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Larner, G.The real as illusion: Deconstructing power in family therapy.
Journal of Family Therapy. 1995 May Vol 17(2) 191-217
| Larner Original Text: | Shawver Paraphrase: |
| This paper concerns how to think between power and non-power in therapy
as a differAnce or 'both/and'.
This paramodern stance in family therapy,
between the modern and the postmodern, is already the case. To reiterate,
the paramodern can be found in Anderson
and Goolishian's (1992) 'not knowing' as a kind of knowing or expertise
at the level of practice; in
(Bateson's 1979; Bateston and Bateson's ; 1988) implicit double description of power as real and illusion.; in Cecchin et al's (1993) 'benign instrumentality; in Speed's (1991, 1994) 'coconstructivism', in Simon's (1992) 'having a second-order mind while doing first-order therapy'; in Goldner's (1993) both/and notion of 'deliberative discourse', in Cantwell and Holme's (1994) 'leading from one step behind', and so on. The paramodern manifests in therapy assumptions of existing theories' (Derrida, 1990; p.87) that frame therapeutic practice. It is a movement or posture which resists theory while working within its framework. |
We are paramodern when we notice that the
core of a family therapy theory is deconstructable,
yet continue to let the theory guide our practice while remembering that
the theory is made of clay. Many therapy theorists are already paramodern
in this way.
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| To realize the paramodern is to glimpse in the text of therapy a 'comic collapse of opposing theories into each other (Derrida, 1990). The paramodern looks like what therapists are actually doing in practice, irrespective of what they say they do according to this or that theory. Here the ideal of theory is contaminated by 'what happens' in the session. The paramodern is the 'knowing' in the not-knowing', the power in the non-power, the first-order stance in the second-order stance', and vice versa. It is the modern contemporaneous with the postmodern in a kind of post postmodernism, that is, 'what is happening' in what we call 'family therapy' today. Thus intervention models are published side by side with social constructionist approaches in our journals (e.g., Family Process, September, 1994) and co-exist in training programmes. | To be paramodern is to allow theories to guide us
in spite of the fact that we are aware that this leaves us standing in
the midst of comic paradox.
It is to be "knowing" about being "not-knowing."
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| A Personal Approach | A Personal Approach |
| How does this family therapist approach the paramodern at the level of practice? Simply put, I have great respect for and utilize all metaphors and approaches to family therapy (Larner, 1994a). My work is motivated by a belief that change is a 'many-sided', even miraculous affair that can come from therapy as from life (Larner, 1994b). Because my perspective is shaped by literature as much as by psychology (Larner, 1991), I see change as ultimately proceeding from the client's narrative of destiny (Larner, 1994c). I approach a therapeutic session with a sense of play and irony in relation to theory or technique. I both know and not know, one informs the other. As a therapist, I bring my knowing into the session as a not knowing. Anderson and Goolishian (1992) state: 'Not-knowing requires that our understandings, explanations and interpretations in therapy "not be limited" by prior experience or theoretically formed truths, and knowledge' (p.28, italics mine). I do not read 'not knowing' as a purge or exclusion of prior knowledge and the (systemic) family therapy tradition I have worked in for many years, but as a challenge to open it up to the client's knowledge and truth. While my preference is for a therapeutic conversation with the client as expert (Anderson and Goolishian, 1992), I adopt this stance not because of hermeneutic and social construction theory, but for ethical reasons. Consequently I also utilize first-order interventive programmes for change, whether cognitive-behaviourial, strategic or structural, or even psychoanalytic. | Noticing the tension of the therapist that must be
guided by such paradoxical theories, I am respectful of all kinds of family
therapy. And, I approach my own work with a sense of play, with a
sense of disregard for the pardoxes in the theory that guides me.
I adopt my practical stance not because my praxis is dictated by a flawless
theory, but for ethical reasons. [This is what Lyotard calls paganism.]
