Peggy Sax - a Conversation

8/14/2019 Peggy Sax - a Conversation

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A ConversationBetween

Lynn Hoffman, Peggy Sax and her Study Group

Hi Lynn,

It feels great to be back in conversation. I am busy getting my study groupready for a new year. Thanks for the further reflection for Kevin. I just postedit on the study group forum. And now I want to share a few more reflectionswith you. These are responses from study group members who read yourarticle/book chapter, "The art of withness." Here is how I introduced the topic:

Lynn is one of my first mentors in collaborative approaches to family therapy.I highly recommend her book, "Family Therapy: An intimate history." Lynnworked with many of the masters in family therapy before settling into theworld of conversational/dialogic therapies with colleagues Harry Goolishian,Harlene Anderson and Tom Andersen. Lynn embraced reflecting teamworkback in the late 1980s, just after Tom Andersen's article first appeared. Someof you have also read about Lynn's intrigue with the rhizome metaphor.

Lynn is a scholar. I think I first heard her speak about the word of Bahktin,Wittgenstein and Lyotard from Lynn. And she knows more about GregoryBateson than anyone I know. While Michael White expressed joy in readingFoucault, Lynn Hoffman describes being thrilled reading Bateson! I love howLynn brings some of that learning into this article - searching out analternative logic that takes in the truths of metaphors, a Creatural grammar,exploring the hidden language known to animals, mad people and artists, andlearning what we can about the emotional brain.

Lynn gives us many gift in this article- distilled from over 80 years of livingand learning. She states three pilars of wisdom: not knowing, the reflectingteam, and witnessing processes....Then if that wasn't enough, Lynn brings inthe contributions of John Shotter - as "in-house philosopher", "embodiedknowing," making dialogic communication relevant to relational therapies,introducing new possibilities beyond social constructionism. Can we gobeyond the heady language of social constructionism's linguistic systems, totalk about "withness practices without rank?"

Lynn uses so many catchy phrases of Shotter's - my favorite is her referenceto his description of the shift from "aboutness thinking" to "withness"

thinking, which she illustrates through a Tom Andersen story. And a quotefrom Tom Andersen who was tired of speaking about therapies, and insteadwanted to talk about human art, "the art to participate in bonds withothers."Lightbulbs go off for me when I read that. See what you think.

Of course I love reading Lynn's thoughts about rhizomes. Lynn is totallyenamoured with the rhizome metaphor.

Lynn chronicles so many philosophical contributions, I started to feel a bit


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breathless that is until she brings it all home with her description of the bigtent. Can conversational therapies become "the big new tent:" with room forall of us? How do you think her images fit with those of narrative practice?Can you envision a big enough tent to hold these various traditions?

If you could be in conversation with Lynn, what might you want to say or ask?

I will be happy to share any of your reflections and questions with Lynn. Inmy eyes, Lynn is the best kind of scholar -always aiming to translate ideasinto practice.

Lynn, I will now list (and number) the responses:

1) Here is a response from dear Sarah Hughes (who used to sell books withMichael).

Good morning,

I finally sat down with a cup of tea and Lynn. What a joyful way to spend my

morning! I love her colourful use of words and images. I feel full of thatbrightness she talked about.

There are so many ideas that caught my attention and I would love to askLynn and all of you for your thoughts so we can build the kind ofconversations and withness without rank that she was talking about.First of all, I was thinking about my MFT program as it is structured that westart with dialogic ideas in our first semester. We read Anderson andGoolishan, Andersen, Rober, Seikkula, Weingarten...I thought this waswonderful as it for me really added to my narrative ideas and enriched mythinking. I made room in my tent for these voices. But the other students in

the class who came from psychology or social work backgrounds found thisreading really hard as they felt that they really did not know what they weredoing on any level. They had no structure at all to ground themselves in that"withness" philosophy. They became very excited when we moved throughto solution oriented approaches and narrative as they could then have somepractices to work with from the stance of not knowing.

What do you think of this? Could one work from a dialogic/conversationalapproach if they had no other structures/techniques/models/approachesbehind them? Do we need a model? Is this a model? How would youorganize a family therapy program - where would you start?

The other part of this paper that really touched me and lit up my neurons invery bright ways was the ideas about body. That is really where my passionis right now as I have been working on my thesis (well major paper) that isbased on Michael's ideas of responding to trauma but integrating in ideas ofsomatic therapies and neurobiology. To me in adds a depth that I find socrucial with trauma work as I can't separate out the stories from the physicalsensations, responses, they are all intertwined. I also connect these ideas tothe power of connecting with others bodies and stories in witnessing


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processes. I won't go on about this but this is definitely my "professionalproject" right now and I get very excited....

