Postmodern Therapies NEWS                06/01/00
(Also known as PMTH NEWS)

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Nothing is more important for teaching us to 
understand the concepts we have than 
constructing fictitious ones....
Even to have expressed 
a false thought boldly and clearly i
is already to have gained a great deal.
Wittgenstein
Culture and Value, p.74-75
 

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Expect the next issue of 
Postmodern Therapies NEWS
June 29,  2000
Expect a PMTH Event 
July 9, 2000
with 
Sheila McNamee 
and 
John Lannamann

To prepare for the upcoming event, you should get a copy of the book, Relational Responsibility, authored by Sheila McNamee and Ken Gergen.  The July 9 event is only part of the experience we will have with this book.  McNamee will join us in our daily discusssions during June while we are reading about relational responsibility.  Her participation in this thread will begin early next week. 

You can purchase the McNamee and Gergen book  through Amazon by clicking here.  Notice when you get to the Amazon site that I have posted a review that might be useful in preparation for the event.
 
 

About Our New Name - And About Us
06/01/00
Lois Shawver

As you can see, PMTH NEWS, now has a more formal name.  But, the old name is with us, too.  Just as the Journal of Family Therapy is known among devotees as JFT, so I hope Postmodern Therapies News will be known affectionately as PMTH NEWS, or even, if people are really in a hurry, The News. 

It is just that we now have about one thousand visitors each month, and it is time we took a formal name to go with our acronym name.   There is many a professional journal with fewer readers than that.  We need a more formal name, so you can reference us in your papers.

Besides, some of you readers might prefer us to have a name that is self-explanatory.  After all, "PMTH" is not a household word.  Since many of our readers reach us through the search engines, it is not too much to ask that we provide ourselves with an intelligible name.  Of course, if you don't know what "postmodern" is, then it is harder.  But, you can always go back and click on the word, postmodern.

But in case you are still disoriented let me add this:  PMTH NEWS (now short for Postmodern Therapies NEWS) is a newsletter for a very active listserv composed mostly of professional therapists.  Many of us are also professors or writers.  A handful of us are graduate students in a related field. 

What you will read here in this journal is a report of our discussions, plus an article or so on topics we find relevant.  A large proportion of us that you will read about here object to standard ways of doing therapy that we feel sometimes pathologize clients and keep them locked in impasses.  We are looking for other therapeutic paths.  To that end, we often discuss our  readings of the postmodern philosophers and, recently, we have invented the art and practice of doing imaginary therapy with the hope that this will provide us with a way of studying therapy process, capitalizing on  any styles that we feel are useful in helping therapy clients use our offices to improve their lives.
 
 

How Can Doing Imaginary Therapy Help Therapists Be Better Therapits?
06/01/00
Lois Shawver

How is it possible for imaginary therapy to be of any use at all?  Isnt it all just fairytales? 

I think it is much more important than fairytales.  A tennis player learns that he can hit a ball better in a tennis match if he practices with a ball machine that shoots out balls in an unpredictable way.  Sure, it might not be exactly like a real tennis match, but it allows her to focus on a particular stroke, practice it, understand it better.

And it may just be that way for therapists, too.  Don't just ask how it is possible for us to benefit from studying imaginary cases, ask how it is we think we benefit from studying real cases.  In real cases, too, we must use some imagination to understand exactly what happened.  And we seldom really know much about the effects of what we said.  Often the clients disappear into their own lives, and they seldom give us commentary on what each of our various statements meant to them.

So, please don't dismiss the usefulness of imaginary cases too quickly.  I believe they contain something powerful that we are only beginning to uncover.  And the secret of the power of the imaginary cases is contained, I think, in the two quotes that I have given you today, one Wittgenstein, and the other from Mikhail Bakhtin.  To me, these two authors give us an idea as to how it is that imaginary cases can be useful.
 

Start with the Wittgenstein quote.   In this quote, we hear of the importance of the imaginary in philosophy. Wittgenstein is famous for his imagined language examples.  Not only did he invent primitive languages (or primitive language games) for us to consider but he asked us over and over to "suppose" that some odd situation was the case.  Here's a typical example: 
 

Suppose that, instead of saying "Bring me the broom", you said "Bring me the broomstick and the brush which is fitted on to it." -- Isn't the answer: "Do you want the broom? Why do you put it so oddly?" Is he going to understand the further analysed sentence better?

