the Dulwich Centre website  ... a gateway to narrative therapy, community work and psychosocial support                                       Dulwich Centre Publications Pty Ltd www.dulwichcentre.com.au A Mexican perspective on teaching narrative ideas by Emily Sued & Barbara Amunategui1 This paper was first published in the International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 2003 #4 Emily and Barbara are well-respected therapists and teachers within the Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios de la Familia (ILEF) in Mexico City. In this short piece, derived from a lively and enjoyable interview which took place in Mexico City, Emily and Barbara speak about the ways in which narrative and social constructionist ideas, and the local Mexican context, shape their teaching. Keywords: teaching, narrative therapy, Mexico Since we have engaged with the narrative metaphor and social constructionist approaches to therapy, our teaching has changed in many ways – both in terms of what we teach and how we teach it. While we teach in different areas (Barbara teaches theory and Emily the therapeutic skills), social constructionism and narrative ideas significantly shape all of our work. Collaboration One of the practices of narrative therapy that is easy to translate into teaching, is to consistently check with students about their experience of training and to offer choices about which directions should be pursued in the classroom. For instance, we might ask, ‘How is this all going for you? Would it be better for you if I explained this concept further, or if we did an exercise at this point?’. In this way we try to generate a collaborative relationship. It is not only us as teachers who shape the direction of conversations. There are also other ways that we seek to build collaboration. For instance, we openly acknowledge that students are the experts in relation to how they best learn, and so we try to create contexts in which they can richly describe their preferences in relation to learning. We facilitate an exercise about group learning experiences in which students can articulate what have been good learning experiences, and what has made these good. And we also talk about not-so-good learning experiences and how these can be avoided. Similarly in supervision, we always ask, ‘What would be the best way for me to assist you? Do you want me to ring in, or would you prefer if I wait until you ask for assistance?’ We ask a range of questions to gain detailed feedback about the ways in which we are teaching and supervising. Students are often initially surprised by these questions. Over time, we have realised that these questions actually generate knowledge. They assist students to articulate and to come to understand more fully how they learn and what they prefer. As students become clearer about this, it becomes easier for us as teachers. We develop together a collaborative classroom that is enjoyable for us all. Questioning the distinctions between talking and action In our work, we invite students to consider the significance of language in the construction of identity. It can be very powerful when people start looking at language in these new ways. Whereas before, students may not have taken much care in relation to the effects of what they said, over time we work at deconstructing the distinction between talking and action. Speaking is an action. Engaging in conversation is action. The real effects of speech acts vary enormously depending upon the ways in which we converse, the meanings we enact and the speech practices we engage with. These considerations make it less possible to simply say, ‘Sorry that was not my intention’. Instead, as teachers and as students we become much more aware of the responsibilities involved in all speech acts. The local context In all our teaching, we try to take care in responding to the local context in which it occurs. In terms of teaching narrative ideas, there are elements of Mexican culture that make this easier, and elements that make it more complex. Fortunately, in Spanish, many expressions are naturally externalisations! For instance, people might routinely say ‘the washing machine is refusing to wash’. Similarly, there are various Mexican expressions that use externalisations of troubles or difficulties. We are able to utilise this in our teaching. Some aspects of the local context though are more challenging. Within Mexico, psychoanalysis still enjoys considerable popularity and this can make a difference in teaching. Some people believe that in order for a therapy to ‘really work’ or to be ‘profound’ it needs to last a long time. We have found that the most appropriate way of responding to these perspectives is to enable people to have an experience of a narratively informed interview with an outsider-witness group response. These experiences often seem to make the difference in realising that narrative practice is not simply a ‘light’ or ‘cognitive’ way of working. Introduction to culture There is an exercise, developed by a colleague, Florence Rosemberg, that we use early on in our classes to introduce participants the significance of culture in therapy. After a colleague has spoken about recent post-structuralist enquiries within anthropology, we take out a series of photographs of people from all over the world. There is a picture of an Indigenous Australian, someone from an African village, a person from a very small Arab town, an African American person, and pictures of people from very different walks of life in Mexico. We attach each of these photographs to a stick. Half the members of the class hold a particular photograph and the other half are invited to engage in a conversation with them. At first people start to ask questions that would be obvious for middle-class Mexicans, but meaningless for the people in the photographs. For instance, the question, ‘Where do you work?’ does not have the same meaning for those in the city and those in the country. It does not have the same meaning for those whose work and life cannot be separated. Questions that seek to enquire about families, about identity, all have completely different meanings depending upon whom is being asked. Students often report that this exercise leaves a lasting impression – that they cannot assume that their experiences of life are in any way equivalent to those who consult them. This realisation has profound implications in relation to how to conduct therapy in ways that do not assume shared meanings between counsellor and client. Documenting learning Some groups of students keep a diary throughout the year in which they document their learning. They write down an account of each family they consult with, how they worked with them, and how the family responded. They also write a reflection each time we meet. These descriptions are