febrero 17, 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.
“To exist begins from dialogue.”
Hölderlin (in Heidegger, 1992, p. 4)
Language as reflective pragmatics
Uses other than words imply a position signifying a political and ethical relationship; therefore, our ways of relating to people are ethical and political (in life and also in therapy). There are no fixed ways in the way of understanding experiences.
We live in streams of activity, which are constantly turbulent. You have to try to balance that turbulence and understand something differently. The experiences exist, but they are of a different logical type. Different words from our experience point to different futures (again: words are ethical and political).
Reflection means traveling unknown and challenging paths; inviting to experience, in each daily act, in each human relationship, in each interrelation with the communities and consultants with whom professionals, technicians, and operators are involved, the practices that are part of life with others. This is how a collaborative and generative dialogue is woven.
To paraphrase John Shotter at ISI 2015 (testimony collected in my field diary), it’s about being sensitive to these small moments. We are immersed in many activities, such as fish in water, in different contexts. There are currents of life and they affect us more than we can affect them. We are intellectually arrogant in thinking that we can control what happens around us; the truth is that we do not control anything.
We have a limited perception of this process, as explained by John Shotter (2015) quoting Ludwig Wittgenstein: “In the past philosophers saw the problems of life as if they were horizontal currents, and they argued and came up with no answer. We can see the difficulties in small vertical details.”
We can achieve something useful if we can see particular situations in particular contexts. If we intend to create a better world, it will not do to try to forge our ideals in other people. They have another history and needs.
By engaging in relational processes from a postmodern perspective, we are choosing an incessant search for questions that generate a metamorphosis of meaning and, at the same time, build in the collaborative/generative dialogue, different meanings, in a permanent transformation of the moment, of the detail, of the relational movements, as well as of the possible commitments and responsibilities.
In the poetic word, it is expressed that beings are silent.
But how does this happen? Beings are silent, but then the being tends to become word and the word wants to be. The poetic word is no longer a person’s word: in it, no one speaks and what speaks is nobody, but it seems that the word alone is spoken. Language then acquires all its importance; it becomes essential; Language speaks as essential and therefore the word entrusted to the poet can be called a special word. This means in the first place that words, having the initiative, should not serve to designate something or to express anyone, but have their end in themselves. (Blanchot, 1992, p. 35).
Being is articulated in the silence of poetic language, and we are the moment that dialogue with the other creates, the meanings that allow us to become. Words inhabit us, language speaks with questions that allow us to encounter the other.
Every authentic encounter -which is such because we accept the other and in doing so legitimize him in his otherness- every genuine encounter leads us to another place, where being -with its own words- continually metamorphoses and transforms itself little by little and step by step, with the words of others; it is there, because of their transformative character, that conversations become poetic. This is the aesthetic, ethical, and political sense of relational conversations when embodied in a collaborative/generative dialogue.
It is important for us to reflect on how to generate discursive possibilities and recognize the multiplicity of the themes, developing art to ask and question the established, to legitimize our different dialogues, thanks to this ability to interrogate ourselves, assuming responsibility for the meanings created. Words are builders of people: how you speak to the other and how you speak of the other, is how you build it.
My central premise is that the natural consequence of dialogue or dialogic conversation is change or transformation. Starting from this premise, the question is important: how can therapists produce these conversations and relationships with their clients, so that both parties can allow access to their creativity, and open new possibilities where none seemed to exist before? (Anderson, 2013. p. 60).
It is about answering this question from an attitude-action-relationship-reflection, which does not accept the status quo as valid, natural, normal, and eternal, but, recognizes the multiple versions of history and its interests, and legitimizes differences. As Kenneth Gergen stated in the Taos Institute’s Relational Research Network (March 14, 2016): words act as actions in a relationship.
We connect this with the awareness that only committed dialogue with a curious person is possible, in a safe and reliable space; with an open person, who does not weigh what he hears and who can therefore give hope. In the words of Jacques Derrida (2006, p. 31) on Absolute Hospitality: “I open my house and offer it not only to the stranger but to the absolute, unknown, anonymous ‘other’ (…) I give you room, I allow you to enter, I allow you to arrive and take your place in the place. .”.
