THE HEART AND SPIRIT OF
COLLABORATIVE THERAPY:
THE PHILOSOPHICAL STANCE
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PASTORAL COUNSELORS
2012 Annual Conference
“Construction & Collaboration: Pathways to the Future”
Harlene Anderson, Ph.D.
Houston Galveston Institute
Taos Institute
harleneanderson@earthlink.net ▪ www.harleneanderson.org
A Postmodern Tapestry:
7 Perspective-orienting
Assumptions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Maintaining skepticism
Avoiding generalizations
Privileging local knowledge
Knowledge as interactive social process
Language as a creative social process
Knowledge & language as transforming
Everyday ordinary life
A Philosophical Stance
A way of being ‘with’
(not a technique or method)

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A posture, an attitude, and a tone that reflects a way of
being in relationship and conversation with people,
including a way of thinking, talking, acting, and being
responsive with them.
Consistent with this view, the philosophical stance
becomes a philosophy of life—a worldview that does not
separate professional and personal.
Implications for System & Process

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Human systems are language, meaninggenerating systems.
Process is dynamic, evolving and nonformulaic.
Focus shifts from the “individual” or “group”
to “person(s)-in-relationship.”
Focus shifts from thinking about
systems to “thinking systemically.”
Collaborative Relationship

A particular way in which we orient ourselves
to be, respond and act with another person
that invites the other into shared
engagement and joint action.

A relationship in which people connect,
collaborate and create with each other.

A social activity—a community--that requires a
sense of belonging, participating and owning for
all participants.
Dialogical Conversation


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Dialogue is a process of trying to understand and
through it, new meanings and thus new
possibilities emerge.
Participants engage in a mutual or shared inquiry
about the issues at hand: jointly examining,
questioning, wondering, reflecting, etc.
Dialogue involves any form of expression—outer
and inner talk—words, symbols, gestures.
Elements of Possibility Conversations

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Appreciate and equally value the expertise,
truth, knowledge and experience that each
person brings.
Approach each relationship and situation as
unique, as if meeting it for the first time.
Allow the client to be center stage.
Offer questions, opinions, speculations or
suggestions as way of participating in the
conversation and in a tentative manner.
Elements of Possibility Conversations




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Understanding is an active process, not a
passive one
Rather than understanding another person’s
words from a theory, try to understand by
responding to learn.
Do not assume or understand too quickly, but
rather as a curious learner.
Check-out to see if you have heard what the
other wants you to hear.
Develop local understandings that come from
within the conversation.
Elements of Possibility Conversations

