Therapist Confidential BONUS pt 1
00:00:00 Unknown: Hey, everybody, welcome to the Therapist Confidential Podcast. I'm your host, Travis Heath, and today I'm going to present the first part of a truly wonderful conversation I recently had with my friend Sanni Paljakka and Tom Stone Carlson. Where they discuss their new book, So You Want to Do Narrative Therapy. It's a great book, by the way. This conversation was moving and heartwarming, and I'm just so thrilled that you'll be able to hear it. All right, let's jump right in. What I want to do now is give you a brief introduction to Sanni and Tom. And I'm not going to read a bio that doesn't work so well for me. So I'm going to try to do an introduction from the heart. Uh, I first came into knowing Sanni from, um, the Narrative Collective, uh, in Calgary. And it was like no place that I've ever been. And I mean that sincerely, like I've been to a lot of training clinics, community mental health centers, and those are wonderful right away, by the way, they do great work. But the first thing that was different when I went there is it felt like I was in somebody's house. You know, the couches felt, um, not like therapy couches, but like couches in someone's home. Um, there was food. There was always food. People were baking. There were fresh baked cookies, like not. Nothing against buying food from stores, but like everything was fresh baked and there was food and it felt like I was at home. There were people wandering around with no shoes and it just felt like a, like a, like a home and. You know, then when I saw the work that they were doing, so there, there's this sense of homeliness and then there's this fierce, um, political, beautiful, heartfelt. Uh, soulful work that was happening. And I was, um, able to see some of the interactions between like supervisors and trainees and, uh, the dynamic felt alive. It felt. Reciprocal, it felt like everybody was benefiting from these exchanges. So it was, um, it was really an amazing place to be. And then, you know, the other thing when I think of Sanni is poetry. So you'll see in this webinar today that, um, Sanni writes, well, Sonny writes just poems, but also writes, uh, sort of poems after therapy sessions, right? To, to give to folks and, um, One thing I find about those poems is I'm often moved to tears by them. Sometimes I'm angry, you know, um, sometimes I feel joyful. Um, But I'm moved in a way that's different than just, you know, like a traditional narrative therapy letter, for example. Um, so the way that she brings her creativity and what feels like her full sense of who she is Uh, that's rooted in a deep care for people and kind of a challenge to the canon of therapy and of narrative therapy, uh, just gives me so much respect for Sanni. So Sanni Paljakka welcome. I'll talk quickly about Tom. You know, my brother from another mother. Um, I'd give you more stories if we had more time. Uh, we got to travel to Tom's homeland together and visit some of his family that in a, in a, Story that if I told you, you might not even believe that it was true when you heard the story in Norway together. So we bonded over that. And something about Tom's work is that Tom is so kind. And so generous and yet, uh, so fierce and so principled at the same time. And I don't know how he walks that line because I know therapists that are like fierce and they're principled and they're political. And they do awesome work. And sometimes I think like, um, but they're kind of mean, you know, which isn't always bad. No one, people don't have to be nice all the time. But Tom has this way of. Being principled and political in what he's doing and also being really, really kind, just a kind hearted human. And, you know, Tom is currently teaching at Alliant. International. He's the chair of like a couples and family therapy program, Tom, if I'm remembering that correctly, which keeps him busy there. Also, he's recently started up SoCal narrative therapy, which you can find a website for that. And I think What's interesting, y'all can tell me if I'm wrong, Tom, you do some work with the collective and Sonny, you do some work with like SoCal narrative therapy. I mean, in this amazing world that we're in that's digital, uh, it's really cool. And I should say that. Both of you do some work together, right? I don't think you do all of your work together all the time, but like with couples, for example, you work together with couples, which is really unique work. So this is Tom Carlson, Sanni Paljakka and the book, before we get started, the book is, uh, so you, oh, wait, wait, wait, I lost the title to the book. You can't lose the title to the book right now. So is it, so you said, so you want to do narrative therapy. I know the subtitle letters to an, uh, letters to an aspiring narrative therapist. I got to read this book before it was out to the public. Tom sent me a copy. And I'll tell you, um, and I don't just say this because I know Tom and Sanni. I would just say like, oh, it's a great book. Go get it. And that would be the end of it if I, you know, was just trying to plug it. But I started reading this book. It was like 1030 at night. And the way the book is formatted in terms of letters to aspiring narrative therapists, actual letters combined with transcripts and real therapeutic work. I was like, I'll read for ten minutes. And then it's like forty-five minutes later and I couldn't put the book down. Right. It was one of those kinds of books. And then I read it once and then I went back through it