More questions for Lynn and all of us:

Empathy - I would love to have a conversation about this idea as I find it so

interesting. How do you define empathy? How do you find it helpful andlimiting? Michael was always so careful to explain the difference betweenempathy and resonance. Do you find this an important distinction? How dowe make sure that our empathy is in the spirit of "withness" and not"aboutness"?

Three Pillars - Why is reflecting a separate pillar from witnessing? What arethe differences? What is it about the reflecting process that stands alonewithout the idea of others witnessing? I saw Tom Andersen do this but I can'tquite explain it and would like to know more.

Seikkula - have others read his work? I love his ideas and in particular how

he talks about love in therapy as part of this withness.

OK I look forward to any thoughts on any pieces of my ramblings or otherresponses to Lynn's ideas!

Sarah

Reflection #2: From Bonnie Miller:

Wow, Sarah - I feel like I am trailing behind you on my tricycle while youpedal off on a European racer!

I read the article after reading your post- thank you for the boost...

I responded to Lynn's words about body and gesture with a memory- Iremember asking a friend if he had something he wanted to say about how Iwas painting a wall, once - and his surprised reaction- how did I know? (hewas trying so hard to respectfully withhold his comments...) it seems to methat this is exactly what we do as therapists- attending and tuning into bodylanguage, moments of transport, the things that are said during silences, ifwe are able to stay attentive and not be distracted by our own professionalanxiety. Relaxing into things is a difficult practice, it seems to me.

You ask about a conversational/dialogical approach without a model- and itseems to me that we are socially very ill-equipped for conversation -especially conversation without rank... what passes for conversation seemsmost often like taking turns speaking, more than responding to one othersthoughts and feelings.

More and more I am thinking that models and structures exist for the comfortof the therapist, more than the comfort of the client. Climbing on monkeybars instead of swinging from ropes...


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If we were trained to have conversations- what would be the skills andpractices? It becomes very mystical in my mind- and I think about Picasso -mastery first, and setting aside all of that to practice, after.

I will chew on your question about the distinction between reflecting and

witnessing- an interesting question... and good luck with your paper - yourenthusiasm and interest comes across, even in your brief post!

Bonnie

Reflection #3) From Kevin Nielsen

Wow, there is so much to say here. I feel excited and want to respond. Asoften happens, and this seems to be one occasion, I feel constrained bytime. I only have a few moments, though I would like to give this a morethoughtful response.

Anyway, I too was drawn to Lynn's references to body. I find this fascinatingand intriguing on so many levels. On a personal level, I have found suchrichness, mystery, beauty and fascination by delving into the body, becomingembodied. I love dance, contact improvisation, ecstatic dance and othermeans of conscious, sensory, movement expressions. I find my body andparts of my body saying things that are different than what my mind says.And its a thrilling ride trying to tie ideas, postmodern concepts, sensoryexperiences, and language into some kind of coherence.

I really appreciated Lynn's "three pillars of wisdom," especially the "notknowing." What a pregnant, important place to be. I loved this quote, whichis taken from Shotter: "Witness thinking is a dynamic form of reflective

interaction that involves coming into contact with another's living being, withtheir utterances, with their bodily expressions, with their words, their works."

Rereading the previous posts, I am drawn to connections between body,memory and truama. Sarah, at some point I would love to hear more of your"professional project" and how you integrate somatic therapies andneurobiology. This is such a rich terrain. I plan to look up Seikkula. Bonnie, Iam mulling over what you said about being trained in conversation and whatskills and practices would we need. What comes to mind is more "nowknowing," allowing the conversation to move to unknown territories.

I must log off for now. More to come later. Thank you.

Kevin

(further from Kevin)

In my rush to write a post, I realized I made a few mistakes, (or maybe not)such as "now knowing" instead of "not knowing." Interesting. "Now knowing"seems more like the body knowing, in the present, immediate, sensory. This


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kind of knowing also can be "not knowing." If I look back and interpret myexperience or anticipate something with my concepts, I am doing somethingdifferent than being with what is.

I enjoyed reading the discussion of "dialogicality" and "withness practices."There is something about this that makes me think of Martin Buber's I-Thou

relationships.

I was intrigued reading how Tom Andersen asked the woman where in herbody pain was located and if it could talk what would it say. The voice hadsomething to say, and I am sure the answer would have been different if hewould have asked (her mind?) directly. This raises all sorts of interestingquestions about self, identity, fragmentation, parts. Who are we really?