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Keep inquiry within the parameters of the
client’s agenda.
Entertain multiple and contradictory ideas
simultaneously.
Use coherent language.
Listen, speak and hear responsively.
Maintain an inner dialogue (not monologue) with
one’s self, as a first step toward dialogue.
Problems Dissolve in Dialogue
“Dialogue is the condition for the emergence of new
meaning.”
Mikhail Bakhtin
“. . . not to solve what had been seen as a problem, but to
develop from our new reactions new socially intelligible
ways forward, in which the old problems become
irrelevant.”
John Shotter
“Problems are not solved but dissolved in language.”
Anderson & Goolishian
What can I read?
Anderson, H. (2005) The myths of “not-knowing.” Family Process. 44(4):497-504.
Anderson, H. (2001) Postmodern collaborative and person-centered therapies: What would Carl Rogers
say? Journal of Family Therapy. 23:339-360.
Anderson, H. (2000) Supervision as a collaborative learning community. American Association for
Marriage and Family Therapy Supervision Bulletin. Fall 2000:7-10.
Anderson, H. (1999) Collaborative Learning Communities: In S. McNamee & K. J. Gergen (Eds.).
Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Anderson, H. (1997) Conversation, Language and Possibilities: A Postmodern Approach to
Therapy. New York: Basic Books.
Anderson, H. & Burney, P. (1997) Collaborative inquiry. Human Systems: The Journal of Systemic
Consultation and Management. 7(2-3):177-189.
Anderson, H., Carleton, C. & Swim, S. (1998) A postmodern perspective on relational intimacy: A
collaborative conversation and relationship with a couples. In. J. Carlson & L. Sperry (Eds.). The
Intimate Couple. Brunner-Mazel: New York.
Anderson, H. & Gehart, D. (2007) Collaborative Therapy: Relationships and Conversations that
make A Difference. New York: Routledge.
Anderson, H. & Jensen, P. (2007) Innovations in the Reflecting Process: The Inspiration of Tom
Andersen. London: Karnac.
Bakhtin, M. (1986) Speech, Genre and Other Late Essays (W. McGee, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas
Press.
Blaine-Wallace, W. (2011). Post Christian pastoral care: the wisdom of not knowing. The Journal of
Pastoral Care & Counseling: 65/1-2(5.1-8), 1542-3050.
More Readings
Block, P. (2008). Community: The structure of belonging. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-koehler Publishers,
Inc.
Brafman, O. & Beckstrom, R.A. (2006) The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of
Leaderless Organizations. New York: Penguin.
De Haene, L. (2010) Beyond divisions: Convergence between postmodern Qualitative research and
family therapy. Journal of Marital & Family Therapy. 36(1)1-12.
Gadamer, H-G. (1975) Truth and Method. New York: Seabury.
Gergen, K.J. (1999) An invitation to social construction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Goolishian, H.A. & Anderson, H. (2002) Narrative and self: Some postmodern dilemmas of
psychotherapy. In D.S. Fried Schnitman & J. Schnitman (Eds.), New Paradigms, Culture and
Subjectivities (pp. 217-228) New York: Hampton Press.
Hacking, I. (1999) The social Construction of What. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hoffman, L. (2002) Family Therapy: An Intimate History. New York: Norton.
Kotze, D. Myburg, J, Roux, J. & Associates. (2002). Ethical ways of being. Pretorai, South Africa: Ethics
Alive (The Institute for Therapeutic Development.
McNamee, S. & Gergen. K.J. (1999) Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Marshall, J. (2000). Teaching pastoral theology: The implications of postmodernity for graduate
programs“. Journal of Pastoral Theology 10 : 47-63.
Marshall, J. & Reason, P. (1993) Adult learning in collaborative action research: Reflections on the
supervision a process. Studies in Continuing Education. 15(2)117-132.
More Readings
Mezirow, Jack & Associates. (2000) Learning as Transformation: Critical Perspectives on a Theory in
Progress. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Schon, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic
Books.
Seikkula, J. & Olson, M. (2003) The open dialogue approach to acute psychosis. Family Process,
42:403-418.
Sermijn, J., Devlieger, P. & Loots, G. (2008) The narrative construction of the self: Selfhood as a
rhizomatic story. Qualitative Inquiry. http://qix.sagepub.com.
Shotter, J. (2011) Instead of ‘cool reason’: ‘Systemic thinking’ and ‘thinking about systems’. Paper
presented at the 2011 European Family Therapy Association Annual Conference.
Shotter, J. (2008) Conversational Realities Revisited: Life, Language, Body and World. Chagrin Falls,
OH: Taos Institute Publications.
Trevarthen, C. (2004) Learning about ourselves from children: Why a growing human brain needs
interesting companions. Research and Clinical Centre for Child Development Annual report 20022003 (No. 26, 9-44). Hokkaido University: Graduate School of Education.
Vygotsky, L. (1986) Thought & Language. Trans. Newly revised by Alex Kozulin. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.
See: “Publications” on www.harleneanderson.org and www.access-success.com
See: Dissertations: Janice DeFehr and Bill Blaine Wallace http://www.taosinstitute.net/manuscripts-for-downloading
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF
COLLABORATIVE PRACTICES
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harleneanderson@earthlink.net ▪ www.harleneanderson.org
International Summer Institute
Playa del Carmen, Mexico
June 17-22, 2012
Postmodern-social constructioncollaborative practices
by the sea
Information: harleneanderson@earthlink.net ▪ www.harleneanderson.org