WEEK 7 - Social Constructionist

Question 1

The Historical Content of Social Constructionist

Answer 1

• Modernism which began with enlightenment – promised liberation from the tyranny of superstition, monarchy and religion through science
• Idea that rigorous research would lead to the accumulation of value free knowledge
• Assumption that language was representational – scientific reports were accurate accounts of the world
• Assumptions that individuals are rational
• Scientific progress – lead to a better world

Question 2

How did POst-modernism come about

Answer 2

Modernism led to a world threatened by nuclear holocaust,
environmental crisis, widespread economic inequality and political injustice
People like Kuhn (1962) questioned the assumption that science isrational and value free

Post modernism emerged as a broad
cultural transformation in response to the failure of the modernist promise

Question 3

What is Post Modernism/ Post Structuralism/ Social
Constructionism

Answer 3

all challenge traditional notions of objective
reality and emphasize the role of language and culture in
shaping human experiences. They differ in their specific
focus and approaches

Question 4

Modernist thinking (a refresher)

Answer 4

Realist thinking – the idea that an ultimate and absolute
truth and reality can be discovered, and objective knowledge is possible

Problems – considered inabilities or deficits or distortions
existing inside the person

Change – dependent on practitioner’s judgement to decide what should happen to solve the client’s problem

Invites practitioners to believe it is our role to know the emotional and psychological ‘truths’ about the people we
work with – to interpret and diagnose behaviour, to develop
a treatment for that person

Waves 1- 3 – Psychodynamic, Behaviourism & Cognitive,
Humanistic & Existentialism follow modernist approach

Question 5

Post Structuralism/Post Modernism/ Social Constructionism (a refresher)

Answer 5

• The person is constituted rather than essential – have access to multiple identities (questions the idea of the one true self)
• Problems – constructed in response to or as supported by dominant discourse as not fitting into what is considered normal (says that problems don’t come from within ourselves as modernist says but instead, they come from when we don’t fit into our preconceived ‘place’ in society such as ‘woman’ and there is when problems will arise.
• Emphasizes the role of language and discourse in shaping
  our understanding of the world and examines the way that power structures, knowledge, and language intersect
• Counselling is seen as a political process
• Change – a collaborative endeavor with a therapist and client in conversation about possibilities and preferences
• Positions client as expert & privileges client’s local knowledge regarding the problem & its resolution.

Question 6

What is performative language?

Answer 6

language doesn’t just convey information, it also performs actions – eg I promise, I love you, I hate you

Question 7

How does language construction reality

Answer 7

reality is not objectively fixed instead reality is constructed through language and communication. Language doesn’t describe reality it actively creates it

language doesn’t describe reality it creates it. For example, if someone is told they have anxiety they will see themselves in a certain way and others will see them in a particular - it constructs perceptions.

Question 8

What are the other roles of language?

Answer 8

as well as being performative and reality constructing:

• Language is integral to the construction of identity and subjectivity - the words we use to describe ourselves & others contribute to the formation of self
• Challenges binary categories & fixed definitions – language can reinforce binaries like normal/abnormal, healthy/unhealthy (giving words to actions - i.e not doing assignment makes you lazy)

Question 9

The role of language in counseling

Answer 9

if words used by clients are not objective truths – then there is space to explore alternative perspectives and meanings

*if people have constructed their reality/identity in a particular way it means the language has been so powerful which gives us space to reconstruct people’s preferred identity)

Question 10

People as their own experts in post-structurism

Answer 10

In post-structuralism you should step into a role in a not-knowing position - it not about having all the answers

We should privilege that persons experience of the world over anything and appreciate people as the expert

People have the right to create who they want to be

Question 11

What are the Two dimensions of Reality in social- -constructionism?

Answer 11

Fundamental:
- Things & Objects
- Anything that is discovered
- i.e. a rock, water boils at 100 degrees etc.