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| As the paramodern lies between reality (modernism) and our construction of it (postmodernism), I see it as a reaching from the known into the not-known and back again. In therapy, I 'put forward' ideas, interpretations, hunches, truths (for me), possible steps or strategies for change, etc., as my way of knowing and making meaning but always as part of the therapeutic conversation. I always defer to the client's wisdom and knowledge in a simultaneous reverence and irreverence for thory (Cecchin et al., 1993). That is, my power to intervene to know truth, is present, but suspended out of respect for the client's own narrative of events. Therapy for me becomes an 'exchange' of meaning, truth, and knowing in which the therapist's knowing and power is there, but as a not-knowing and non-power. As a paramodern therapist, I take on a hermeneutic and cybernetic metaphor, in fact, adopting an interpretive stance towards systems and other empirical forms of knowledge. This demonstrates a not-knowing attitude and curiosity towards knowing which allows space for conversation and co-construction of the therapeutic narrative (Anderson and Goolishian, 1992). Both the clients' and the therapist' pwoer and expertise are recognized in the change process. | Because my theory does not dictate my practice, as
a paramodern I do not require that the postmodern theory that guides me
be completely right. This makes me a kind of pragmatist that uses
postomdern theory for ethical reasons.
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| My paramodern stance in therapy shares the postmodern concern for the excess of modern knowledge and technology as a matter of ethics. At the same time I recognize that to oppose or move beyond the cybernetic and the modern is to participate in it, as this very movement reflects the power of theory. What should be common to all practitioners, modern or postmodern, is an awareness of the potential abuse of privilege inherent in any theory of technology. To resist powerful forces of oppression and injustice in society (e.g., patriarchy, violence), therapists must be powerful and knowing, while being non-powerful and non-knowing in therapeutic converation. Here we sacrifice theoretical purity and postmodern philosophical correctness for the sake of others. Ironically this is to be postmodern, while being modern. | I do not fight the cybernetic
or
modern models because I believe that to do so reinforces them and involves
me in them. I simply work to maintain an awareness of the potential
abuses to power that I try to avoid -- and I sacrifice attempts to have
a theoretical purity that will satisfy me.
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Anderson, H. & Goolishian, H. (1992). The client is the expert: a not-knowing approach to therapy. In S. McNamee and K. Gergen (eds.) Therapy as Social Construciton. London: Sage.
Bateson, G. (1979). Mind and Nature. New York and London: Bantam Books.
Bateston, G. & Bateson, M. (1988). Angels Fear. New York: Bantam Books.
Cantwell, P. & Holmes, S. (1994). Social construction: A paadigm shift for systemic therapy and training. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 15, 17-26.
Cecchin, G. (1992). Constructing therapeutic possibilities. In S. McNamee and K. Gergen 9eds.) Therapy as Social Construciton. London: Sage.
Cecchin, G., Lane, G. and Ray, W. a. (1993). Irreverence. Journal of Marial and Family Therapy, 19, 125-135.
Derrida, J. (1990). Some statements and truisms about neo-logisms, newisms, postisms, parasitisms and other small seismisms. In D. Carroll (ed.) The States of Theory. Stanford University Press.
Goldner, V. (1993). power and hierarchy: Let's talk about it! Family Process, 32: 157-162.
Goolishian, H. & Anderson, H. (1992). Strategy and intervention verus non-intervention: a matter of theory? Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 18: 5-15.
Larner,
1994 c, Through a Glass Darkly, now published as Larner, 1998.
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Simon, G. M. (1992). Having a second-order mind
while doing first-order therapy. Journal of marital and Family Therapy,
18: 377-387.
Speed, B. (1991). Reality exists. O.K.? An argument against constructivism and social constructionism. Journal fo Family Therapy, 13; 395-409.
Speed, B. (1994). A comment on 'Contemporary
family therapy in the United States' Journal of Family Therapy, 16: 25-29.
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