Wittgenstein's  idea here is that if you, as a reader,  imagine a situation that seems "imaginable" then you can probably sense how you would respond in such a situation.   Your awareness of your probable response, he is telling us, is highly instructive.  Imagine situations, he is telling us, and then notice what your response to that situation would be.

As therapists, this is particularly important for us.  In ordinary life we simply respond, often enough, without reflection, but mindless responding is not very useful for furthering our understanding of the effects of what we say. But, with the imaginary examples, we can ponder our responses at length, discuss them among ourselves, and. hopefully, improve our responsiveness and thoughtfulness.

Now, look at a quote from Mikhail Bakhtin and study it with me:
 

[L]anguage, for the individual consciousness... lies on the border between oneself and the other.   The word in language is half someone else's.  It becomes "one's own" only when the speaker populates it with his own intention, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention.

How can my words be half someone else's?  Well, in the sense that others have used these words before.  Of course, each person populates the words with her own intent.  "Nice shirt!" said by your mother as you leave for work means something different than when it is said by your boss when he told you yesterday to wear a uniform.  Understanding a language is not much more than knowing these words in teh abstract.  One must understand the use the speaker is making of these words.

How do we do that?  Partly, I think by imagining the situation of the person speaking to us, the context.  But this imagining passes much too fast, most of the time, for us to notice and refine our responses. 

But there are ways to slow things down and study the process.  One of those ways is to create imaginary cases using problem situations of the types we are likely to see.

At least, that's how I see it.  And, notice, there are other people here who have decided that a study of imaginary cases can be useful to them.  I think it was only modernism, with its glorification of objective truth, that prevented us from using imaginary cases to enrich our understanding.

But, we can understand the therapy process better, I hope, if we study our own resonses to various contexts presented by imaginary clients.  And, to that end, we have been conducting imaginary therapy sessions.  You can see most of the sessions we have done so far by clicking here and following the links.

Last week, I reported on the therapy Judy Weintraub.has been doing with her client imaginary Barb.  This week, I want to focus on the sessions with Jack and Jill in an imaginary session conduct by Kilian Fritsch.  So far, I have been playing all the clients, but a couple of people have privately suggested they might like to do this, too.  So, perhaps that will materialize.

Each imaginary client presents real communication issues for the therapist to solve.  And, each therapist relies, implicitly, on unconscious processes to solve (or dissolve) some of these problems.  But, afterwards, we can study these responses and, hopefully, use them to foster the quality and meaningfulness of our responses in real therapy contexts.

Will it all work?  I hope so.  And some of the conversations that we have had so far suggest some people think so.  Below you will see the conversation by listeners Riet Samuels and Yishai Shalif, talking about their responses to the unfolding imaginary cases.  Also, you will can read the interview I conducted with the imaginary therapist, Kilian Fritsch
 
 

 An Exciting New Vision
06/01/00
Lois Shawver

I am excited about the prospect of PMTH participating in what promises to be a postmodern educational program for therapists.  This announcement may be a bit premature, but all but the final touches are in order for a grand new online educational consortium. 

I'll give you just the bare outlines of what I know now, but expect more information later.  There will be half a dozen or so courses in which students can earn a postgraduate certificate in discursive therapies that can be credited towards a masters degree.  You can read about all the courses by clicking here to see the website describing this program.

This exciting program has been spearheaded by Andrew Lock, founder of the Virtual Faculty website.  As you will see if you examine this site, courses will be taught by some PMTH regulars such as Tom Strong and Lluis Botella.

And there will be a section I will coordinate with the help of some others that you know, for example, Val Lewis, Judy Weintraub, Jerry Shafer, Kilian Fritsch, Tony Michael Roberts and at least one other person that I am negotiating with.  Together we will create a course in which the textbook will consist of the reading of PMTH conversations.  Students in the course will write the articles for a special issue of PMTH NEWS based on their study of PMTH conversations and, of course, their own conversations about these topics.

The plan is that this will all begin in February.  I'll tell you more about this project as the plans finalize.  However, if you are interested in being a student in such a program, write me.
 

My Personal Meeting 
Ludwig Wittgenstein
06/01/00
Jerry Shaffer

It was the winter of 1949, and I [Jerry Shaffer] was an undergraduate at Cornell University.  For some time, I had been allowed to go to graduate seminars in philosophy.  I sat in the seminar room in Goldwin Smith Hall, waiting with the graduate students for the privilege of glimpsing the famous philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein.  I was curious to see him, although I knew nothing of him or his philosphy.  All I knew was that this was a distinguished philosopher from England, that Professor Norman Malcolm had studied with him at Cambridge in the late 30's and thought he was important.  I believe Wittgenstein was staying with Malcolm in Ithaca at the time I met him.