Constructed:
- What is invented – gender roles, physical beauty
- Mimics fundamental reality – eg romantic love is seen as real

most clients and practitioners would say that counselling or therapy takes place in fundamental reality when in fact it takes place in constructed reality

Question 12

Constructionism and Cross-Cultural Mental
Health

Answer 12

Every culture has a percentage of their members who experience what is known as mental health symptoms

In response every culture has a model to redress these issues – eg spirit possession, mana deficits, evil eye, Western psychiatry

Western – see other models as constructed

Difficult to see Western psychiatry through same constructed lens

Constructed reality is not same as false reality
.

Question 13

Social Part of Social Constructionism

Answer 13

When all around us see something real and true it is part of nature to align with the group and share the same reality

When individuals can’t endorse the shared reality of their home culture they are often literally and symbolically thrown out of the tribe – seen as sick, damaged

When constructs are socially valid – are seen as true and soli as fundamental reality (for example you have to wear clothes to uni)

How to be a ‘man’ is seen as true as the concept that water boils at 100 degrees

Question 14

What is solution Focused Therapy?

Answer 14

• Managed health care’ movement demand for outcome-based therapies
• Milton Erikson’s Brief Hypnotherapy

Question 15

What does social costructionism say about people?

Answer 15

-People are healthy, competent and have developed abilities (from exercising resilience) to construct solutions to enhance their lives

Individuals already have innate abilities to manage life’s challenges – sometimes we lose awareness/sense of direction/insight

Question 16

What is Narrative therapy?

Answer 16

• a model draws upon social constructionist ideas

Question 17

Who developed Narrative Therapy?

Answer 17

Michael White

David Epston

Question 18

How does Narrative therapy see people/ work

Answer 18

Our lives are socially constructed
- we become who we are through relationships – through the meaning we make of other’s perceptions of us and interactions with us

We organise our lives through stories (narrative metaphor):
- We can make differ stories or meaning of any particular event
- Each of these events could, if storied, lead to a different often preferable life narrative

The dominant discourses in our society powerfully influence what gets storied and how it gets storied
- Discourses tend to be invisible and taken for granted as part of the fabric of reality.

Locating problems in discourses helps us see people as separate from their problem

Question 19

What are dominant discourses

Answer 19

• A discourse is a system of words, actions, rules, beliefs and institutions that share common values. Particular discourses
  sustain particular world views. One might even think of a discourse as a worldview in action.
• Discourses tend to be invisible and taken for granted as part of the fabric of reality.

Question 20

How does narrative therapy work?

Answer 20

So if you think about a little person who’s in school, and they’re really struggling to kind of focus so they don’t get the reward and they start being called naughty. So now they’ve got one experience that tells them they’re naughty and they go into the playground and they have an interaction with, uh, somebody else and then they get in trouble for that and that gets highlighted. And then they go home and they’re in trouble for that. And so now we have this narrative, this story, the dots that are being connected are the one where the naughtiness is around and so that little person starts to see themselves as naughty and people start to respond to themselves in that particular way. And now we’ve got this identity that I’m a naughty person.

People talking in this total way is because narrative therapy would say it’s because we’ve pulled out particular experiences to make that particular storyline, and that’s become our dominant storyline

Question 21

How do you Deconstruct Dominant Discourses (how does Narrative therapy support change)

Answer 21

• Once we have exposed that these claims of truths or taken for granted ideas about personhood are less than bedrock then it becomes possible to play with meaning.
• This does not make dominant truths wrong anymore
  than they are right – rather they can be seen as subjectively useful or useless depending on the person
• When we critique ‘expert’ knowledge – we make space
  for agency and imagination

Question 22

What should the counselor be listening for in NT (how does Narrative therapy support change)

Answer 22

*NT focuses on the way Stories are shared in Sequence, over Time, according to a Dominant plot, and while doing so the counsellor should:
- listen for alternative stories –> listens for, and enquire about, alternate discourses (sub plots) in these stories to make visible the values, hopes, preferences that are ‘absent but implicit’ in the dominant story

• Creates conversational pathways to possibilities. Earnest curiosity and the art of creative, critical questioning, provides alternate routes to preferred identities
• Conversations are generative (scaffold them through the conversation, open the conversation up etc.)

