h put the therapist at risk for their inner talk becoming monological and contributing to the creation or maintenance of therapist-client monologue. By monologue I mean the same thought, like a tune in one’s head that plays over and over again. When this happens therapist and client side-by-side each sing their monological tunes and the conversation breaks down.
5. Living with Uncertainty
Therapy conversations are more like natural talk in which each person’s response informs and invites the other’s. The conversations are not guided by structured maps as to how the conversation should look or unfold; for instance, the pace or the sequence of what is talked about. Nor are they guided by pre-structured questions or other strategies.
Conversations are a spontaneous activity in which client and therapist together create the paths and determine the destination. What is created is different from and more than what could have been created by one without the other.
When client and therapist engage in this kind of spontaneous endeavor, there is always an uncertainty about where they are headed and how they will get there. This does not ignore the fact that clients may come in with a pre-defined problem and a destination as well as expectations about how you will help them. They often do. It is not unlikely however that that these will change through the course of the therapy conversations. As conversational partners, client and therapist coordinate their actions as they respond, making their path and destination unpredictable. What the path looks like, the detours along the way, and the final destination will vary from client to client, from therapist to therapist, and from situation to situation.
Put another way, no one knows how a story will unfold, how newness in it will emerge, or what the newness will look like when engaged in a collaborative relationship and dialogical conversation. Though there is nothing wrong with having an idea and comfort about where you are headed and how you will get there, surprises in the endless shifts and possibilities (i.e., thoughts, actions, meanings) of conversations emerge from the process. Trusting uncertainty involves taking a risk and being open to unforeseen change.
6. Mutually Transforming
I have been trying to stress the mutuality of the therapy encounter. In this kind of withness relational process, each party is under the influence of the other(s) and hence each party, including the therapist is as much at-risk for change as any other. It is not a one-sided, unilateral therapist-driven process, nor is the therapist passive and receptive. The therapist is actively involved in a complex interactive process of continuous response with the client, as well as with his/her own inner talk and experience. In other words, as conversational partners we continually coordinate our actions with each other as we respond with each other. And, we are each continuously influenced by the other. Therapy is an active process for both the client and the therapist.
7. Orienting towards Everyday Ordinary Life
Over my years of practicing, teaching, and consulting in various contexts and countries I began to think of therapy, like all of life, as one kind of social event. Though it takes place in a particular context with a particular agenda, therapy does not need to be a sacred event with high priests and commoners. It can resemble the way we interact and talk in everyday life or the “naturally occurring interactional talk . . . through which people live their lives and conduct their everyday business” (Edwards, 2005, p. 257). As in everyday life as Wittgenstein suggests, we search for how to know our “way about” and how to “go on.” In therapy, participants strive for ways to move forward and carry on with their lives.
Ihavefoundithelpfultohaveapositiveoutlookregardingthepeoplewhoconsultmeregardlessoftheirhistoriesandcircumstances.Thisinclude
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