I was also taken by the idea of creating a common language and the work ofSeikkula. I would love to see this form of Open Dialogue in action. Is thispossible? What a great idea, the thought of conversing with clients by"giving up the idea of primarily having control over things and, instead,

jumping into the same river or rapids." I wonder what that would look like forme in my addictions work. I am inspired by the thought of social discoursescounteracting one another. I am also left pondering the merit of not as muchalleviating symptoms as preventing chronicity. Much to consider here

***

A client just cancelled and I have some time to write. Here are some morethoughts. At some point, and it was after reading the article, I realized thatits title was "the art of withness" and not "the art of witness. It's a bad habit,to see what we expect to see, to respond anticipating a pattern.

Anyway, I was thinking of your question Peggy about what to ask Lynn. I amnot well versed in family therapies, but I am curious how dialogical,conversational therapies extend/differ/are distinct from narrativeapproaches. Does dialogical therapy see itself as operating without a model,structure, or techniques behind it? What metaphor(s) best describe thisshift? Rhizome?

I am also mulling over the distinction between empathy and resonance. Irecall reading an article by David Epston that introduced the idea of co-investigation or co-researching a problem instead of empathizing with it. Ithink of resonance as being much more body-based. If I resonate withsomething, a person, a situation, I believe I am describing how I am pulled,pushed and affected on a sensing felt level to what is happening. Within myexperiences with dance and movement, I often experience that sense ofmoving spatially and directionally that is beyond cognition. I move and go,my body is intelligent and adapts. I feel. And the experience seems to be asif I am part of something bigger. And when I look back, and even while "in it,"something extraordinary often happens. In a very different context,something similar happens when we are with clients and resonate with theirproblems. I feel something in my body. Their gestures affect me as does my


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body language, facial expressions affect them. It's challenging to put this inwords. I wonder if resonance is related to intuition, or better yet, related tosomething shared in common. One usage of resonance is of courseelectromagnetic, and it conjures up ideas of electrical fields. Perhapsresonance in the sense of being with clients is looking at that common fieldwe share with clients. Call it a social field or linguistic field--we are both

affected and moved, though in different ways. Maybe that is the commonriver Lynn was referring to.

#4: Peggy

I'm writing from a Montreal hotel room, just back from the early morning walkaround sleeping city streets and parks, in search for a cup of coffee (whereare those 24 hr "Second Cup" shops when you need them?). I gave aworkshop here yesterday and today I will be heading home. I brought my bikeso I hope to stop somewhere en route for a cycle in this spectacular (and longawaited) spring weather.

ANYWAY...I have loved reading this exchange between Sarah, Bonnie andKevin. I wish we were all in the same room or even better ,sitting across thetable over a leisurely meal (with room for anyone else who wants to join us).

There are so many things I want to say!

I wish Lynn Hoffman could be here with us. As soon as she gets her newemail address, I will send her a digest of your reflections and questions. Ireally believe this will greatly enlighten her day. And I want so much to hearher voice in this conversation.

Kevin, I really appreciate your ponderings about resonance, the mind/bodyconnection, the body's intelligence and adaptability, awareness of being part

of something bigger- and the relevance to therapeutic conversations. I havebeen sitting here pondering your words. I think you are more articulate thanyou think. And I "resonate" with your excitement. It is contagious!

Quote

"If I resonate with something, a person, a situation, I believe I am describinghow I am pulled, pushed and affected on a sensing felt level to what ishappening. Within my experiences with dance and movement, I oftenexperience that sense of moving spatially and directionally that is beyondcognition."

The older I get, the more aware I too become of the mind/body connection. Itoo believe this is connected to what Lynn calls "the underground river" Signsof "resonance" or "non-resonance" (if that is a word - what do you call thatexperience when your body gives the "NO" response...?) happen frequently inour bodies, whether or not we choose to listen to them. Maybe this is likesynchronicity? When I slow down and listen, a lot seems to reveal itself. Oneof our greatest challenges in the 21st century seems to be how to slow down


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to listen...not only in therapy sessions, but in everyday life. Yet I am oftenawed by how that underground river seems to patiently wait... like the 24 hrlocal coffee shop. It is always open and ready for business. And surprisinglyforgiving most of the time... I do worry about long-term effects of fatigue...illness...and of course, the inevitability of time running out/ mortality. (Lately,I am carrying with me a heightened sense that life is precious and short-

lived.)

