The Willow And The Oak: From Monologue To Dialogue In The Scaffolding Of Therapeutic Conversations

Abstract

This article draws on a case study of a narrative therapy session to explore issues related to relational responsiveness in therapeutic conversations. The central question posed, is “How is it possible to both honor client expertise while also bringing discursive ideas and processes (such as narrative externalizing) to the conversation?” Drawing on Bakhtin and Vygotsky, the authors suggest that externalizing can be understood as a speech genre which furnishes a scaffolding for constructing meaning, and that this practice promotes a move from monologue to dialogue in relation to problem experience. They also caution that this or any practice designed to “promote dialogue” paradoxically does the contrary when the therapist is not responsive to the client. Using segments of a transcribed session and post-session interviews with therapist and client, the authors portray a linguistic shift from oppositional to accommodative metaphors more in keeping with the client’s preferred relationship with her experience. The authors conclude that it is not therapist expertise per se, but the failure to engage in a relationally responsive manner, that constrains the possibility of therapeutic dialogue. This article explores a conversational conundrum experienced by therapeutic practitioners. It hinges on the challenge of both privileging clients’ meaning making while also bringing certain conceptual resources to a dialogue. In a sense, this dilemma pivots on the notion of expertise: how to balance client knowledges with therapist knowledges, how to make room for two traditions (Gadamer, 1975) in the construction of new ways of going forward?