Peter Rober's
Notes on
The Therapist Use of Self
in Postmodern Times
Some authors (a.o. Baldwin & Satir, 1987;
Elkaïm, 1989, 1997;
Real,
1990; Haber, 1990,
1994; Andolfi & Angelo,
1988; Andolfi, Angelo & De Nichilo,
1989; Tilmans-Ostyn, 1990;
Hildebrand, 1998;Rober,
1998; Tilmans-Ostyn & Rober, 1999)
state that in the therapeutic conversation the therapist uses his
self to seek constructive ways to work with the family.
However, the self is a controversial concept.
Post-modernist and social constructionist authors are very critical towards
the modernist concept of self
as a stable, autonomous essence of a person (Hoffman,
1991; Anderson, 1997). They propose a narrative
view of self as an ongoing autobiography:
| The self is an ever-changing expression of our narratives, a being-and-becoming
through language and storytelling as we continually attempt to make sense
of our world and of ourselves.
|
In the family therapy literature about the use of the self of
the therapist, the self
does not refer to the modernist conception of the self,
a unitary,
permanent, true core of the person, nor to the postmodernist conception
of
the self as "a stretch of moving history, like a river
or stream" (Hoffman,
1991, p.6). In this context,
the self refers to the experiencing process
of the therapist, in other words to his feelings, intuitions, fears,
images, ideas, and so on. The use of the self, in this
sense, means that
the therapist utilizes "his own personal responses in the form of images,
moods and symbols in initiating and developing the therapeutic process.
The therapist's observations and intuitions become elements of exchange
and
a constant source of information, with the creative imagination playing
a
central role." (Andolfi & Angelo, 1988,
p.244)
This means that the therapist has to take seriously, not only his
observations, but also what is evoked in him by these observations,
i.e.
images, moods, emotions, associations, memories, etc. These
aspects of the self, especially, are often neglected
by therapists (Tilmans-Ostyn, 1990; Tilmans-Ostyn
& Rober, 1998).
There are a lot of possible reasons for this negligence: the things
that are evoked in the therapist by his observations can be strange or
bewildering, or they may, at least at first glance, not fit the theories
or the expectations of the therapist, or they may be scary or shamefull
for the therapist or for the family, and so on.
In these cases therapists might dismiss these aspects of the self
as unimportant,
uninteresting, irrelevant, and so on.
This is often a missed chance, because the self of the therapist,
especially the aspects of the self that the therapist, at
first glance, doesn't really understand or that scares him, can be a rich
resource for the therapist and for the therapeutic system because they
can give access to things that haven't been said yet. As Haber
(1990) states,
| The therapist's personal reactions are keys to use to enter and understand
the analogic, relational, and symbolic processes within the client and
therapeutic system.
|
Also Elkaïm (1989; 1997)
values the personal experiences of the therapist as a therapeutic tool.
Elkaïm stresses the importance of the context in which feelings arise.
What members of the therapeutic system experience does not only come from
that person's personal history, it is also amplified and maintained
by the context. Elkaïm (1997) uses the
concept of resonance to illuminate this process. When there is a
resonance between therapist and family on some common elements, this results
in highlighting and amplifying these elements in the conversation
and in the experience of the therapist and the family. He speaks
from a systemic/cybernetic perspective when he states that the importance
of the therapist's personal experience lies in its meaning and
function for the therapeutic system:
in the same way that for the systemic therapist the identified
person's symptom has a meaning and a function in the family system, I hold
that the feelings that arise in any member of a therapeutic system have
a meaning and a function with respect
to that therapeutic system.
|
From this perspective on the therapist's self we
can say that it is often
better when the therapist not only listens to the clients stories,
or looks
at the stories the clients tell in a non-verbal way, but also feels
what
happens with him as a person. The therapist has to be in continual
contact
with his experiencing process and he has to accept his feelings, images,
intuition as meaningfull, even if he doesn't understand the meaning
of them
(Rober, 1998). Furthermore, he has to ask
himself how his observations and
the things that are evoked by these observations might be meaningful
for
the therapeutic conversation. This means in particular that the
therapist
has to reflect on if and how his self can be used in a constructive
way in
his role as therapist to open space for the not-yet-said
References
Anderson, H. (1997). Conversation, Language
an Possibilities: A Postmodern
Approach to Therapy. New York: Basic Books.
Andolfi, M. & Angelo, C. (1988). Toward
constructing the therapeutic
system. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 14, 237-248.
Andolfi, M., Angelo, C. & De Nichilo M.
(1989). The Myth of Atlas: Families
& The Therapeutic Story. New York: Brunner/Mazel.
Aponte, H.J. (1992). Training the Person
of the Therapist in Structural
Family Therapy. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 18, 269-281.
Baldwin, M. & Satir, V. (Eds.) (1987).
The Use Of Self in Therapy. New
York: Haworth Press.
Elkaïm, M. (1989). Si tu m'aimes, ne m'aime
pas [If You Love Me, Don't Love
Me]. Parijs: Seuil.
Elkaïm, M. (1997). If You Love Me, Don't
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in couple and family therapy. Northval (N.J.): Jason Aroson.
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Training systemic
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Haber, R. (1994). Respons-ability: Therapist's
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Hildebrand, J. (1998). Bridging The
Gap: A training module in personal and
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Rober, P. (1998). Reflections on Ways to Create
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Process, 37, 201-213.
Real, T. (1990). The Therapeutic Use Of Self in
Constructionist/Systemic
Therapy. Family Process, 29, 255-272.
Tilmans-Ostyn, E. (1990). Développement
de l'Utilisation du Soi de
Thérapeute: Une Phase de Formation en Thérapie Familiale
[Development of
the use of the self of the therapist: A Phase in family therapy training].
Thérapie Familiale (Genève), 11, 127-138.
Tilmans-Ostyn, E. & Rober, P. (1998). Een
opleidingsmodel voor het
therapeutisch gebruik van het zelf voor Gezinstherapeuten [A Model
for the
Training of the Use of the Self for Family Therapists]. Manuscript
submitted for publication. |