We know there is no such thing as neutrality. When people are consultingwith us (or as Andre recently attributed to Michael, "When we consult withpeople about their lives"), there are so many (infinite?) ways we canrespond. Where do we shine our light/orient our questions? What themesstand out to us? What guides the choices we make? Michael gave us maps toorient these journeys, emphasizing along the way that these maps shouldnever be mistaken as the destination. Some people (dialogic/collaborativeconversationalists in particular) have experienced the narrative maps asbeing too restrictive and even policing. In my experience, that kind ofnarrative constraint is indeed a risk - we have probably all seen or heard of

"bad" narrative therapy just like any other approach, when the questionsseem too wooden or contrived.

I wonder if dance might be another apt metaphor as an alternative to maps.As a dancer, you still need to lots of practice and the particular guidelines,right? How else does that "dance" metaphor fit - or not? I am thinking abouthow when couples dance, one person leads yet both partners need eachother/co-create. What about in other kinds of dance?

I too feel something in my body when I resonate with others' problems. And Ido believe this experience is related to intuition. And I like the metaphorof being in each other's social or linguistic (aka electromagnetic) fields. This

reminds me of how careful Michael was to speak about "intuitive skills"instead of "intuition." He was suspicious of the mystical and naturalisticexplanations, and instead believed wholeheartedly in rigorously fine-tuningthose skills. However, I also believe he could not see or at least chose not toarticulate some of the "felt" experience that his presence generated. Twice Iheard Salvador Minuchin question Michael about what remained unnamed inhis conversations with people (in addition to the maps). I have an hour audiotape of one of those conversations (from the Evolution of Psychotherapy). Ifthere is interest, I would be happy to put this in the media library. I wouldenjoy listening to it together.

Kevin you asked, "how dialogical, conversational therapies extend/differ/aredistinct from narrative approaches. Does dialogical therapy see itself asoperating without a model, structure, or techniques behind it? Whatmetaphor(s) best describe this shift? Rhizome?" Wow. This is a very goodquestion. You put your finger on a big controversial topic - some peoplebelieve it is possible to straddle both collaborative inquiry and narrativepractice. Others think you have to choose. My hope is that we can furtherexplore the territory shared by collaborative conversations/ narrativeapproaches, while also drawing forth some of the distinctions. Do you have


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any suggestions about how we might go about doing that?

Certainly Lynn is very keen these days on the rhizome metaphor. HarleneAnderson has come good materials

http://www.harleneanderson.org/Pages/aboutha.htm-

I really like her book, Conversation, Language and Possibilities: A PostmodernApproach to Therapy.

Sarah and Bonnie - I share your sentiments about models. I don't think beingeclectic works very well. It really helps to a framework to hang practices on,and that keeps us accountable to something. Yet I have come to a similarconclusion to Bonnie

Quote

"More and more I am thinking that models and structures exist for the

comfort of the therapist, more than the comfort of the client. Climbing onmonkey bars instead of swing from ropes..."

I heard someone (Peter, my first supervisor) use the analogy of "imprinting" -that psychological phenomenon associated with ducks, where an animal orperson learns something at a particular time, which then becomes formative.Peter said this in a conversation when he acknowledged that for whateverreasons, he "imprinted" with Tom Andersen which can be traced back in thelate 80s/early 1990s. Tom Andersen and the reflecting team turned mywork/thinking around, as did solution-focused ideas/practices... yet I thinknarrative therapy is where my real professional "imprinting" came. Lynn talksabout how much narrative has influenced her thinking - yet I collabortive

conversations and "the art of withness" is central to her approach.

Sarah, your "professional project" sounds fantastic and very intriguing. I toowould love to hear more about your passion for integrating somatictherapies, neurobiology and narrative approaches in working with trauma.Please think of using this space and us as a place to hatch some of theseideas. I believe your thinking is cutting edge, and exactly what is needed.

Thank you for starting me off in such a stimulating way! I have lots tocontemplate.

Peggy

ps. I'm back from a walk and still contemplating the territory shared bycollaborative and narrative approaches. I found this link on HarleneAnderson's website to a brief paper (2 pager) on "Postmodern/socialconstruction Assumptions: Invitations for Collaborative Practices," which sheposted in Jan 09.

http://www.harleneanderson.org/Pages/PostmodernCollaborativePractices.ht
http://www.harleneanderson.org/Pages/aboutha.htm-http://www.harleneanderson.org/Pages/PostmodernCollaborativePractices.htmhttp://www.harleneanderson.org/Pages/aboutha.htm-http://www.harleneanderson.org/Pages/PostmodernCollaborativePractices.htm


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m

She lists and briefly describes six interrelated assumptions and the invitationsthat each presents for our practices:

Maintaining skepticism

Avoiding the risks of generalization

Knowledge as an interactive social process

Privileging local knowledge

Language as a creative social process

Knowledge and language as transforming

She then gives tips for collaboration

It will just take a few minutes to read this. I am most interested in yourthoughts about how this approach dovetails with narrative practice. Whatsimilarities and distinctions draw your attention? Other questions andponderings?

