The Extraordinary in the Ordinary: A Conversation with Jill Freedman

Abstract

It was peaceful in Jerusalem when Jill Freedman and I had this conversation in the early winter of 2010. Because of her vast experience, Jill, along with her husband Gene, has earned her place on the international peak of narrative psychotherapy. She had arrived from the Evanston Family Therapy Center in Chicago to this beautiful, multi-storied city in order to guide a week-long intensive seminar. The seminar focused on different applications and current developments in narrative therapy. As a teacher, Jill is known for walking her talk. While we were having this conversation, our Israeli colleague Chana Rachel Frumin was walking along with us as an outsider witness. TAPIO MALINEN: In the introduction of his book Interviews with Brief Therapy Experts (2001, p. xi), Michael Hoyt uses a beautiful and touching metaphor for interviewing. He feels that the interview is a mental place, where the process reflects on the content, the form is born out of meaning and the tool becomes the message. During this, people make different mind views together—inter-viewing. I really like this metaphor. How about it Jill, shall we start inter-viewing together? JILL FREEDMAN: Okay. I’d like to. TAPIO: Could you tell me something about your life around the first time you made contact with narrative therapy? What was the situation and the context like? JILL: It is actually a funny story, because I had no idea how important it would be. Gene and I had just moved from Chicago to St Louis. The move was very difficult for me, although I did not know it would be beforehand. It was difficult because in the Chicago area, I was well known. People wanted to see me in therapy, and I had lots of opportunities to teach. Then we moved to St Louis, and few people in the therapy community there knew me. I had to start over. I talked about this with a friend of mine, Jennifer Andrews. Now she lives Tapio Malinen is a psychologist working as a private practitioner in Finland. He teaches psychotherapy at the Helsinki Institute of Psychotherapy. Chana Rachel Furim is a founder of the Jerusalem Narrative Institute where she teaches narrative practices. She is also a Marital and Family Counselor working 30 years in the Jerusalem area. Address correspondence to Tapio Malinen, M.A. Helsinki Psychotherapy Institute, Elimaenkatu 9A 4krs, 00510 Helsinki. Email: tapio.malinen@tathata.fi