Family Therapy in brief

The 'story' provides the map from which the
territory can be explored.

But the map is always an approximation.
It can never match reality for accuracy.

What can you see from where you are.  The real thing is
better than the map.  But is it?  I can only see 'one' view.

Who am I listening to?

So what’s the story?  (Who owns that story?)  Any other stories?  You've got amendments to the stories?  Where does that story come from? (Who’s line is it anyway?)

"Good Question!"

Good questions unlock doors…– or are they just stiff-  or have never been opened before?  –Perhaps it’s already open? As a father once said to me

     “Push where the door is”

Circulate questions and Reflexive question

“Questions that make you get out of your seat and move around.”

Linear- constructive-direct with single answers.    Circular- liberating-open, with many answers.

Strategic- constraining ‘on the spot.’      Reflexive- generating- ‘reflecting on.’

Goals and Outcomes

We are interested in what the family wants.

–How much is the this the same?  Different?

–How will we know when we’re arriving?

–Like a destination on a map.  We won’t know until we get there.

Know Yourself

Self-Reflexivity - That’s me!  That’s you… That’s both of us..

Flexible Thinking

Stories… repeated often…hardening…becoming fact.

A consensuses builds up about the story.  It becomes part of our fabric.  Like the road we walk on.  We are in danger of stopping ending our need to think

    about it.

What about Jim Wilson (2007) The Performance of Practice

Scale One

–Systemic Humility vs Passionate Conviction  

Scale Two 

–Spontaneity vs Forward Planning                   

Scale Three 

–Simplicity and Complexity                             

Scale Four  

–Seriousness vs Playfulness                               

Scale Five 

–Emotional Closeness vs Distance                      

Scale Six 

              -Advocacy vs Curiosity