Collaborative and generative dialogues are practices that make other meanings possible, capable of constructing and transforming contexts through relational responsibility. It is this engagement with others, in unprecedented conversations, with new questions, that makes possible the joint emergence of creativity that, in turn, expands the options of new lifestyles; it is the emergence of alternative projects with shared meanings.
These dialogic reflections on the different, open the possibilities of innovative, creative, and deeply poetic responses -in relationships-, as Kenneth Gergen explains below:
If I express to someone doubts about my parents’ love for me, and the person responds by asking, “What is the weather forecast for tomorrow?” then he has failed to include my person, that is, my self, in his answer. Conversely, if your answer includes the meaning of what I have expressed –possibly dismay at my question– then I find myself in the other person, thereby locating the “me” that has just spoken. At the same time the “I” is no longer totally mine since it has been the other person who has generated the expression. By speaking to the person in this way, he brings us closer, and at the same time invites us to respond on our part “metonymically.” In the metonymic reflection on what is common to us, it is this reflection where the poetic dimension finds its fulfillment (Gergen, 2013, p. 75).
It is a process that begins when you think reflexively –in an internal dialogue– that leads to connecting responsibly; then this evolves the moment I put into words my being (fact question, uncertainty, possibility) in the space of the encounter in which the transformation of the relational context begins. Only when the other, in responding to us, recognizes and legitimizes us as interlocutors (“that which is common to us”), the relational being arises, this constitutes the poetic moment.
And as the Ecuadorian poet said -we consider him one of the greats in the history of world literature-, Jorge Carrera Andrade (2000, p. 469):
Love is more than wisdom; It is the resurrection, second life. The Being He Loves Revives or lives doubly. Love is the summary of the earth, It's light, music sleep and fruit material that we like with all the senses. (...) Miner of love, I dig without truce Until you find the reef of infinity.
Probably, one of the most sensitive therapists who have inspired postmodern practices is Tom Andersen, who with his ability (similar to Harry Goolishian) to be amazed and dazzled by the relational richness of human constructions, generated questions and creative reflections, new, that challenged the laborious certainties that were believed to be achieved. For example: Ludwig Wittgenstein paid close attention to the question: how to continue? One of the most important goals of every human being is to answer this question so that I can say: now I know how I can continue! (…) What might be helpful to know? is the next question (…) The center of the person cannot be found inside the person, but outside the person, that is, in conversations, relationships, language, and culture. (Andersen, 2013, p. 82). And the question of how to continue challenges us insofar 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 continuum. The discourse on the social poetry of research aims at the idea and practice of engagement with relationships. This emphasizes the particular forms of interpretation and action, through which the interlocutors create their worlds (…) it is the commitment to the relationship through which realities are created (…) From a relational orientation, we would ask the following question: how does what we have done together here has had a chance of success or failure, and to what extent does it have survival, credibility, and permanence (…) What we do together with others, creates life for full ways of being (McNamee, 2013, p. 102). The research that chooses the discourse of social poetry, such as that carried out with the team of co-researchers, performs, at the same time, the pragmatic choice of responsibility towards others, that of relational ethics; caring (because we are committed) to the other and the relationship with him. The commitment to the relationship means respect for the other, the different, and the diverse. Respect for their worldview, their local culture, the ways in which they interpret their relational world, and from which they choose and decide to act. Interpretations and actions that generate the worlds you want and the realities you create. The relational orientation generates the space, bond, connection, and relational context that inaugurates, each time, the encounter with a new question. The question involves co-responsibility in terms of the relational present and the construction that validates it for what it contributes to the participants of this relationship. This speech is not a rhetorical exercise because, in practice, in each meeting, the participants articulate one or more new questions, which guide the learning and reflection process of that day. It is thanks to this open and democratic way of participation that it is possible to innovate and respond to the real needs of these inter and multidisciplinary teams. What really matters, what leaves its mark and transcends, what is creative and, therefore, enriching is what we do with others. And this creation that inhabits the space of collaborative/generative dialogue with a relational sensitivity, is a generator of the living, of that which opens the fullness of being; because being is fully incarnated. Being in dialogic relation. One can represent the world only in language, in what we do together. Conceiving research as a poetic activity means focusing attention on research as dialogue, that is, as a conversation that responds to specific relationships and situations, and can therefore broaden the spectrum of possibilities and ideas for other forms of social life (McNamee, 2013, p. 108). Our world – which is another way of saying our local culture –is a construction made with language; therefore, its connotation is pragmatic. As we see in the previous quote, when Sheila McNamee (2013) conceptualizes research as a poetic act whose focus is dialogue, it places us in the relational present that is specific to each moment and with that concrete, unique other. This continuous expansion of possibilities means committing oneself to imagine and creating those other forms of social life, being respectful of those who participate in the processes; and, in this shared respect that acquires meaning, because it is a conversational and poetic activity that tells us who we are thanks to collaborative, generative dialogue.