again. And it was, uh, the kind of book. That I wish I had when I was first coming into narrative therapy. I couldn't find a book like this. I found books that were like super theoretical. Um, philosophical and they were interesting, but the problem was I left those reading from reading those books and going like, I don't know if I can do narrative therapy. Right. But after reading, uh, the book that Sonny and Tom wrote together, I left going, uh, Wow. Like I can add as someone who aspires to use narrative practices. I can actually take some of what they're talking about and I feel like I can implement the spirit of what they're doing into my practice pretty seamlessly. So it was the book that I wanted twenty so years ago. Where were y'all back in 2004 when I was first Coming into narrative therapy, but for those of you coming into narrative therapy now, this is a great book to get also. For those who have been narrative therapists for quite some time, this is a great book to get because Sanni and Tom introduced some new ideas and new practices, a few of which we'll talk about momentarily. Okay. So here's kind of what I'm thinking for the setup today. I have a few questions that I want to pose to Sonny and Tom. And we'll kind of go through these questions because there's some, um, Probably just some, some things that we want to talk about to establish like why was the book written and all that fun stuff. But then there's also some new language, even for veteran narrative therapists, I'm willing to bet if you haven't read the book yet. That you may not be familiar with some of these terms and I actually think that they provide some really new possibilities and practice and narrative work. So we'll go over some of those and then Sanni and Tom will actually share a transcript Um, from the book. And so you'll get a sense. Again, something I really love about this book is it shows the work and a lot of books, uh, philosophize. They're theoretical, which I love that stuff. I could do that all day long, right? But you leave going like, okay, I understand the philosophy or the theory or the techniques and some approaches, but I don't know how the hell to do the work. Right. And so what's great about this book is that Sanni and Tom show the work and you can actually see how they do. Okay. So here's where I want to start. There are any number of books about narrative therapy. And there have been for decades at this point. Right. And so what I'm interested in is one. What's the purpose of this particular book? And two, like, why do we need another book on narrative therapy? What does this book offer us that maybe other books haven't? Maybe, maybe you'll take the second part. Okay, yeah, I'll do the second part. Okay. Well, that's a, that's a good question. I'll take the purpose. Ah, Travis, uh, well, um, the purpose of the book, I've been thinking about how Um, or I've been asked this question before, uh, the purpose of the book really, as briefly as I can say it, is to, was to return storytelling. To the heart of narrative practice, um, I've been learning that there's a bit of an, uh, of a of an arc to any number of distractions from the heart of the matter in all human endeavors. Um, but yeah, David Epstein said it right in his introduction, uh, to the book that the endeavor here was to Return, um, storytelling, I think he said, to its rightful place at the heart of narrative practice. And for me, this is, um, this is personal because Um, as a bit of a, you called it fierce, as an ardent person, uh, uh, there's hardly. Um, anything more depressing, uh, for me, uh, to watch than therapy sessions that are cast entirely in Uh, the grammar of whatever culturally favored jargon, uh, we have going, uh, cliches, therapy speak. Oh, I read that they now call it weaponized therapy speak, although I do not know how therapy speak uh, is useful to weaponry. Um, but, but, but I think it's very, it lends itself very usefully to uh, To be cleverly insulting and offensive to people cleverly. It's new. It's clever. It's not just the old fashioned belligerence we used to have, but yeah, it lends itself. Well, for, uh, to be insulting. Anyway, there's hardly anything more depressing than a conversation, um, in which A, absolutely nothing happens. Um, and B, that is devoid of life. Or you said the word soul, Travis, um, um, because I believe that we as therapists, we are tasked It doesn't matter what therapeutic persuasion we ascribe to or what kind of model we practice. I believe that as therapists, all of us, we're tasked to speak of life. Are we not? Of the things, and when I say life, I mean of the things that happen to us while they're happening. And um. And more than that, if we're tasked with life, I believe if we're gonna do our work well, we're tasked to speak, if we're gonna be ambitious about it, then we're tasked to speak about life, about the things that happen to us while they're happening. Um, if you're gonna do our work ambitiously, it's laid at our feet that we should speak of life experiences in ways that, um, Opens up new perspectives on our own history as a human being. And, uh, that also, um, uh. Open up new ideas about how, um. We might proceed to our future so it's a new perspective on history but also on the future and also to speak of life in a way that would help us as human beings to re-engage with our. What I would say our morals, another way of saying that is our conscience, our promises, the commitments we've made, or some people say ethics, our purposes. And that we have