Plenary
From the plenary address given by Johnella Bird at the Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference in Chicago USA, August 2003 - Part Only
At that moment in time, I hoped the ideas and practices which I had developed
could co-exist with others within a generalised description of ‘Narrative
ideas and practices’. This has been more difficult to realise than
I expected. Since this time I have had direct experience of the process
Anna Yeatman (5:229) describes in this way. ‘Each reforming achievement
which transforms policy in the name of equality, establishes a new regime
of governance. All governance works in terms of a bounded community, a
community of identity and thus establishes insiders and outsiders.’
The description, Narrative ideas and practices is frequently used through
text, interspersed with the descriptor Narrative therapy. However, I believe
Narrative therapy is read first, while Narrative ideas and practices is
read second and translated to mean Narrative therapy. In fact, I believe
interspersing these two descriptions has the potential to create the illusion
of inclusion, while maintaining the privilege of exclusivity. Narrative
therapy has now been comprehensively defined and thus legitimised through
text. This extensive textual representation of Narrative therapy has enormous
implications for the position I have taken. People position me as doing
Narrative therapy even though I have refused this descriptor. For example,
a conference committee was discussing who they’d invite as presenters.
My name was suggested and several people objected saying ‘She’s
a Narrative therapist.’ After another conference where I presented,
a participant said, ‘I know Johnella says she doesn’t like
to define herself within a model but she really is a Narrative therapist.’
In many teaching situations as I present the ideas and practices I’ve
developed, I receive a mix of direct challenge, for example, ‘That
isn’t Narrative therapy Michael White says, ’Please note,
that I know Michael White strongly advocates against this type of positioning.
I also argue against this, or, another experience I have is people expressing
puzzlement and confusion which is expressed through questions which often
ask me to position myself ‘in opposition’ to ‘Narrative
therapy.’
For example,
Workshop participant I find it hard to use sparkling moments in couple work. I mean when I find one, what is a sparkling moment for one person isn’t necessarily a sparkling moment for the other - what do you think?
JB The concept of ‘sparkling moments’ isn’t one which
I use. I find through relational languaging that I can centralise a significant
everyday linguistic metaphor while also constituting the metaphor as moving.
In this movement there is change and opportunities for the experience
of agency.
Workshop participant You don’t use sparkling moments? Wow, I’m
really confused.
JB I’m saying that I use a different metaphoric descriptor - thus a different therapeutic practice. I’m not saying ‘sparkling moments’ is wrong. I’m saying I have developed other descriptors and practices which are different to this description and practice.
Workshop participant So you’re not a Narrative therapist?
JB If using sparkling moments or externalising problems or finding the unique outcome is required in order to be a Narrative therapist, then perhaps I’m not a narrative therapist. If however being inspired by Feminist theoretical ideas, social constructionist ideas while being directly influenced by the finding of language for direct experience, while also privileging the impact of the social and cultural environment on the shaping of meaning, is welcomed within Narrative ideas and practices, then perhaps this is a belonging place for me.
I believe the above example reflects the dangers inherent in the creation of a detached entity model or therapy. The quest for legitimisation, the desire for belonging and certainty combine with institutional processes to create a form of orthodoxy. It’s ironic for me to consider that I have spent twenty-six years challenging psychological orthodoxy, only to find myself considered by others as a member of an orthodoxy. One of the questions I’m addressing today is, how do we resist the Western cultural institutional demands to create an orthodoxy? The desire for multiplicity, together with a social justice position is I believe, insufficient if we fail to develop a living practice which reflects these positions. I am referring specifically to the development of practices which support us to negotiate the complexity of the power relation. The power relation which intersects with class, gender and culture within the therapist/client, consultant/consultee, supervisor/supervisee, teacher/student, manager/worker power relation. The practice I use to both make apparent and negotiate the power relation is relational languaging.