Question 23

How does NT help the client?

Answer 23

• THe process of counselling will invite clients to story their current situation – the interactions and actions or effects around the situation and then together with the counsellor find ways to re-story the situation.
• People leaves with a new description of themselves
• New meanings instigate new actions
• Support the client to discover those events and meanings that contribute to their preferred story
• Shift from victim to survivor

Question 24

Problems and externalising conversations in NT

Answer 24

• Problems play a central role in Narrativebut the Focus is not on solving

*Instead we help people deconstruct the problem in a manner that robs those problems of their power and influence in our lives

• Instead of seeing problems as something that people are – we externalise them

Distance the person from the problem. Instead of saying that the person has anxiety you would say that anxiety likes to visit the person sometimes

Question 25

What might externalising conversations make
possible?

Answer 25

• Problems internalised – become externalised –
• Then we can start to put into story lines – eg how long has Mr Mischief been around? Were there factors that contributed to the entry of Mr Mischief? What are the effects of Mr Mischief on the person, on the family, on the relationships?
• When we put problems into a story line – see how they have come to have such a big influence
• Also provides space to explore how gender, race, culture, class, and other relations of power have played a role in the problem’s construction
• Invites new understanding of how our lives are shaped by broader cultural stories – opens up new possibilities for actions not possible when problems are within individuals
• Externalising conversations have been used in different spaces – community eg Malawi to respond to problems like stigma and silence that surrounds HIV/AIDS

Question 26

What is Externalising

Answer 26

• Not about separating people from their actions but instead the key element is exploring in detail the effect of the
  externalised problem on the person’s life and on others (for example if someone was bullying someone else we would look at the effect of this -no friends)
• Idea when effects are traced, when history is articulated and when links to how these problems might be supported by broader constructions – more possible for person to take a position and to take responsible action

NT wants to lessen the power/influence the problem has over the person but doesn’t want to get rid of the problem as the person gets to decide weather the problem is a problem or not (is the problem useful? )

Question 27

Re-authoring

Answer 27

Externalising is often first step to talking about the
problem story – backdrop to re-authoring conversations

Unique outcomes have been noticed, contradictions to
the dominant plots have been noticed

Often not enough to name an alternate story – we want to
thicken this

Re-membering conversations – evoke the views and perspectives of people who can further thicken

Who wouldn’t be surprised to hear you talking about your
plan to hold onto hope?

Was there someone who introduced you to this idea of
holding onto hope

Question 28

When do we know enough re-authoring has happened?

Answer 28

When the effects of problem story are no longer prevalent – sign that the preferred story of identity is starting to take
hold

Helpful to prepare people for effort by the problem to
comeback

Question 29

How may a A Narrative Therapy Session look like

Answer 29

1. Evaluate their current situation
2. Name the problems involved
3. Evaluate their relationship to those problems Externalizing
4. Take a stand regarding them positioning
5. Elicit outcomes meanings, skills, values
6. Develop alternative stories, gather witnesses and plan action

Question 30

What are the therapeutic techniques

Answer 30

Double Listening
externalising
scaffolding
reauthoring
retelling

Question 31

What is double-listening

Answer 31

Hearing the person’s problem (dominant story plots) while listening for initiatives/values/hopes (sub plots) implicit in their narration

Question 32

What is Externalising

Answer 32

Speaking in ways that separate problems/ideas/hopes
from the person in order to give them space to view their
relationship with these problem/idea/hope from a new perspective

Question 33

What is scaffolding

Answer 33

Sequencing questions in ways that progressively enable
the person to first make meaning of the dominant story and then to re-author an alternate preferred story

Question 34

What is reauthoring

Answer 34

Linking the subplots together to co author an alternative narrative (a thickened preferred storyline

Question 35

What is -retelling

Answer 35

Offering editorials (summaries) throughout the conversation by cutting the dominant story and inviting the person to build on the new alternate story (continue thicken
the new alternate story being told