all but forsaken. So to speak of life in a way, um, um, that would help us re-engage with, um, forsaken, all but forsaken ethics. And for me, this is very important. Um, I just saw a client imagine, um, you no longer have a life. A life experience, but you have a medical condition, a label. Suffering is medicalized in this way. For example, a current client of mine, he came in And, uh, he said to me that, um, his husband of seven years, uh, and Incandescent person, ugly club leader, a larger than life person had died seven days ago, um, uh, unexpectedly. And imagine you no longer have a life, but you have a medical condition called grief, and it comes with a nifty little pill to soothe your distress about this. So the one thing I knew before writing the book and I still know is I know what the meaning of therapy is not. It's not a business. It's not a toolbox. It's not a technique. It's not a trick. It's not a neat merchandising. It's not a simple answer. to a complex question before the question has even left your mouth, and it is certainly not an endeavor to render people to become better, um. Uh, at being little middle class consumers from whom all questions have been removed. Therapy is meant to Of all persuasions, therapy is meant to return the big questions to the heart of life, which is how are we living? Why am I, um. Feeling this? Why am I thinking this? Why am I doing this? Is there something I could do that's better? And this is the... This is the endeavor of the book because I believe that descriptions of lived experience, which in narrative therapy we call stories, But they're really descriptions of lived experience are the best way to get close to answering questions about our life on this planet. Yeah. That's the first part, the purpose. That's what's the purpose, yes, nice, yeah. And the second part. So why do we, why do we need a book? Another book on narrative therapy, Tom? A new book on narrative therapy, yeah. Well, I think uh, for some of the reasons Sanni's talking about um, but I think uh, we need a new book on narrative therapy because uh, Because in our contemporary culture, things have changed a little bit since, uh, David Epson and Michael White created narrative therapy in terms of, uh, In our kind of current neoliberal times, things have changed. When David and Michael developed narrative therapy and they developed the idea of a problem story, right? At that time, and even when I started practicing too, uh, people did not want their labels. People did not want to be identified with a diagnosis or a problem, right? Uh, and things have changed in, in our current culture. People cling to labels, they come to therapy asking for them, wanting them, as if they offer some kind of validation of what it, for their, for their kind of struggles in life, their human suffering, what they're going through. And so I think this dramatic shift in our contemporary culture as neoliberalism has encouraged people to take up labels, explanatory labels, Medical labels in, um, Over their own actual lived experiences, their own actual stories, their own actual, uh, terms and definitions of what they're going through, descriptions of what they're going through, uh, We need a new way. We need a new way to, uh, um, to do narrative therapy. Um, and you know, the other, the other piece to that is that, um, In our, kind of in our contemporary culture too, um, it used to be that people, that the dominant The dominant languages or the dominant discourses that were available to people were kind of pathologizing in nature, mostly, that they told people that they had a also a medical condition. But with the advance of the way psychology and therapy fields have advanced, I don't think this is something that David and Michael could have imagined maybe. Is that now it's not just that people are pathologized by giving a medical diagnosis of something for their condition, right? But therapy now tells people how they ought to live. It prescribes a life that you're supposed to live as a good person in this world, a happy person in this world, a productive. And these ideas are just as oppressive. As the, the so-called pathologizing kinds of ideas that it gets, it whips people into This gymnastics of trying to be a better person according to some psychological understanding of what it means to be a person. So I think both of these reasons uh, We need a new book. What does it mean to do narrative therapy in an age where people want and cling to their labels? And what does it mean to do narrative therapy in an age when Um, the dominant movement is to, um, More and more explain away regular human experiences, regular human discomfort, regular human suffering as a medical disorder. And, and what does that say about who people are? You know that um aren't people uh, protagonists, moral agents, philosophers who are wrestling with dilemmas and questions about what it means to be a person in this world. So those are some of the reasons why. Those are some of the reasons why we need a new book. What does narrative therapy look like in this age? I, uh, I've written down a lot of notes. I could ask you nineteen follow-up questions. I will refrain from doing that because there's so much that's interesting and, um, that I want to know more about. But part of what you're talking about now is Kind of a classical narrative therapy, right? And now maybe we're stepping into more of a contemporary form of narrative therapy, which at one point in time will become a classical form, another classical form of