At any rate, on this particular day, I was sitting in a classroom I had often sat in before.  I was the only undergraduate, and I had scarcely heard of this man.  Being, perhaps, the least prestigious person in the class, I decided not to speak, to listen and hopefully learn.

Then, Wittgenstein wandered in to our room in his little zippered rayon jacket, no tie, craggy looking features.  He looked at the classroom for 5 seconds with an expression that was rather intense.  Then, he said, "What puzzles you in philosophy?"  I now think he wanted non-technical puzzles like "How does one see the *beauty* in a piece of stone?"  But the graduate students in that room were highly technical and the questions they asked him were more like, "how can one distinguish the physical object from the aesthetic object when looking at a stone sculpture?"

He talked with us for about twenty minutes, but then he left in disgust telling us something like, "You know nothing of philosophy." 

Malcolm persuaded him to come back a second time.  At that time, as I recall, he talked about "What is it that is blue when the *sky* is blue?"  We couldn't make much of that. 

And, shortly after, Wittgenstein returned to England, where he soon died of cancer. What was clear was that we knew nothing of Wittgenstein's philosophy.  Of course, we had none of his writings then.  I only came across a type-written copy of the "Blue and Brown Books" two years later in 1951. They were copies of lectures he had given in Cambridge in the late 30's.  The Philosophical Investigations did not come out in 1953.

But at the time that I met Wittgenstein, understanding his work did not seem so important. I believe none of us sensed the enormous impact that the philosophy of this odd little man would have on the world.  I think if we had had his writings we might have sensed his importance. 

But that was not the case.  I and most of the philosophical world were not convinced of what we felt to be Wittgenstein's central thesis: that philosophical problems are merely based on misunderstandings and confusions.  Myself, I became an analytic philosopher, which is the dominant kind of philosophy in English speaking world today, that is, the philosophy that most dominates philosophy departments.  Analytic philosophy continues to take philosophical problems seriously and it continues to try to make progress in solving them, rather than "dissolving them," as Wittgenstein insisted should be done. 

Today, I find his writing fascinating but I think of him, as I do of Freud and Marx, as remarkable intellectual achievements but fundamentally unpersuasive in it major contentions, especially the contention that philosophical problems are only confusions that should be dissolved.  As I say, I think most professional philosophers would agree with me on this.  Those professional philosophers who are convinced of later Wittgenstein, such as Richard Rorty, have now begun to teach in English departments, rather than in philosophy.
 
 

The Status of Judy Weintraub's Therapy 
with Barb
06/01/00
Lois Shawver

Of course, all the imaginary therapy that is done here is done by busy people trying to squeeze a little time in their lives to do this work.  If you remember, in addition to the Jack and Jill case, there is also an ongoing work being done with imaginary client Barb by Judy Weintraub.  Although that therapy has been on hold for the last few weeks, due to other obligations, you should take the opportunity to read the last session if you have not done so because I understand these sessions will continue.

You can take your choice between two versions of the session. 

1) One shows the simple session.
      Click here for that.
2) The other analyzes the session in 
    terms of my preferred concept of 
    transvaluation.  This analylzed version 
     of the transcript also has comments by
     Weintraub in maroon.
     click here to see this session plus
     analysis.

I have wondered if the difference in Judy Weintraub's style and Kilian Fritsch's style was a function of their working with different clients?  Or differences in their own style?  Or is this difference the result of one of the cases being an individual therapy case and the other being a couple's therapy?

How do they differ?  Well, the difference may not persisst, but so far, I like what Riet Samuels said about what is so striking in Kilian Fritsch's style.  Samuels said:
 

I noticed in the following how careful Kilian is with proceeding. He asks them whether it's allright to take up a particular topic. He really focuses strongly on anything that shows even the littlest bit of improvement (and
makes a lot of it; as it is). I was particularly struck with this in here.

Then she pointed to the following section of a transcript with Jack:
 
 

KILIAN:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Well, Jill's apologizing and your  acknowledgment of her apology stopped the sort of back and forth which seemed so much a part of the way the two of you can be with each other. I could ask some questions about this, if that would be OK? Would it?
JACK: Sure, I guess so.
JILL: Yes, go ahead.
KILIAN:
 

 

Jill, when Jack said, "There isn't any winning with her," what prompted you to say that he was right, and then to apologize?

