|
A letter to Tom Strong and a Review of his article Do You Want this Story to Die with You? To Tom Strong: I just finished reading
your fine article in JST on "Do You Want This Story to Die With
You?" - co-authored with your client. There was so much I appreciated
about this article! Its collaborative nature, the concept of a "stalled
dialogue" as the source of emotional stuckness, and the homework of
finding a way to tell the story. The article raised a number of curiosities
(all with emotional components) for me which others on this list may be
interested in as well. 1. I realized that most of my clients tend to tell me (eagerly)
everything that has been "stalled" elsewhere, - particularly in
their most intimate relationships. Because my husband has in fact died, I
thought of the stories that may have died with him, and also of the stories I
never successfully told him. And I thought of how often in my work with
couples and families, we all recognize that what appears to be a very natural
urge to tell the stories of our experience, becomes thwarted in children -
and then in lovers (after the amazing "honeymoon phase" during
which once again the urge to speak it all shows up for most of us). This
begins to happen so subtly, so pervasively, and is rationalized and
culturally supported. So I began to inquire of myself (once again, I imagine), how I
as a speaker justify my stalled dialogue and how I as a listener make it
difficult for those closest to me to tell the whole story of their
experience. What is clear in your article is that you have virtually nothing
going on in your listening other than "curiosity and compassion"
(to quote Richard Schwarz). It is amazing how difficult it is to maintain the
simplicity of that type of listening in all our relationships. I think that
the goal of being able to do that is perhaps the biggest goal of my life
(especially if I include listening to myself that way, and listening to
"life" itself that way). 2. I also thought a bit about the meaning of "story"
in the context of our "post-modern" thinking. Story is always a
complex interface of perception and "fact." When I tell my story to
an intimate other, my perception of my experience may of course conflict with
theirs in problematic ways. Whereas when a client tells me the story of an
event (as Tom Flynn told you about the massacre), I usually have no concern
whatsoever with how their perception might differ from another person's. Even
if their story is about their relationship with me, and seems (in my view) to
be distorting the "facts," I have no difficulty in engaging in a
dialogue that is curious and compassionate. So one of the most important aspects of your core question,
"Do you want that story to die with you?" has to do with the
one-sidedness of some (all?) stories when dialogue has been aborted. The
question then becomes: "Do you want your version of that story to die
with you?" For example, my husband and I each had stories of being
mistreated or misunderstood by the other. When dialogue was stalled, we never
had the incredible gift that comes from experiencing the "heart" of
the other person. Recently I have been learning more about Marshall Rosenberg's
"Non-violent Communication" approach. He (and others trained in
NVC) are actually opening up two-way dialogues between rapists and rape
victims (doing :"restorative justice" work in prisons), as well as
political enemies who have been murdering each other's people. In each case,
one of the complexities, of course, is that there are real victims and real
perpetrators (i.e., it would be terribly unjust to say that oppression is
just a story). But it is astounding and deeply moving to imagine that no
dialogue need be permanently stalled. Thank you, Tom (and thank Tom Flynn), for the gift of this
article and your accomplished work together. |