narrative therapy. This is, this is what happens, right? But right now it's a contemporary form. And one thing about this book is that it introduces some new language that even veteran narrative therapists may not be aware of. Some new language, new concepts, new ideas. And I'm wondering on the heels of what you just said, if you can speak to this a little bit, like what's, what's the need for some of these new terms and, and concepts that you introduce? Well, I think, uh, I think maybe we have, uh, as times, uh, have progressed, we've inherited a problem. From uh, Michael White and David Epstein and the problem is what even is a problem. That's uh, we are heirs to uh, to a problem or heirs to an argument. One of the things I saw, the reason for writing this book was also the work of the therapist who I was tasked with. Supervising and training along the way was that the terms that David and Michael proposed a problem story and alternative story. They lend themselves, um, unintentionally, uh, to the progress of, um, of a, of a strange binary. That, uh, problems are, uh, negative and alternative stories are positive stories. And this, and this binary became one of the, one of the, um, One of the, how shall I say, one of my great dragons in life, uh, to meet in, uh, in aspiring therapists work, um, to not settle so quickly. On assuming that we know what a problem is and then to quickly, ah, ah, separate the person from the problem and start vanquishing the problem. Before we even know whether it is a problem and so the term problem story did not mean to do this. But this is the joining of the cultural movement to simplify the world into good and bad, into positive and negative. into uh, resilient and broken into binaries such as these that the, that the word problem story became identified with anything negative. Right. But in this vein of thought, my client, uh, whose husband passed away, um, this would be a problem story. Right. And he should then battle his grief. Um, and find ways, uh, to, uh, when he's free of the grief. And even if people did not mean to do this work, this is the work that they do. So for example, A very common example that I've often railed against because it's, uh, it's so common is, um, A person comes in and they say they have some kind of medicalized label for this, but basically they're struggling with anger. Or with, uh, and this is, I see, uh, adults here. And, um, so let's say, uh, it's a person assigned female at birth or a woman. So women being basically diagnosed with temper tantrums. Adult women, without the therapist asking a, um, a... A question that has been surprisingly difficult to teach people to ask, which is if a person says, well, I get so mad. What is the question that any curious person with their mind intact would still ask? Is what pisses you off in life, dear? Right? We shall ask what, and then we shall find out what makes her mad in life and then we can, in the form of lived experiences, and then we find out there are thousands of things to be angry about. And whether or not it is such a good idea to separate her from her anger or not as a temper tantrum that she ought to look for. Moments away from or from ways of resisting that oftentimes that she ought not to be separated because the anger, tada, is not a problem. So I believe we've. Inherited, um, uh, a bit of a problem or a bit of a dilemma. So in to address this, uh, in the book, um, In a way, perhaps, I took the term problem story and divided it in two to say that there is first an unstory And once you story and unstory of the many moments you could tell, can you tell me a story when you get so fiercely angry? Right? And can you tell me another when you get so fiercely mad that your blood is up and you want to stick it to a couple people, right? However, we want to say that, like, darling, tell me, tell me, think of me as one who has passed through some life experience as well, not yours, but I shall endeavor to. Uh, find out with you what makes you so angry in life. So, uh, this is the turning from an un-story, meaning, uh, I have some, uh, medicalized label, often borderline personality disorder, something like this. That is then turned into what pisses you off in life in the form of descriptions of lived experiences. And so the first term is an un-story. And that becomes storied. And when it becomes storied, it becomes an up-again story. Do you wanna? Yeah, maybe, maybe we should talk a little bit about, uh, What an unstory is and why we needed a definition of an unstory. Um, so, um, one, this is just one Back to the question about why the new terms after this is a little bit of a joke from David Epstein, but David Epstein told the story about how before Michael's Michael's death, they decided they kind of narrative therapy had become a little stale in some way. And that they needed or at least wrote and they needed to start all over again and come up with new ideas and new terms and David always says this way that. Language words have a shelf like shelf life, just like food has a shelf life. Right, um, unless it's a Twinkie, then it's no shelf life, but those of you who know what a Twinkie is, right, but anyway. Um, uh, but that words have a shelf life and the shelf life of a word or a term is about twenty years is what David says. And then when words are originally introduced, new language is like a metaphor. It's, and it's alive and it inspires us and we, wow, that word really prompts me to think. And to think differently. But over time, when words get used and