Build creative relationships
“I always wonder what I’m becoming that I haven’t been yet.” Harlene Anderson (1999, p.346)
When we begin a dialogue, we do not know its destination, we open ourselves to its luminous flow with the curiosity of learning to know and recognize, from amazement, each word as if it were a place, we entered for the first time. Free of luggage, happy for what is to come; confident in the language, which finds us talking about meanings, which a moment before did not exist, and a moment later will be different.
In the conversational process of training and supervision described here, we wish to explore issues of interest. It seeks to transform the suffering of others into concrete forms, not in terms of generalities. Work on the fragments that are shared to understand the way they are in the world, accompany them to take a step, to move in another direction, in the midst of the uncertainty that being alive implies. Aiming and going slow. Taking the time to listen a lot, to notice a lot, to find the possibility of doing something useful. Recognizing that what happens to us is more important than what we do deliberately.
It means that sharing, being with the other, feeling the experience of being and becoming with others, is what really counts, beyond the conjunctural activities.
We emphasize that each encounter with the other takes place in a unique context, also therapeutic encounters, with their unique space and times that begin, continue, develop and expand, without a predetermined course or a known end; probably guided by continuous transformation. Therapeutic dialogue is such because there are interlocutors who give meaning to their conversational participation, because they respond to each other creatively, leaving the convention that would impose the formulas proposed by the traditional hierarchical technique of the duty expert.
The premise that dialogue is generative (that transformation happens in and through dialogue) is the foundation of my thoughts and actions in collaborative learning communities (…) I want each person to generate their own seeds of novelty, and to cultivate them in their personal and professional life beyond the organized context of learning (…) I want to make sure that each participant has a voice, contributes, questions, explores, feels insecure, and experiences (Anderson, 1999. p. 321).
Dialogue opens up creative possibilities and helps us understand that everything begins in the social and relational. Innovation has to do with the acceptance that the response of the other does not give us complacent certainties or imply that we are or think alike, but challenges us and, therefore, helps us generate new questions to create intelligent and respectful conversational spaces.
The creative comes from the process of dialogue between the intentions of the participants and the pragmatic actions they carry out. It means the generation of a conversational space for different voices (inclusive creative discourses give a sense of belonging and co-responsibility), the opening of a joint time of critical reflection (different questions that generate meaningful answers); and the mobilization of the resources of this dialogic community that expand, with transformative actions, future possibilities.
Creation is, therefore, a relational transformation. Creative dialogue is productive because it establishes political, social, and historical connections oriented to everyday life. Marcelo Packman (2011, p.28), argues:
In this footprint, we call politics the creation, maintenance, and regulation, not necessarily explicit, of the objectifying mechanisms of the subjection of the human, that is, of the relations of power, its associated knowledge, and the subjectivities that promote them and are, at the same time, generated by those knowledge/powers. These mechanisms of subjection are the material of everyday micro-politics and act as a plot that is configured in scripts. Those scripts that we follow in our daily lives are what allow us to become effective in what is going to be considered reality and truth.
