Pupils Learn TeachersRoxanne GarvenSystemic Consultation Centre, Subiaco

I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to Carmel’s article on teaching theory asa balancing act, which is a significant contribution to the family therapy learning pro-cess for trainees. As Flaskas mentions, teaching family therapy today is very differentfrom before. Today family therapy theory and its teaching is becoming closer to therealities of practice. It is more integrative, less purist, less rivalrous with other models,and more appreciative of the general mechanisms of change that cut across all thera-peutic modalities. What then does this mean for the trainer/trainee relationship andthe learning of an integrative, common factors (Duncan et al., 2009) sensitive familytherapy?

My main reflection here is that viewing the training process as one with tensionsand requiring balancing maneuvers is important, as it is consonant with key systemicprinciples and the fluid nature of our work. There is an isomorphic quality betweenthe theoretical, clinical and training realms. For example, attention to context andfeedback processes (directing us to move towards one end of the training ‘see-saw’)and viewing the whole (passion and irreverence as cybernetic complementarities)involve clinical and conceptual frames. When mirrored by the trainer’s actions andteaching style, trainees learn this not only through reading but by their relationshipwith the teacher, over time.

This connects, with another important point: training aims or ends being congru-ent with the training means. For example, in a systemic course, influenced by Bateson(1972) levels of learning, as well as Maturana and Poerksen’s (2004) views on struc-tural determinism, should one expect a trainer to deliver lectures or to ask questionsof trainees? I think these positions on teaching, espouse a particular view of learning:learning as being relational as well as digital. (Remembering types of reflexive ques-tions however can be effective!)

In a book of interviews between journalist, Maturana and Poerksen (2004) thefollowing statement leapt out arresting further reading: ‘Pupils learn teachers.’ I thinkwe all know and have experienced this. On a personal note a very, very, long timeago, I changed my A Level subjects after finding out who the good teachers were.Maturana adds: ‘If freedom and self determined thinking are the goals of educationalactivity, then we have to live together in a way that is supported by the mutualrespect for the autonomy of the other’ (p. 128).

As family therapists, we witness what happens in families when means do notmatch their ends, when parents, out of frustration and fear, find themselves usingdisrespectful ways to ‘force’ respect from their children. As Maturana states: ‘Theirfailure (to match means with ends) will lead to force’ (p. 128).

Address for correspondence: Systemic Consultation Centre, 203 Park Street, Subiaco, WA,Australia. rgarven@iinet.net.au

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy 2014, 34, 294–295doi: 10.1002/anzf.1031

294 ª 2014 Australian Association of Family Therapy

My translation of Pupils learn teachers for teaching family therapy would be thefollowing. Trainees don’t learn family therapy as a stand-alone ‘thing’ transmittedfrom teacher to pupil, they learn by being in relationship with a trainer who isaligning their training goals (and these exist in levels, such as, conceptual, ethical andtechnical goals, the professional identity of the trainee) with their teaching philosophyand methods. If we want trainees not to be clones of their trainers, as Flaskas writesand to appreciate the autonomy and self-regulation of their clients, as trainers we willbenefit from reflecting how to be with our trainees, in ways that fit these intentions.

In the training room, there would be a reliance on teaching by asking questions tobring out pupils’ own intelligence and reflections, inviting and appreciating all viewsand opinions (reflecting ideas like double description and observer-dependent realities)and setting up contexts for learning rather than engaging in didactic lecturing, asreflected in Bateson (1972) levels of learning.

To prepare for complexity, the fluid nature of interactions, and the holding ofdifferent tensions, training programs may meet these ends, by ‘putting the blinkers’on to look at only one model (Flaskas’s discipline end of the continuum) and thentaking the blinkers off, to view the broader context of a particular clinical situation,and to reflect on the usefulness of other approaches (flexibility). Exercises can bedesigned to help trainees engage with this.

In my family therapy training course, I borrow Burnham’s (2010) positional abili-ties exercise and ask the trainees to ‘sit in’ different models (Post-Milan, Solution-Focused, Narrative, Structural, Strategic) and talk from that model when reviewing atape or discussing a case. I suspect this capacity to balance elements to fit withparticular situations, may contribute to the therapeutic alliance being the second mostinfluential factor contributing towards positive change.

Lastly, and slightly connected to learning as relational, I have mulled over theimplications of using the common factors findings for guiding good learningoutcomes for trainees. As one of my mentors Amaryl Perlesz once said, trainees leavetraining much depending on how they came in. This reflects the extra-therapeuticfactors, or to re-name, the extra-learning factors of trainees. Trainees, who see failureas a flaw, will struggle with the group situation; trainees who view learning asexploratory and developmental will relate with more ease.

Our capacity as trainers, to develop effective training relationships, based on waysof living and teaching that correspond with our theoretical and ethical ideals, is highlysignificant. Our rewards will be seeing trainees enjoy their struggle with Bateson!

ReferencesBateson, G. (1972). Steps to Ecology of Mind. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.

Burnham, J. (2010). Creating reflexive relationships between practices of supervision andtheories of learning and education, in C. Burck & G. Daniel (Eds.), Mirrors and Reflections:Processes of Systemic Supervision. London: Karnac.

Duncan, B. L., Miller, S. D., Wampold, B. E., & Hubble, M. A. (Eds.) (2009). The Heartand Soul of Change: Delivering what Works in Therapy (2nd ed.). Washington, DC:American Psychological Association.

Maturana, H., & Poerksen, B. (2004). From Being to Doing: The Origins of the Biology ofCognition. Heidelberg: Carl-Auer Verlag.

Commentary

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