used in the metaphorical status of words goes away. They become stale. They lose their magic. They lose their ability to aspire and we start to follow them as if they're a rule. Right? And so David was saying, hey, everybody, we need to develop new language, new terms for what it is that we're doing in narrative therapy to return It returned the spirit of imagination and adventure, but also the political significance of the work that they're doing and that meets the challenges of our contemporary times. And so David kind of sent a Many of us on a mission to find new terms. And so, uh, hence we've introduced some new terms and we think these terms are really important. Sanni introduced the term unstory earlier and, um, And uh, um, most narrative therapists are familiar with the term problem story. Um, uh, and Sonny was talking about how unfortunately that means people have think that problem story is negative and alternative story is a positive story. Uh, but I don't know in our contemporary times if people come to therapy with a problem story and they come to therapy with no story at all. All they have is a label. All they have is a label, a diagnosis that strips all political context, all social conditions, right? So the context of the creation of the struggle That a person, a human being is suffering from has been replaced with a hollow label. That's the definition of an unstory is that it's. A story that is characterless, plotless, plotless rhetoric that strips away all political context, all social conditions, all contextual variables of a person's life, of human experience. And replaces it with a hollow label. And so this is the first thing that we often meet as therapists, as narrative therapists, not with a problem story. But with a label and you ask people why they're in therapy, the common answer now is I have something. I have trauma. I have depression. This is a label people give to us. They've turned over their lives. To a label. So, uh, hence we've introduced the word unstory, uh, and hopefully it might make sense that the logical response to an unstory. I asked my students this last night, what's the logical response to an unstory? Hoping that this is a very easy answer. Uh, story? Yes. Their life back inside the context in which the struggle was created inside the story of their lived experience, hence the need for that new term, right, in particular, but. No, I, I appreciate that and I think I appreciate what Sanni was talking about earlier about this getting out of this good bad dichotomy because I feel like there are on the stories even for good terms right like. Uh, well, why are you coming to therapy? People say, well, I need to be more resilient or I want growth, right? And these are un-stories as well. I mean, I think, um, they may represent Someone's ethics or their, you know, what, what's important to them, but they, it's not located in any kind of story, right? It's a label to tell someone they're not resilient enough, right? That's a label of sorts, or you need to become more resilient. Um, yeah, I actually, when I read this in the book and we had talked some about it at other times, I found this to be really important, this notion of un-story, almost fundamental to what we're seeing now in the modern, in the modern world. There's there's something there's a couple of others I want to talk about and then I want to make sure we have ample time to share a transcript but there's a whole chapter called when and boy this ruffles some narrative feathers so I was here for it. Uh, you said a whole chapter called when externalizing internalizes, right? And so I think, first of all, I think most people, when they think of narrative therapy, they're like, oh, externalization. Right. I was doing a workshop in Texas this weekend when I bring up narrative to some of the students. Oh, it's externalization. Right. And this felt like a little bit of a challenge to that. Right. Because, uh, You point point out some problems with externalizing conversations. And I'm wondering if you can speak some more to why this notion of external when externalizing internalizes is important to you. I mean, it was a whole chapter, right? So this seems fundamental as well. Yeah. Do you want me to take that and then we'll just see how that goes? Yeah. Well, I think this is another reason why We needed to, there needs to be maybe a contemporary narrative therapy too, is over time, um, uh, people took up narrative therapy in ways that simplified it. Um, And, um, I'm going to say this word cutified it. Um, and removed it from its philosophical and political contents. And people started using externalizing conversations, um, that are, are decidedly, decidedly political practice that is meant to, uh, counter The ways that human beings and human beings lived experience and people are turned into objects by, by, um. By uh, modern society, by psychology, right? By turning to audiences. It was a practice that was developed to counter this, right? Um, and people started taking up externalizing conversations just as a cute little practice as this, it was the definition of what narrative therapy is as if it had nothing to do. With being just one of many means to help people develop a rich story about their life. They forgot that it's actually narrative therapies about rich story development and not externalizing problems, right? Um, and quickly when someone said, I'm struggling, I'm, I'm here because I'm struggling with depression or whatever, anxiety, whatever. A narrative therapist started to