What’s important about the making of the relational? I believe the making of the relational through language reduces the potential for orthodoxy. The words used to present a position, or an opinion, or a psychological idea, or to reflect the living of experience or to constitute an autonomous self are neither true or false, good or bad, respectful or not, right or wrong. When these words are reconstituted into the relational, we breathe life into the words. They become contextual, relative, imbued with culture, gender, socio-economic status, they breathe, they sing. Consequently ‘the I’ or self also becomes relationally and contextually constructed. In 1995, a participant on one of the Family Therapy training programmes was reflecting with me on the day’s teaching, facilitated by my business partner and colleague of seventeen years, David Epston. ‘You know what David said about you today, Johnella? He said, there isn’t anybody I know in counselling who thinks about relationships and relating the way Johnella does - she sees relationships everywhere! Not just in the obvious couple/family relationships, but everywhere!’ This statement about my practice back then was accurate and today, some eight years later, the understanding I have of constituting the relational through language continues to develop. The perspective I now hold is the single, separate autonomous ‘I’ is brought into conventional existence through the use of the English language. Conversely, the relational ‘I’ is brought into existence through relational languaging. When I imagine the development of this relational perspective, I can reach back to my family history. I spent my early years roaming for hours in the bush clad hills behind our West Coast home. I often wandered the bush in companionship with its sounds and smells and its inhabitants. However, rather than reaching back into those childhood years to make sense of this relational world view, I will attempt to articulate in more detail the central tenets that underpin this therapeutic work and thus the water I swim in which I have come to call relational consciousness. I know I have companionship in seeing and being in the world in this relational way. Clearly I am not alone in valuing and living a day to day existence through the construction of the relational, yet for most therapies which rely upon the spoken English word as their primary medium of change, the dilemma is immediate. How do I generate relational consciousness while tied to the conventional use of the English language? How do I support people (clients) to perceive (enquiry/explore) the self as contextually created while restrained by the English syntax which creates and imposes a sense of self as fixed, autonomous and separate? I have proposed that relational languaging and relational consciousness creates a relational self in contrast to an autonomous bounded self which is generated and privileged through the conventional use of the English language. I would argue that this autonomous bounded self maintains a system of privilege which is disguised by a seemingly natural order of preferred and valued personality traits and characteristics. The processes which emerge through this linguistic tradition create a presence and an absence. The dominant group is brought into presence through the conventions of the English language while any group other than the dominant group, is constituted through the conventions of the English language as an absence, that is ‘I am not this’. The conventional use of the English language thus acts to colonise others at a profound level - the level of identity.
I believe Adrienne Rich (4:35) expresses urgency for change;
‘re-vision - the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes,
of tendering an old text from a new critical direction - is for women
more than a chapter in cultural history! It is an act of survival.’
She also comments, ‘There is also a difficult and dangerous walking
on the ice as we try to find language and images for a consciousness we
are just coming into and with little in the past to support us.’
The premises ‘its an act of survival’ is relevant across the divides, constituted through gender, culture, class and sexuality relations. Through relational languaging I believe we can engage with, understand and develop relationships differently. Within this relational meaning, the construction of the power relation which produces privilege and disadvantage can be exposed without vilifying one individual over another, one group over another, one gender over another, one culture over another, one country over another, one species over another. Is this an outrageous proposition? Could the reshaping of language have such radical possibilities? I don’t know, but I hope its possible. Do language systems other than English generate a contextual self through language? In an article titled ‘Whakamaa, Mana, and Maori Self Image’ (3:67), Joan Metge writes about the concept of Mana.
How is the Maori concept of Mana related to the concept of ‘self image’ as elaborated by social scientists? First Mana is very much wider and deeper in scope. It embraces and contains the idea of ‘self image’ which covers only one of its aspects. The concept of Mana has a spiritual dimension which is lacking in that of self image. Social scientists see the person as building his self image on the basis of human standards and comparisons with other human beings. Although human recognition plays a part, Mana comes ultimately from outside the individual, from spiritual sources and links him with God or the Gods in a network of others similarly linked alive and dead.’
She also states (3:57), ‘Human beings are not passive recipients of Mana but active hosts and stewards.’ I am referencing Joan Metge’s ideas in order to illustrate that other language systems, in this instance Maori, constructs attributes of the self as contextual, as relative. In contrast I believe the use of conventional English grammar produces definitives which are inherent within and belong to the autonomous self, for example, I have good self-esteem. In introducing the work of Adrienne Rich and Joan Metge, I hope to draw attention to both the traditions of protest and the traditions of relational being which are centuries old. The therapeutic work I do, has and continues to benefit from these traditions (Note 1). In this plenary I’m unable to present the variety of grammatical forms which I use to construct the relational. However in simple terms, colonisation of the self occurs either with the grammatical structure of the possessive, I am or you are, or the use of detached language, that is, This is the truth. This is just. When I move the possessive to constitute the relational, I generate the following, for example,
I am afraid, becomes this fear which you are experiencing
or,
I believe in equality, becomes How does this belief you have in equality
move into a practice?
In this process the autonomous detached ‘I’ is reconstructed into a relational ‘I’. This relational ‘I’ is positioned as an active agent in relation to an everyday linguistic metaphor, that is, fear and equality. When I notice detached truth statements I move to include a relational possessive, for example,
This is the truth, becomes
How did you come to this truth position?
What is the truth position which you or believe in?
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