As I see that, Kilian is focusing on the process of the therapy and inquiring to uncover what each person was thinking at the time of each comment.  I think this kind of "speaking in order to listen" can uncover very interesting material.

However, if you look at Weintraub's therapy you will see a rather different process also bringing forth fascinating changes in the dialogue.  Her language makes very striking transvaluative moves and I have learned from them with my own personal work with a client who is similar (but quite different, too) from Barb.

Still, I believe this is all a matter of degree.  Although I do not have instances to point you to at the moment, I have noticed that Kilian Fritsch also transvaluates on occasion and Weintraub also speaks in order to listen.  Whether these styles will persistly differentiate them as therapists remains to be seen.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

The Status of Our :
Imaginary Therapy
06/01/00
Lois Shawver

For those of you who don't know what "imaginary therapy" is, it is therapy composed online by professional therapists.  What makes it "imaginary" is that the clients are fictional.  Their parts in the therapy conversation are composed by therapists other than those who play the therapist role.

The imaginary therapy work that I want to report on in this issue, primarily,  is the work of therapist Kilian Fritsch with Jack and Jill.  I (Lois Shawver) am composing Jack and Jill.  Although the work that Judy Weintraub is doing with imaginary client Barb, will continue, I will wait to report on that case until we have more material.

Jack and Jill have been around now for four sessions and they have revealed a certain style of relating to each other that is, I feel, rather difficult for most therapists to handle.  The problem, as i see it, is that Jack interrupts often and takes control of the conversational space.  This is particularly interesting because he comes to the therapy complaining that Jill doesn't talk enough, doesn't explain herself. 

In the course of sessions three and four, Fritsch has been able, in spite of Jack's interruptions, to gather some interesting material from Jill.  But, it must be done while Fritsch manages conversational hotspots.  To me, one of the most interesting things about Fritsch's imaginary therapy is the way in which he manages these hotspots.  He always has, it seems, a number of things going on in the therapy, but on top of it all, he has to manage the dialogue with Jack while giving Jill space to talk.

Watching him work (or rather reading him work) the model that seems most appropriate to me is the model of having two or more pots on the stove at the same time.  Do you know the feeling?  One of them (say Jack) starts to boil over, so you have to tend to that, but, in the background, you have to watch the other Pot (in this case Jill) because it will ruin if it cooks too long or too hard.  That is what cooking thanksgiving dinner is always like for me.

Watching Kilian watch these conversational pots so artistically has me captivated.  I'm not sure if it will help me work better on a thanksgiving meal, but I believe I have learned something about how to manage conversational space when it does not manage itself easily.

Let me say, however, your appreciation of our conversations about the imaginary sessions will be greatly enhanced if you actually read the sessions.  The most important one for you to read for Jack and Jill today is reachable if you click here.
 

What Listeners Think of Our :
Imaginary Therapy
06/01/00
Lois Shawver

Last week, PMTH subscriber, Riet Samuels volunteered her response to the imaginary sessions saying:
 

Just wanted to tell you how much I'm enjoying and learning from your interactions in the imaginary cases. I do hope you'll keep it going for a long time.

Then, a little later, Israeli therapist, Yishai Shalif responded by adding:
 

Your fictional therapy sessions is one of the important things that is keeping me on the list. I'm learning a lot of things from it, especially how you try to unpack things, Kilian. Please continue 

So, I thought I would ask them to discuss together what they they found useful.  Here is their conversation:
 
 
Riet 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Lois asked in what way sessions with imaginary clients were helpful. Let me start that I feel I learn from each of the therapists, Kilian and Judy,  in different ways. As the current sessions with Kilian are most with me right now, I think with his sessions  it's the careful tracking that he  does. He can take on a word or sentence and stay with it for quite a while. 

But he does seem to choose what to focus on, and I was a little puzzled when he left the discussion with Jill  when she was going to talk without uninterruption by Jack (and Jack listening to her).  Kilian decided to shift to a focus on Jack at one point which led to Jack's talking about his fear about what Jill was going to say. That was quite something, but how could Kilian have known that? 

Yishai 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


I agree with what you say about Kilian's careful tracking. I like the term Michael White uses for this, "unpacking" or the Jill Freedman and Gene Combs use, "slowing down." I think the metaphor Lois Shawver used of trying to stir all the pots on the fire simultaneously describes a lot of what he does and maybe explains why he moved from Jill to Jack  in the spot of the session you pointed to, Riet. Maybe Killian saw that Jack was uneasy, ready or needing  to say something. 