Peggy

#5: Bonnie Miller

Hello Peggy-

I enjoyed this Harlene Anderson article- it is brief, but dense... and to me itseems to cover very similar principles to narrative practices- particularly thequestioning of words, the use of language, the therapist 'posture'- the senseof humility and awareness

I love this tip: "Pay attention to the clients words and do not makeassumptions about their non-words" Non-words! That is wonderful.

In another discussion group we came up with the idea of 'double questioning'as well as 'double listening'- being curious and attentive to what the person issaying; and also, being curious and questioning of what might be forming inour own heads-

Having said that about therapist posture- I wonder- MW talks about'decentered and influential'- and I suppose there are degrees of influence-our influences shape the influence we exert- (starts to sound like a tonguetwister)

I also really, really like this notion of knowledge as an interactive social
http://www.harleneanderson.org/Pages/PostmodernCollaborativePractices.htmhttp://www.harleneanderson.org/Pages/PostmodernCollaborativePractices.htm


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process-language as a living activity - well, I like it, and find it scary at thesame time-

It alerts me to the power of my own thinking- as I ponder the stories of myclients- what do I emphasize in my own head? What is the story, theory, ideathat I am creating about them, through this emphasis. And how do I set this

aside, or use it when we next meet? Language is internal as well as external-but who are we conversing with in our mental dialogues?

Which brings me back to maintaining skepticism, and double questioning...whew.

#6: Naomi

Hi Bonnie,

I was also drawn to the statement in Harlene's article

Quote

"Pay attention to the clients words and do not make assumptions about theirnon-words"

This quote also spoke to me about Michael White's idea of the absent butimplicit; that people's "non-words" may be indicative of them makingdiscernments about what they say, as well as what they don't say, and thatthese discernments might say something about what is important to them.But as you say, if we make assumptions about this, not only are we centeringourselves as therapists, we are missing out on an opportunity to betransparent about what we notice and to ask about the meaning that the

non-words have for them (or inquiring about what might be absent butimplied)...

This gets me thinking about the closing down effects of making assumptions,and conversely, the possibilities opened up when we remain curious. I thinkif I am honest that I probably make thousands of assumptions inconversations every day without even realizing it... Like you say Bonnie -what gets emphasized in our own heads? And what discernments do wemake in what lines of inquiry we choose to follow?

Oh dear, I still have more to say but my clients have just arrived...

Naomi

#7: Bonnie Miller

Hey Naomi-

I look forward to reading what else you have to say!


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I want to expand a little bit- not making assumptions about their non-wordsleads to asking questions about their non-words... right?

I love practicing transparently- letting my 'conversational partner' know that Iam thinking a few different things, and asking which they prefer to talkabout- the other day I had a conversation like that and the time flew by- the

young woman I was speaking with just took the lead in shaping our talk and itfelt like we were walking without backpacks.

I still felt influential- but she was definitely the guide.

I want to comment on Kevin's suggestion that 'resonance' might be a kind ofresponse to the other person's 'field'...and the idea of dance-

In my face-to-face study group we were discussing the use of reflectingteams, and this idea of 'resonance' came up - we talked about how this issuch an embodied term, and wondered about the degrees of embodimenteach of us has, at any given time.

It seems to me that this is one of those taken for granted things- that we are'in our bodies'- and have words and awareness of our physical selves. Formyself, I am noticing that I am very 'head-centered'- words, ideas, analysis -these are my areas of comfort. I am not a dancer, am not physically active atthis point in my life.

Peggy, when we met and you were talking about cycling, it made me veryaware of this inactivity in my life - since then I have been making efforts to domore, and out of doors- but it seems to me that the embodied aspect ofworking with people is almost entirely ignored in our training and practices.How do we learn to tune into our physical responses when this is never

considered as a skill for development?

And if it was considered a skill for development, then what might we suggestas 'training'?

Do folks agree? or is it just me?

Bonnie

Lynn, it's me - Peggy - again. I hope you enjoy reading this reflections. Anyresponses are most welcome - without expectations. The study group maynot be a money maker, but I am falling in love with everyone in it! Can youunderstand why?

love,Peggy

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