Plenary

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From the plenary address given by Johnella Bird at the Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference in Chicago USA, August 2003 - Part Only

Multiplicity
K. Gergen (2:249) proposes a ‘post modern consciousness’ where ‘a multiplicity of self accounts is invited but no commitment needs to be made to any of them’. In this account which offers ‘no commitment to any single life accounts’, Gergen proposes the commitment to multiplicity. Thus through this textual representation, Gergen takes up a position which is the proposal of multiplicity. I believe the construction of the idea of multiplicity does little to address the practice of engaging with multiple positions within a power relation. In fact, without the creation of a practice, the construction of multiplicity becomes a devise to disguise and maintain privilege. I am always positioned somewhere. I take up and inhabit a cultural, gendered, class, sexuality and psychological knowledge positions. In an environment where a power relation exits, that is, therapeutic relationship, supervisory and/or consultatory relationship, teaching relationship, management relationship, how do we remain alert to the effect of taking up a position, while also being alert to recreating this position? I believe when I reconstruct the everyday language we use into the relational, I am positioned relationally and thus differently to the occupation of a definitive position. For example, ‘I am hurt by you’ is generated by the conventions of the English language. A relational position is possible through a consciousness which is generated by relational languaging. In this relational place, I am positioned to consider and reconsider the occupation of this place through an engagement with the relational environment.

For example, ‘I felt really hurt when you didn’t acknowledge my contribution to the research on DNA and depression.’

Relational consciousness through relational languaging. ‘When the contribution which I had made to the field of DNA research didn’t receive the acknowledgement from you which I expected, I experienced a sense of hurt.’

In re-languaging the first statement into the relational, I am positioned to further re-search the following for myself

• the contribution which I believe I have made to the DNA and depression research.
• the processes for acknowledgement which I had expected.
• the experience of hurt which I felt.

In this re-search I am also positioned to consider the following:

• the types of contribution which received acknowledgement
• the processes by which contributions are named, known and recognised and measured.
• the politics of acknowledgement
• the type of acknowledgement I am hoping for. The effect of Gender, ethnicity, class on the construction of this hope
• the effect on the relationship of hoping and expecting the acknowledgement to come from the other
• the meaning I make of the hurt which I experience. How this meaning effects the way I feel, think about myself, the contribution I believe I’ve made, the other and the relationship.

Once I engage in this relational re-research for myself, I am better positioned to prepare for a discussion with my colleague. The re-languaging allows me to move beyond the binary of:

‘I think I made a contribution’ - ‘You obviously don’t think its enough of a contribution to acknowledge me.
‘Maybe I’m over-reacting, maybe it isn’t such a big thing,’ or,
‘Maybe he is invisibilising me on purpose, what a competitive..’

In this example, the use of relational language allows me to acknowledge that I stand somewhere, while relationally considering and reconsidering this stand in relation to the contextual environment. I am thus positioned in relation to the language I use to described living experience rather than immersed in the truth of this language. I am therefore positioned to notice the processes which construct orthodoxy rather than being immersed within these processes. Teachers, writers, therapists inevitably take up positions which are legitimised through text. I believe the challenge I am presenting to us is, to go beyond rhetoric and good intentions and ask - ‘What are the structures in place to create positions which are temporary?’ In other words, a place to stand now, while at the same time holding the willingness and ability to change this place when challenged. This challenge is most likely to occur when we discover that other’s experiential knowledges take us beyond the experiential knowledge we are have access to.

Conclusion
It is my strongly held belief that relational consciousness and relational languaging creates an ethical platform for me to stand on, for example, respect, collaboration, trust as a relational construct. For example, when we engage with relational languaging, we can step outside of the binary. In languaging this way we can create a temporary position which liberates the self from the effects of totalisation, for example, ‘I am respectful’ or ‘I am not respectful’. Instead we generate the relational, for example,

• the respect practices which I use/you use;
• the respect ideas which I hold/you hold;
• the effects on the relationship of these ideas and practices which I hold/you hold.

Relational languaging allows us to stand somewhere, while considering the history of, development of, effects of this stand. Through a relational languaging process:

• respect is constituted through cultural practices,
• respect is a relational construct which is experienced in and through ideas and practices, rather than an intrinsic quality,
• respect is more than intentionality.

This platform allows me to ongoingly negotiate the operation of the power relation within therapeutic conversations. It supports me to work beyond and within the margins of the lived experience I have. It creates the potential for momentous discoveries to be made within everyday lived experience. This is one way. I don’t expect you all to take up this way. I do however hope that if respect, collaboration and trust are central tenets of the therapeutic work you do - that you take up the same challenge I have taken up of wondering -

What are the strategies that I use to ensure that I am not acting as an agents of social control?

What are the accountability structures that I use to reflect on what it is that I can’t know across culture, gender, class, sexuality, age ?

and, what strategies do I use to make apparent or visible the power relationship in the therapeutic relationship, supervision/consultation relationship, teaching relationship?

and, once visible how do I negotiate the experience of this power relationship with people?

What are the strategies I use to refuse to occupy a definitive place, which rarifies the discoveries I have made by embalming these discoveries as truths, as a therapy, as the way?

What are the strategies I use to notice the quick sand of occupying or being placed in a privileged place which exists despite my protest of ‘I don’t want to be here!’

In grappling with these questions, you and I will reflect a striving or an intention to engage collaboratively with people. This will not protect you or me from the discovery that we have unwittingly imposed ideas and practices on others. I act on the belief that there is no definitive position on cultural relations, gender relations, class relations by negotiating the implications and effects of the power relation within every therapeutic relationship. Consequently we are available to make discoveries which will take us beyond, what it is we know. This can be both exciting and at times, terrifying. More importantly it represents a desire to learn from our predecessors, to humble ourselves by seeing that their flaws are also ours. There is nothing admirable about the facility of hindsight. When I look to the past, to the dilemmas, to the philosophies, to the therapies, to the people - 100 years, 50 years, 20 years, 10 years, 5 years ago, I see my potential future.

References

Bird, J (2000) The Heart’s Narrative, Edge Press
Gergen, K (1994) Realities And Relationships, Soundings In Social
Construction, Harvard University Press
Metge, Joan (1997) Whakamoa Mana and Maori Self Image in Counselling Issues,
South Pacific Communities, Edited by Dr. Phillip, Accent Publication, pp
45-76
Rich, A (1979) On Lies, Secrets and Silence. Selected Prose
1976-1978, WW Norton and Company Inc
Yeatman, A (1993) Voice and Representation in the Politics of Difference,
edited by Sneja Gunew and Anna Yeatman, Allen and Unwin Pty Ltd, pp 228-245

As appeared in Narrative Network News NNN27

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