Anyway, I feel that working with couples or families needs a lot of balancing and giving everyone the feeling they are being listened to. Its a bit like parenting or running a discussion in a meeting. I think another thing about Kilian's careful tracking is his following of the language of Jill and Jack. Instead of using experience distant language he uses experience close language. 

Riet, Do you think that staying close to a sentence or a word sometimes make us forget the main issue? In you mind how does it help to move the therapy forward to focus so closely on the words? Also, how does it effect the length of therapy? 

Riet 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


Yishai, you asked a good question: Does staying with "experience close language" also keep us close to the main issue?  I think one has to keep the main issue in the back of one's mind because there may be quite a few issues. Is the main issue in Jack and Jill that Jill can't talk to Jack? Or that Jill is negative about Jack? Or that Jack does so much work and feels Jill doesn't appreciate it? Or that Jack is afraid Jill will leave him? 

I'm not sure, but I have confidence that Kilian understands what the issues are  and will get back to the central ones.  What do you think would best describe the main issue? 
 

Yishai :
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Why do you think it is important to keep in mind the main issue in the back of one's mind? I was thinking that Jack and Jill bring Killian back to where they want if he gets of track. Maybe by not deciding what is the main issue
and allowing them to raise their main topics and concerns gives them the lead of the therapy and a sense of control and ownership?
Riet 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

I seem to remember that you brought up the subject of 'main issue', and I responded to that thinking that the 'main issue' changes all the time. Just think of the sessions with Taylor: At that time we talked about unfairness,
disappointment, etc. That's why I asked you what you thought the main issue was at this time. I agree that I'd like to have the client lead, but I also think that something important can get lost if we don't keep a few issues in
mind when we get distracted by other trains of thoughts. In this case, I think it's still good to keep unfairness and disappointment in mind.
Yishai 
 
 
 
 

 

Yes it was me I was just trying to 'unpack' your reasoning not to contradict it. I would realy like to hear from Kalian how he works. I think so much of our work is what goes on in our minds. so I wonder what went on in his.

And so, it seems, that there are listeners to the imaginary cases that find this process useful.  Now, the question is, what does the therapist think about this process.
 

An Interview with the Therapist for Imaginary Clients Jack and Jill
06/01/00
Lois Shawver

Kilian Fritsch is the present therapist for imaginary clients Jack and Jill.  He did the interview with me below right after he had finished their fourth session.  The fifth session is just beginning and the fifth session is not yet available.  But since Kilian now has two sessions under his belt with Jack and Jill, I thought you might find it interesting to hear what he has to say about his process of doing therapy with this imaginary couple and how it compares to his doing therapy with flesh and blood clients. 

His last session, which has not yet been analyzed, or studied in any depth, is available if you click here.  I am the interviewer (Lois).  And Fritsch is identified in this interview as "Kilian".
  

Lois: 
 

 

Kilian, have you ever done therapy with anyone that reminds you in anyway of either Jack or Jill or both?
Kilian:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


The situation of Jack and Jill is a familiar one to me. A fair number of  couples come in with a "locked in" view and interactional style similar  to theirs. This style has been called a number of things, but what comes  to mind for me is the term "problem saturated," a term I picked up from my work with Michael White and David Epston.

And in spite of their best efforts, any little word, glance, or reminder
 of something can pull folks back into a confirmation of the problem.
 Needless to say, this type of experience can work against the creation of  a sense of hope that things could be different.

Further complicating this situation is my sense that it can be very
 difficult to keep track of the problem, since it can have linkages to the  individual stories of the members of the couple, and it has a firmly  established place in their collective story with on another.
 

Lois: How close is it to doing therapy in real life?
Kilian:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


I would say that this process closely approximates my experience of doing  therapy in real life. The twists and turns, the unexpected shifts, all  serve to remind me that I have far less influence in terms of what is
 said as opposed to trying to find ways to keep the conversation going in  the midst of hurt and the constant fear that therapy might not work.  At  least that is the way this process has come to seem for me.

The closest analogy I could give comes from a movie with Steve McQueen,  entitled "J.R. Bonner." McQueen plays a broken down rodeo bull rider who  is still on the circuit for reasons which seem unexplainable. His brother  Curly is a real estate developer. In one scene Curly says, "J.R., I'm  already working on my second million, and you're still working on eight  seconds."

 I'm always working on eight seconds. I'm just trying to stay connected to a process which is  much stronger, more agile, and more unpredictable than I could ever hope to control, much less overpower.