often personal and moving. By the end of the year, students can read back over their work and see the distance they have covered. In this way, they become witnesses to their own developments and we’ve found this to be significant. It is as if their writings take you by the hand and show you the travels they have made over the course of the year. A favourite exercise There is a particular exercise that we facilitate that we thoroughly enjoy. We ask each member of a student group to identify their favourite aspect of narrative practice. One person might say ‘unique outcomes’, another might say ‘externalising conversations’, or ‘outsider-witness work’, or ‘addressing practices of power’, or ‘re-membering conversations’, or ‘practices of respect’. Once the students have identified the particular practice or idea that they especially appreciate, we then ask them to engage in conversation with one another as if they are the personification of this practice. For example, the person who identified unique outcomes as their preferred practice, then begins to speak as ‘Unique Outcomes’. We invite the student to speak about why they believe unique outcomes are so significant to narrative practice. Perhaps six or seven people in the group play these different parts and a conversation begins. Inevitably, this becomes a little competitive and quite amusing as each practice describes their significance to this work … ‘unique outcomes are the most important because we are the openings to the preferred story, without us you would have no hope!’… ‘But, without us (externalising conversations), therapists would not have the chance to create space for unique outcomes, your significance would not even be noticed’… ‘But, without me (respect), the people consulting therapists would not feel free to talk about their lives, they would not even talk openly’ … and so these debates continue. Throughout the experience, students are generating rich descriptions of narrative practices and ideas and are also talking about how these relate to each other. By the end of the conversation, people are generally reflecting that all of these practices need to work together. It is always an amusing and helpful exercise! Therapy/teaching When we are teaching about issues that affect everybody’s life, conversations routinely touch topics that make us think about our own experiences. In our context, we believe it is important for students to have their own therapist they can turn to during the training so that these issues can be taken care of and so they do not need to become a central focus in the classroom. Still, there are occasional times when a student may volunteer to be interviewed on a topic that is still very vulnerable and painful for them and this then leads to unexpected complications. A further realm of complexity exists when a student is undergoing therapy of a very different model than what we are teaching. This can be very complex, although what usually happens is that students change therapists! Rites of passage When students are engaging with narrative ideas for the first time, especially when they have had prior training in other models of therapy, there may be a time around the middle of the program when they say, ‘You know, I’m not convinced any more of what I used to do. I don’t like many of the ideas I once used. The things I used to do I’m no longer comfortable with. But then, I don’t feel completely in charge of this, I don’t yet know what to do instead, so I’m very confused.’ We frequently hear these sort of comments because, for many practitioners, narrative practices represent a significantly different way of working. So, we talk a lot about this in class. We have three classes in the year that are dedicated to exploring the stories of the person as a therapist. Importantly, we also talk about this issue at the beginning of the course and we evoke the rites of passage metaphor 2. We use this rite of passage metaphor in many aspects of the teaching – in relation to how people travel through the experience of a divorce, or a trauma, or a migration. And we also use it in terms of therapists moving from one way of working to another. We describe how many students, after they have gone through a phase of separating from previously-held ideas, then step into a liminal or ‘betwixt and between’ stage in their learning. Here they have left behind the familiar ideas and practices they once used, but are not yet at a stage where they can fully reincorporate the new ideas into their work lives. We ask students to talk about where they feel they are in their own rite of passage. We invite them to make a map of their progress and to discuss this. We have found that these discussions have made a difference to people in being able to notice their progress, and to pre-empt any ups and downs that might accompany their travels. In this short piece, we have described a number of different areas in which social constructionist and narrative ideas are shaping our work as teachers. No doubt there are also many other areas. We look forward to hearing from others who are grappling with similar issues. Notes 1. Emily can be contacted via email: emilysued@mexis.com. Barbara can be contacted via email: bamunategui@mexis.com 2. The ideas of van Gennep (1960) and Turner (1986) about the three phases of ‘rites of passage’ (the separation phase, the liminal or betwixt and between phase, and the reincorporation phase) were brought into the therapeutic realm by David Epston. With his encouragement, these ideas have been taken up into many other contexts. For more information about the use of the rite of passage metaphors or migration of identity metaphors in therapeutic work see: References Epston, D. 1989: ‘An interview with David Epston.’ In Epston, D.: Collected Papers (chapter 12). Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. Epston, D. & White, M. 1992: ‘Consulting your consultants: The documentation of alternative knowledges.’ In Epston, D. & White, M.: Experience, Contradiction, Narrative & Imagination: Selected papers of David Epston and Michael White 1989-1991 (chapter 1). Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. Turner, V. 1986: ‘Dewey, Dilthey, and drama.’ In Turner, V. & Bruner, E. (eds): The Anthropology of Experience. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Van Gennep, A. 1960: The Rite of Passage. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Verco, J. 2002: ‘Women’s outrage and the pressure to forgive.’ International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, No.1. White, M. 1995: ‘Naming abuse and breaking from its effects.’ In White, M.: Re-Authoring Lives: Interviews and Essays (chapter 4). Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. to list of articles on this web site to list of books from Dulwich Centre Publications Dulwich Centre Home Page