4. Privileging local knowledge
Local knowledge–the knowledge, expertise, truths, values, conventions, narratives, etc.--that is created within a community of persons (i.e., family, classroom, board room) who have first-hand knowledge (i.e. unique meanings and understandings from personal experience) of themselves and their situation is important. Since knowledge is formulated within a community it will have more relevance, be more pragmatic, and be more sustainable. Local knowledge, of course, always develops against the background of dominant discourses, meta-narratives, and universal truths and is influenced by these conditions. This cannot be, nor is it suggested that it should be, avoided.
5. Language as a creative social process
Language in its broadest sense--any means by which we try to communicate, articulate, or express with ourselves and with others--is the medium through which we create knowledge. Language, like knowledge, is viewed as active and creative rather than as static and representational. Words for instance are not meaning-mirrors; they gain meaning as we use them and in the way that we use them. This includes a number of things such as context, why we use them, and how we use them such as our tone, our glances, and our gestures. Language and words are relational. As Bakhtin (1984) suggests, “No utterance in general can be attributed to the speaker exclusively; it is the product of the interaction of the interlocutors, and broadly speaking, the product of the whole complex social situation in which it has occurred” (p. 30). He further suggests that we do not own our words:
The word in language is half someone else’s. The word becomes “one’s own” only when the speaker populates it with his own intention. . . the word does not exist in a neutral and impersonal language . . . but it exists in other people’s mouths, in other people’s contexts (1984, p. 293-4).
6. Knowledge and language as transforming
Knowledge and language are relational and generative, and therefore intrinsically transforming. Transformation—whether in the form of a shift, modification, difference, movement, clarity, etc.--is inherent in the fluid and creative aspects of knowledge and language. That is, when engaged in the use of language and in the creation of knowledge one is involved in a living activity—dialogue with oneself or another—and cannot remain unchanged.
7. Postmodern is only one of many narratives
The postmodern tapestry and its assumptions are considered as one of many narratives. Postmodernism is not a meta-narrataive or –perspective as self-critique is inherit in and essential to postmodernism itself. This does not suggest, therefore, that postmodernism is an oppositional perspective that calls for the abandonment of our inherited knowledge or any discourse, or that these can be discarded for that matter. Postmodern assumptions simply offer a different language or set of assumptions, or as Wittgenstein suggests, a different language game (Amscombe & Amscombe, 2001).
Implications for Clinical Practice
“All understanding is dialogical.”
Bahktin
The question is “How does this different language or language game influence the way that I think about the goal of therapy and its process, including the client’s role and my role?”
First, they inform what I call a philosophical stance: a way of being. And second, particular kinds of relationships and conversations naturally develop from this philosophical stance.
The philosophical stance is the heart and spirit of the collaborative approach: a way of being. It is a posture, an attitude, and a tone that communicates to another the special importance that they hold for me, that they are a unique human being and not a category of people, and that they are recognized, appreciated, and that their voices are worthy of hearing. This stance invites and encourages the other to participate on a more equitable basis. It reflects a way of being with people, including ways of thinking with, talking with, acting with, and responding with them. The significant word here is with: a “withness” process of orienting and re-orienting oneself to the other person (Hoffman, 2007; Shotter, 2004, 2005). Hoffman (2007) refers to this kind of relationship “withness” as “one that is as communal and collective as it is intimate, withness that requires us to “… jump, like
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