just quickly externalize it and say, oh, what does the depression want for your life? What is it trying to get you to do, right? Um, quickly doing that. What is its color? What is, what is its color, right? Somehow, somehow people ask, what's the color of every problem, right? Michael, I did ask that question once in a therapy book in maps of narrative practice, but he asked it because the boy on the ground was playing with crayon. No, he dumped out a number of crayons and wasn't answering quick. And then Michael was like, Jeffrey, quick, what color is the depression? Because he was. Right. But meaning that that doesn't mean every narrative therapist should ask about the color of a problem, right? Anyway, that's what I mean by simplified, cutified. But what happens when you do externalizing in this way? If you say, well, to quickly put people in the position of vanquishing a problem without yet knowing whether it's a problem or a living response, To a person's mistreatment in the world, a living response to their longings and desires gone missing. Um, what happens is we're doing nothing. We're just doing basically a narrative version of cognitive behavioral therapy. And we are rendering people's lives into a narrative diagnosis that in some ways is Harder to overcome, uh, than the, than the actual diagnosis to, uh, to give acute name, uh, to. A woman's anger problem without understanding what she's so mad about and give it a cute name. I've seen, I've seen countless transcripts where problems are now given like ships, a woman's name, a random woman's name. Like, Mallory is the problem and I'm like, Mallory, what do you mean? But they are named after ships now. Yes, as a, as a, as a weird aberration of this in terms of. And, and what, what, what does it mean externalizing was meant to be like what Tom says, a practice, a means to talking about life as it is happening to us, but it is used. For the purposes of rendering a diagnosis of a problem that we can quickly resist and vanquish without understanding. It's meant in a way the way a lot of therapy suffers with these days is this to give Simple answers, uh, to complex, um, questions of living and there and externalizing was the, uh, uh, it was, uh, rendered into a technique that would lend itself perfectly to, um, to give very simplistic answers. Um, to very complex questions without caring about the question that the person carries with them. So for me, uh, I think of, um, I think of people as coming to therapy, um, I know what they say, uh, is, uh, they talk about their own story, their label, um, uh, at first, but I believe that every person coming to see me in therapy does have a question. For living, but we must be patient in, um, in posing the question for living well. People don't have a problem to overcome. They have a question or a dilemma, a dilemma to live. Right. And if we jump too quickly into it, externalizing a problem before knowing if it's a problem or If it's a cultural prescription that a person feels pressed to follow. If, for example, uh, people come to therapy these days, like, uh, maybe women most likely come to therapy to work on emotional regulation or anger problems. For example, um, sometimes it might be the case that a person has an, how they express anger problem, but oftentimes, um, uh, The idea that a woman's anger is a problem is a particular cultural construction that benefits certain people. Um, like myself, right? That benefits men, right? And when you quickly externalize a problem and say, oh, anger, uh, what are some ways you can overcome anger? Uh, in your life, what you've done is diagnosed the person with an anger problem. Um, and my, there's the famous quote in narrative therapy that the person's not the problem, the problem is the problem. And I have another one I've added here because of our contemporary times. Um, the person's not the problem. The problem's not the problem. The very idea that you think you have a problem just might be the problem. And before we settle on is anger really a problem, we want to ask. Into it, to come to understand, put it inside a story. And what we might find is that anger might be a living response to misogyny, for example, right? And so Still, yes, use externalizing conversations, but ask this, for example, before we settle on the idea that anger is a problem. When the rise of anger came to you in this moment, if it had a message for you or a counsel of some kind for you, What was its counsel? What was it trying to tell you about what you might not have been okay with? This is still an externalizing conversation, but it is meant to understand, not meant to vanquish a problem. Narrative therapy was never meant as a therapy that's about helping people overcome problems. That's other therapies. The goal of narrative therapy is not to do that. It's to help people enter into rich stories. Rich stories that are informed by their, their aims, their moral purposes, their ethics in living, but it's not to vanquish a problem. Well, I believe other therapies mean to reframe problems. That is, uh, that is the aim of most therapies to reframe problems. Um, but the aim of narrative therapy is to reposition a person in relation to their problems. And this, um, uh, yeah, this requires a certain amount of, um, Cultural insubordination. Not going along with the press of. Yes, don't go along with the new prescriptive diagnoses that are meant to tell people how to live a good life. Yeah. And something that I'm hearing then is that if narrative therapy wasn't careful, and