| What
is systemic psychotherapy? |
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| The
kind of psychotherapy I practice is called systemic, social
constructionist. It has emerged relatively recently,
and differs from other types of therapy in a number of ways. Some
things may seem strange to people who have some experience
of humanistic, body-centred or psychodynamic psychotherapy. Here
are some of the key features: |
|
Working
in teams
We work on the principle that
the more different perspectives there are in play the better. |
| Systemic therapy
has its roots in working with families, although the practice
now also covers couples, individuals and organisations. One
consequence of its origins in family therapy is that it has
not developed primarily by working one to one. |
| I usually work with
one other therapist. At KCC my co-worker sits behind a one-way
screen. She can see me and the client(s), but not vice
versa. At PACE, where we don't have a screen, my co-worker
sits in the same room as myself and the client. Either
way, usually about two-thirds of the way through the session
I and my co-worker have a chat, which can be overheard by
the client(s), about what has struck us so far. (We call
this a "reflecting team".) Afterwards I invite
the clients(s) to say what grabbed them about what we said.
This may sound weird, but most clients really take to it,
and look forward to this part of the proceedings. |
Less
frequent meetings
We don't assume that therapy
is going to be once (or more) a week indefinitely. We
tend to see clients at intervals of two to four weeks and
over a period of several months rather than years. However,
there are no strict rules about this. |
The
emphasis on relationships
We tend to place most emphasis
on the relationships our clients are in, and have been
in - not just families, but friends, colleagues and others. A
central idea is that it is in the process of relating that
we create ourselves and are created - or, in our parlance,
that we co-create ourselves and others. We are most
interested in what goes on between people. |
| But
surely all psychotherapy looks at people's relationships? Yes,
it does. So, perhaps it is a question of emphasis and
style rather than absolute difference with other schools. However,
traditionally the stories people have been encouraged to
tell in psychotherapy have been couched in terms of their
struggles as an individual, and often as struggles between
waring elements within themselves. By contrast, and
it may be just a different way of talking about similar things,
we are interested in the ideas people have about themselves
and about others, the ideas they have about the ideas others
have about them, and ideas from the wider society that are
in play. In particular, we are interested in the expectations
people have of others and what expectations they think others
have of them, and how these expectations have come into being. |
 |
|
Escher's Drawing Hands is
often used to illustrate the recursive nature of
social construction. We create our worlds and
are created by them.
|
An
emphasis on the social construction of social realities
Social constructionism proposes that realities are constructed
socially between people in communication over time. The
systemic approach is one that explores connections, networks
of relationships and communication patterns between individuals
and their significant relationships, and the beliefs that
give meaning to behaviour. We would say "There
are no incontrovertible social truths only stories about
the world that we tell ourselves and others." We
don't buy into the idea that we have fixed "selves". Rather
we would say, "The self is created within clusters
of conversations which are internalised and sorted in terms
of preference and called forth in other social conversations."
We talk a lot about stories and narratives. Developing
new stories and narratives that better suit our current
lives becomes the goal of therapy. We can reinvent
ourselves by developing new stories. The past can
be reframed - reinterpreted.
In retelling our stories, we, so to speak, let them out to
play. It is not a question about whether they are right
or wrong, but whether given some exercise they can rub shoulders
with each other, decide to rearrange themselves, develop
or change to different stories to live by.
This may all sound rather cerebral, and in a way it is with
its emphasis on stories, narratives, reframing, and language,
rather than emotional discharge. That's because we
don't see emotional display in therapy as especially important. |
A
different take of emotions
We don't think its necessary
to do lots of crying or cushion bashing. We certainly
don't have a model of some inner energetic process at work. If
clients cry it's fine, but therapy does not have to be
difficult or agonising. Ours is not a no-pain-no-gain
school of therapy. We don't set much store by ideas
like catharsis or regression. It is not necessary to "discover" or "relive" past
painful experiences. We tend to see emotions as a
part of communication - as part of the conversation. They
are important to acknowledge, but not to be privileged
over other parts of people's stories. |
Positive
framing or reframing, and no pathologising
We like to frame things positively. We
are very interested in people's dreams in the sense of
daydreams, future goals and desires and we like to encourage
these. We believe that long rehearsals of what has
gone wrong can get things more stuck where they are. We
like to look forward rather than backwards. "A
problem is a frustrated dream," we may say. |
We
ask lots of questions
We are rather proactive in
the therapy sessions. We tend to ask questions, rather
than let the client talk on for ages nodding sagely from
time to time. A lot of the questions we ask invite
the client to put themselves in a different position, to
speak from another's point of view, to get them to look
at things from a perspective they might not have previously
examined. Our aim is to create more perspectives
rather than to promote one perspective over others. |
| Our
questions can be difficult to answer, but I suspect that
what matters is that the client engages with the question
rather than that they have a ready answer. |
Therapist
transparency
We always try to be aware of
the way in which the therapists and clients together create
the conversation that takes place. However, we do
not set any store by ideas like transference. We
don't have to maintain an air of mystery or be remote. In
fact, we try to be as transparent as possible. We
are always looking for ways to dismantle the position of
power that the therapist has inevitably to some extent. We
like to encourage the clients' sense that they can control
the conversation. We like to ask then what they would
wish to get from each session, and to say how things are
going for them during the course of it. We often
ask them what they are especially liking about it, and
what could be different. |
| We
try never to presume that we know better than the client. We
will always explain our thinking if we are asked (and we
encourage these questions), or we may volunteer it. |
| We
try to join the client's grammar, as we say, which is to
try to work on the client's terms and in the client's terms
rather than on and in imposed terms. We are big on
not rushing to conclusions, being irreverent to our own ideas,
and not being too attached to our hypotheses. We try
always to be critical of our own ideas and aware that there
may be whole areas of our clients' experience that are very
different from our own by virtue of gender, age, ethnicity,
sexual orientation, etc. |
| Maybe all therapists
would make these sorts of claims. We like to believe
we try harder at it, and working in a team helps to keep
us on our toes too. |
updated
14 November 2004 |