Lois:
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


So, let me see if I understand you.  In the movie McQueen's brother is 
saying  "Your life is lived on in the moment.  You only focus on eight seconds  ahead.  On the otherhand, I'm focused on the future."  And, similarly, in therapy, you are staying close to the present, not trying to build some
 future solution.  Is that what you mean?
Kilian:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


Yes. This links with the notion of "conversation as interactional 
achievement." (Lois, I can find the person from whom I got this term, if that  would help.) What occurs in the present can serve to buttress any number of  stories or relational configurations  in peoples' lives. In the McQueen 
metaphor, staying on the bull corresponds to finding the next thing to say  which provides some slight alternative to the rein-
statement of problem saturated descriptions and realities. I find that I have to stay close to the 
present to do that.
Lois:

 


In another article in PMTH I referred to you as having two pots
 cooking on the stove at the same time.  Does that feel right to you?
Kilian:
 
 
 
 

 


It certainly feels right, but the number of pots seems more like twenty than  two. I'm scanning for the possible individual stories which impact what  happens in the session, and I have pots of my own which are in various stages 
of cooking. 
Lois:

 


How does it change your process to be able to sit with the response a  little while and then compose an answer a little later?
Kilian:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


Surprisingly, this format does not change my process all that much.
 Because my time is limited, I do the therapy in very small chunks. I'll  read the most recent response of Jack or Jill, make my response, and then  sign off. When I return, they will have made a response to my response,  and I have to make my response pretty quickly because time is short.

If I'm surprised, disappointed, or otherwise pained by what I hear Jack  and Jill do to each other, I do what I do in real time therapy. That is,  I will go back over my notes, trying to weave some coherence back into  the process of therapy, and will often ask what connection the most  recent utterance has with what I thought was happening in the overall  scheme of the session or treatment as a whole.
 

Lois:
So you take a few process notes as you're doing therapy?  And glance  down to use them when things get confusing?
Kilian:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


I take voluminous notes, especially when things are most likely to spin out  of control. My note-taking conforms most closely to my practices when I was  an undergraduate history major. I look for general themes, details, and I try  to include some verbatim quotes. That way, when I read these back, folks can  do their own interpretations based on my organizing and on the basis of 
hearing their own words read back to them. 

That way, we are constructing progressive texts about what occurs in the  course of the therapy. This often serves as a template-in-progress for how to 
think about what happens outside the session.
 

Lois:

 

How much are you bothered by the fact that Jack and Jill are
imaginary?
Kilian:
 
 
 
 

 


To me, Jack and Jill are not imaginary at all. Neither are characters in  novels. I interact with them as closely as I interact with people in  "real life." This is especially true if I'm in the middle of a well-told  tale. Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" comes to mind.
Lois:
 
 

 


I know what you mean when you say textual characters can come to
 life.  I wonder if that process isn't enhanced, even, when you play such a key part in the dialogue?
Kilian: Without question. 
Lois:
Has the process been useful to you in exploring your own process as therapist?
Kilian:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Yes. I have learned how important it is for me to constantly go back to
 the text of the session as a record of what has transpired thus far. That  way, a momentary slip or lapse into the problem saturated description can  be seen as something which need not stand as the only way to interpret
 what is happening.

Put differently, the use of the text or notes of a session can challenge  the notion of a punctiform present, so that the present can also contain
 other texts which can stand for a preferred reality in the lives of the
 participants.
 

Lois: "Punctiform?"
Kilian:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


I learned this phrase from Ray Birdwhistell as part of training with him in  ethnographic research methods. The basic idea is to remember that our taken 
for granted notions of dimen- sionality are constructions, and not necessarily  reflections of a one and only version of reality. For instance, the boundary 
of a house may be thought of as the footprint it occupies. Another way to  think of that boundary is to describe how far one's vision can extend when  looking out the windows of that house. Similarly, when we think of the term
"the present," we often think of a point in time which is relatively close to  "now." I think that particular convention is a by-product of positivism. What 
if we were to include all the events which serve to influence or affect the ways that we perceive or construct reality in the present? Instead of the  present appearing as a point on a time line, it might have the appearance of 
multiple sweeping waves which have multiple intersections at any particular  time. 

This corresponds to something I read about time : What has gone before, and  what is yet to come, still, is. 

This is a long way around to saying that the stretching out of notions of the  present often serves to provide some needed space within which glimmers of 
change can begin to appear. 
 

If you would like to see the prior sessions you can reach them by clicking here:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


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