I think narrative therapy hasn't always been careful. Narrative therapy was recreating some of the same damaging habits that it was originally speaking out against unwittingly, of course. Yeah. And I, I feel like often, um, When whatever sort of models drive our approach, if we're not careful, we take the position that, oh, our model's the one good, true model. And what I appreciate about this is there was some interrogation of narrative work and what it's become, not intentionally. No one did this purposefully, right? In some ways, how could it end up any other way? The culture helped shape narrative therapy. Once narrative therapy got into the culture, the culture helped shape it and And un-story it in some ways, unfortunately. Um, there's one other... Oh, go ahead, go ahead, Sanni Yeah, thank you, Travis. Yeah, the, sometimes I, sometimes I've, um, Let's say I've seen clients who, uh, who have been working with a narrative therapist, um, and the most common, um, Most common, uh, diagnosis that narrative therapists render, uh, there's others, but the most common one is the critic. So they come to me, uh, and say, I have a critic, the critic. And sometimes they have a name for it. How is this any different from having cognitive distortions, right? And the critic turns out to be exactly like Cognitive distortions. And, uh, I don't care about the critic. I don't care about cognitive distortions. I want to know in what moments do you not think clearly? Like, what do you mean? Tell me of your living. Like, uh, tell me of your life when you feel that you're, if, if you have the critic, like, tell me of a moment, like, like the critic what and what happens and I find out that when you said it in real life. That you will find out that people ask themselves very good questions about living and what really grinds my gears about About simple answers, narrative diagnoses, diagnoses of any kind, labels. Is that they, um, they colonize people's lives, uh, um, make people forget that they have lives, that they don't have disorders as much as they have a life. And that it makes the very thing that they're struggling with unrespondable. The critic is unrespondable. Just as a cognitive distortion is unrespondable, a depression is unrespondable, but a person struggling with talking with their partner about the amount of chores is respondable. Uh, a person, um, uh, a person, uh, with, we talked about anger, a person who gets Very unfeisty in a fight, right? Uh, whenever certain, um, whenever certain things, uh, certain Fighting tactics are used and they just lose their shit. That is responsible, right? That is not borderline personality disorder. This is a responsible dilemma of people learning to fight well. To negotiate differing wants, it becomes interesting once people have differing wants in a relationship, any relationship, a couple relationship or at work. And they have different and opposing ones and now we must negotiate and people get feisty and fiery about their opinions. This is a responsible dilemma. And which one of us here can say we hold the keys to paradise as in we never get fiery when all our wants are afforded in life, or we never get uh, very, very melancholy uh, when um. When, um, in, uh, the dead of a blue night, uh, all the questions come to us about whether we did do such a good job. About something in particular, which the critic, whatever the critic is, likes to question us about, oh, did I do such a good job at that? Maybe we could use to criticize ourselves a bit more. Well, I believe, I believe so, but the minute it is, it is now the critic called Mallory, you know, this becomes, this becomes just a, ah, just another. That metaphor for something that was alive and behind the dead metaphor, however, is something that is alive, a question. That a person holds like, how can I fight well with my lover? How can I hold my heart when the love of my life died and try again? How does anybody? Do that. That's, that's what we mean by, yeah. What if my, what if my partner wants to open a relationship and I'm bloody. I'm bloody jealous monogamous person like, uh, like, and, and, and, and she wants this, this kind of openness. Like, how do we live with opposing ones? How do I negotiate what I want? What is it that I desire? And how do I say it at work? Yeah. In the realm of work or in the realm of love. There's a good example in, uh, in the book, but, um, about this, and I know Travis, you have another question and we have a transcript. Just very quickly that if we just side with something like a person has depression. Yeah. And we start to externalize it rather than understand it. And can you tell me, put it in a story, can you tell me when something like depression comes for you? And you start asking it about their everyday life. In the book it tells the story of Sanni's work with someone named Alicia and Sanni didn't do what narrative therapists have come to do and Travis what I would say is narrative therapy never did this narrative therapists did this to narrative therapy. Narrative therapy never meant, Michael never meant this, right? So this is kind of why David's saying returning to the heart of it, but um. But, uh, so if we just say I have depressed, the question is depression in relation to what? What is it that's happening in your life that might be worthy of bringing on a feeling of love? And the story leads to finding out that this woman, uh, this woman, what really is happening, what brings this great low is that her grandmother in this metaphor is on