Reflection on therapeutic processes is a reflection on political ways of relating; on how these power relations, with their hierarchies and knowledge, contribute to social control and explicit and implicit forms of conformism and cultural subalternity. With a “must be” ideologically constructed, imposed through rigid scripts, previously established, constitutive of reductive and limiting worldviews and dogmatic speeches.
The dialogue-asked questions challenge us, and it is the meaningful conversation that allows us to embody ourselves relationally. Therefore, we go towards encounters and allow, with openness and curiosity, things to happen to us, in those relational contexts. It is about being present in the moment and reflectively observing what is happening in the course of the dialogue, of shared time. It is to approach building something with the other and investigate together because we do not know that shared reality.
We promote taking care of the relationship process, asking ourselves:
How can we keep talking together?
How do you meet someone you haven’t met before?
What can happen to you when the otherness of the other opens up new possibilities?
Again, John Shotter at ISI 2015 (testimony collected in my field diary), states -in our adaptation-:
The Journey
The conversation is a journey, a creative movement (uncertainty, chaos, complexity); It means we can’t control anything.
Imagine a ship sailing on an ocean with rough waters. It starts from one place, with a compass, with the intention of reaching another place. In this journey, in crossed currents that he does not control -which is impossible to control- it crosses a space and a time -that it does not control either-, letting itself be carried away, accompanied by uncertainty, that it will learn to inhabit and, probably, it will arrive at a new, unknown, unthinkable place. It’s another place.
In these turbulences, which are chaos, the compass does not work and we can only let ourselves go, trusting that some possibility will be created that continues to give meaning to the journey. Surrendered to movement, to the subtle vibrations of what opens. In a displacement, in a movement of meaning, of meanings, between uncertainty and what is in becoming, what does not yet exist.
Like a ship that, in its navigation, is shaping the route, in letting itself be carried away by the current of water, the turbulence, its need for security (the compass), and its own imagination that builds with creativity the place -its destination- to which, in principle, it wanted to arrive.
All creative dialogue is a journey in which uncertainty accompanies us, in which language, which makes us different, also builds us, committing us to difference.
SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Anderson, H. (1999). Conversation, language and possibilities. A postmodern approach to therapy. Buenos Aires, Argentina Editorial Amorrortu.
Blanchot, M. (1992). The literary space. Barcelona, Spain: Editorial Paidós.
Carrera, J. (1989). The volcano and the hummingbird: autobiography. Quito, Ecuador: Corporación Editorial Nacional.
Derrida, J. (2006). Hospitality. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediciones de la Flor.
Fried Schnitman, D. (Ed.) (2017), Dialogues for transformation: development of projects and generative research oriented to the construction of futures in Ibero-America – Volume 3. Ohio, USA: Ed. A Taos Institute Publication. WorlShare Books.
Gergen, K (2016). The Relational Self. Beyond the Self and the Community. Bilbao, Spain: Editorial Desclée de Brouwer, S.A.
Gergen, K. (2013). The poetic dimension: therapeutic possibilities. In Deissler, K. & McNamee, S. (Ed) Filo and Sofia in dialogue. (pp. 68-75) Ohio, USA: Ed. Taos Institute Publication.
Heidegger. M. (1992). Art and poetry: Holderlin and the essence of poetry. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
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.
SERIES: CONTRIBUTIONS AND SIGNIFICANT AUTHORS IN RELATIONAL CONSTRUCTIONISM-SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM, John Shotter: https://iryse.org/serie-aportes-y-autores-significativos-en-el-socioconstruccionismo-construccionismo-social/
Shotter, J. (2021). When we speak: Towards a new ‘fluid’ understanding of the common sense of relational becomings. Translation: Carlos Felipe Villar-Guhl. Ohio, USA: Ed. A Taos Insitute Publication.
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.
Shotter, J. (2001). Conversational realities: the construction of life through language. Buenos Aires, Argentina. Editorial Amorrortu.
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.
English translation of Bruno Tapia Naranjo.
