Acting Badly While Knowing the Good

Copenhagen, 20-23 August 2009 Kenneth J. Gergen

&

Diego Romaioli

Assessing multi-being in psychotherapy

• Metaphor of “multiple voices” – Client has many voices that are holding a dialogue

• How can we work in therapy using this metaphor?

• Re-read old strategies as a way to call into dialogue the various voices

• Share the idea of multiplicity with the client• New concept of change• Psychological processes are rooted in ‘normality’

• General steps in psychotherapy …

Step 1. Expressing the voices• Explore the voices implicated in the story of

client• Co-construction of new viable scenarios• Narrator (knows the good) – narrated Self (acts

badly)• You can ask questions as:

– What were the meanings related to the “symptoms” at that time?

– Which are the contrasting points of view involved? – Which kind of reasons do you have for acting badly?– Which reasons are you following for blaming yourself?– Who is blaming you?– Which roles were you embodying the moment you felt

uneasy?

Step 2. Connecting the voices in everyday life• Understand which voices are dominant and

which are suppressed • The cultural and relational context constantly

shapes our inner dialogue • Therapists could ask questions as:

– What’s happened? – Where did it happened?– Where do you think these judgements come from? – In which kind of contexts these voices should be

appropriated? – Which other voices have been silenced? Where? By

whom? – Did you have the opportunity to listen to other

ideas?

Step 3. Comprehending the voices

• Reading client’s difficulty as a communication paying attention to its expressive core

• Problem can acquire new unexpected meanings when related to the relational context

• Questions are formulated in order to make explicit the pragmatic consequences of acting badly:– Who was present or who were you thinking about at

the moment you ‘showed’ the problem? – What did/would they do before? What did/would they

do next? – What was the situation and which are the others

involved in that context? – What kind of reactions you provoked in those others

using the “symptom” as a language?

Step. 4 Accepting the voices • In psychological problem you can observe that a voice is suppressed by

another one. The suppressed voice is perceived as impersonal, intrusive and critical

• There is a tendency to deny the voice and not to communicate with it• Two forms of interactions between the voices:

– Subject – subject– Subject - object

• If individuals cannot enter into dialogue with these forces, the possibility to find new adequate ways for satisfying the needs of the submersed voice is lost

• Help to recognize the submersed voices, perceived as “something outside”, as a part of the repertoire

• Examples of questions are:– If this ‘object’ was a part of you what would it say (using the symptoms as a

languange)?– What is this voice trying to say to you?– If your anxiety talked to you, what could its message be?– Which could be the main requirements of the voice you are putting into

silence?– To whom this communication would be directed to?– How can you listen to this voice?– How will you better respond to its needs?

Step. 5 Using negative voices

• It is not a therapeutic aim to reduce the negative voices • Add voices at the repertoire of the client or to increment

the dialogical interchange• Find an answer to the question “how could we make a

good use of the undesirable voices”? • In order to explore the positive core of a voice we could

ask: – In which kind of situation it would be appreciated hearing a

voice like that one? – What kind of consequences would I expect if I follow this

relational option? – When and where is it productive? Where not? In what ways?– In what sense do this voice make sense?

Step. 6 Recruiting positive voices

• Facilitate the emersion of good voices that can give a positive answer to the negative ones

• What is “good” in psychotherapy?• Clients don’t have only to listen to the voice but

they have to embody it, to speak throughout it • Good voices can be evocated by:

– Reminding clients to past good relations they had – Inviting clients in recounting new stories starting from

the point of view of the positive voice– Giving to clients prescriptions or expedients in order

to evocate the positive voice when it is required

Step 7. Constructing new voices • The construction of new voices may be made by

acting • Encourage the client to explore new ways of

acting and new relational styles • You can suggest to:

– Draw up a list of what one could do if the problem would disappeare

– Choose the easiest experience in order to perform it • Good voices can be created by:

– Prescribing new interactions that imply the problem’s dissolution

– Suggesting new frameworks and language games to describe the problem

– Inviting voices into new transformative dialogues (restoring the sense of autorship)

Step. 8 Stabilizing new voices

• Confirm and legitimate new voices during interactive processes in relationships

• The new acquired languages need to be spoken in relationships

• Stabilization of new voices may be reached:– Inviting clients to share new experiences and ways of

being with meaningful others– Inviting clients to pay attention to other’s reactions to

their new acquired patterns– Inciting clients to an appreciative inquiry within people

around them:• In what ways do you think I changed?• Do you appreciate my new way of being?• What goes next with us now that my difficulty is locked into

the past?