the other side of the river. And there's something really important she needs to tell her grandmother before she dies. And I had, and it's hard and it brings a low on me because I need to tell my Catholic grandmother that I'm gay. Now, does she have depression? Or does she have a very important question for living that, that, that is begging her to be answered. And when we just externalize a problem, what we've done is we removed people's questions for living. Problems call us into a question. Right? And so, uh, this is kind of why we're saying, hey, we need to think not in terms of problem story anymore, but an un-story. Put people's lives back inside a story so they can now begin to respond To the question that their life is being asked. Yes. In neoliberal times, I do believe the most radical thing we can do is ask this of people. To ask what happened there. Uh, uh, tell me of a moment when something like this happens, uh, to, uh, and, and it works like Travis, you were saying this works not just, uh, with prop, uh, with something that we might call a problem. But sometimes I said to my team, kind of to practice this way of curiosity, okay, well, let's play, shall we? Pretend I'm a Martian. Tell me, uh, I don't know anything about life on earth. Tell me what is a kiss. Tell me why people do that. Tell me what is a road trip. Tell me. Explain to me, describe to me a road trip and perhaps this road trip happens with your dying dad who has a month left. But tell me of a road trip first of all, right? Like it is, and this is the great endeavor we find ourselves in is And also this spark about to speak of life as it is happening, right? And people get bogged down with, yeah, but But these are, these are difficult endeavors. Tell me of a moment of depression, but I don't see it as any different as tell me of a moment of a kiss. Or a falling in love or a road trip with, uh. But in your own words. In your own words, uh, relying on jargon and, and pretend I'm a Martian and I don't know anything. And all I, as the therapist, have to do is. To match your descriptions, the halting descriptions are second best words to describe this thing that we're all part of a life. With a curiosity, right? And that is part of the neoliberal turn and our times, but it is not new to our times, is in curiosity. As in something, something makes people in curious about their lives or the lives of others. And this is maybe what this book is, uh, is meant to instill more than anything, uh, this, um, attitude of, uh, Of, of curiosity, uh, to care how people live, um, and to care to find the words, uh, to this endeavor that we share siblings in the world. Yeah. To describe life as it is happening to all of us, yes. I want to make sure there's time for this transcript. I want to center this because I want people to be able to see your work. I have a few other questions I'm monitoring some questions that are coming up from some of the folks that are joining us in community today. Maybe we can get to some of those as well. I see some really interesting ones. Is it all right if I, um, pass it to you now, I believe we'll be, um, hearing from Maddie is the name of the person in the transcript. Yes. Yeah, and I'll just maybe super quickly say one thing that I think will be helpful is one of the other concepts we talk about is the idea of an agent of turn in narrative therapy. And I always joke about, I literally just mean, I mean this, just turn. And narrative therapy is famous for telling us who the person is not. The person is not the problem. Right, but we haven't done very well at telling us who the person is. And, um, if narrative therapy is based on literary theory, right, um, Then who is the person in narrative therapy? Well, the person at the center, the central character of a novel, a story is a protagonist. And the narrative turn, the agent of turn is a, uh, about when people come to therapy, they often have a half story and that story beginning story is what happened to me in life. And that's a story of a person who's passively received the events of life. The agent of turn is simply remembering your client as a protagonist. Putting the protagonist back in the story, protagonists are always responding. They're responding to life. They're responding to what they're up against. They're designing life. They're shaping life. We don't have time. They're shaping life according to their desire. Yes. And according to their conscience. Right. Uh, so I think, I think this is the other part of the issue of some of the, um, shall we say the unfinished projects of narrative therapy is, uh, is this. Part where narrative therapy, even when they get beyond labels, that we sometimes tell half stories and exclude the protagonist and how they're, how they're shaping the proceedings, how they're shaping this planet. And the moral foundation upon which this, this, uh, their shaping action, their desires, uh, are founded. And, uh, and this is also the press of the book. Yeah. Yeah. So that is, what is, what's the response? What did the person do on purpose in response to what they've been up against in life? And you'll see this come out in the transcript. So this is the side of the story that narrative therapists need to do better at is. Who are you? You're a protagonist, right? A protagonist is always responding and they're responding on purpose based on their moral commitments, values, longings, desires. So how did you respond? In the face of what you've been up against and that's what you'll see in the Maddy transcript.
