain: Editorial Paidós.
Savater, F. (2008). The adventure of thinking. Barcelona, Spain: Editorial Debate.
Shotter, J. (2013). Wittgenstein and the roots of social poetry in spontaneous bodily reactions: the field. In Deissler, K. & McNamee, S. (Ed) Filo and Sofia in dialogue: the social poetry of therapeutic conversation. (pp. 84-90) Ohio, USA: Ed. A Taos Insitute Publication.
Tapia, D. (2007). Postmodern psychotherapies in the systemic field. Theoretical, practical and clinical materials from social constructionism. Quito, Ecuador: Editorial. Cif
Tapia Figueroa, Diego, Thesis (2018) for the Ph.D. with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) and the TAOS INSTITUTE of the USA.
Zitterbarth, W. (2013). Michael Bachtin’s contribution to social poetry. In Deissler, K. & McNamee, S. (Ed) Filo and Sofia in dialogue. (pp. 91-96) Ohio, USA: Ed. Taos Institute Publication.
English translation of Bruno Tapia Naranjo.
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