Basic Assumptions

1
Basic Assumptions

• A family of concepts that
• Invite critical reflection on foundational
  premises and taken-for-granted assumptions,
  including those of postmodernism itself.
• Invite a view of knowledge and language as
  relational and generative.
• Favor local knowledge, created within and, that
  has relevance for the community of participants.

2

• A collaborative approach is based in an
  ideological shift regarding the way that we think
  about language and knowledge.
• ?
• A philosophical stance or way of being naturally
  flows from the shift a way of being in
  relationship and conversation, including a way of
  thinking with, talking with, acting with, and
  responding with the people that we meet in any
  professional or personal context.

3
Collaborative Relationship

• A particular way in which we orient ourselves to
  be, act, and respond with another person that
  invites the other into shared engagement, mutual
  inquiry, and
• joint action.

4

• The responses of people in conversation with each
  other create the context for their relationship.
• A relationship in which people connect and create
  with each other.
• A social activitya partnership community and
  processin which all members have a sense of
  participation, belonging and ownership.

5
Dialogical Conversation

• A particular kind of talk in which participants
  engage with each other (out loud) and with
  themselves (silently)in words, signs, symbols,
  gestures, etc.
• in a mutual or shared inquiry about the issues
  at hand jointly responding (commenting,
  examining, questioning, wondering, reflecting,
  nodding, gazing, etc.).

6

• Dialogue is a process of trying to understand an
  other.
• Dialogue is always becoming, never-ending.
• Understanding is an (inter) active process not a
  passive one.
• Respond to connect and learn rather than to try
  to understand another persons words from a
  theory.
• Check-out to see if you have heard what the other
  wants you to hear.
• Develop local understandings that come from
  within the conversation.

7

• Learn about the uniqueness of the other and
  notice the not-yet-noticed.
• Cannot know another person or their circumstances
  beforehand.
• Cannot know the outcome beforehand.
• Knowing ahead of time (i.e. categories,
  theoretical scripts) can inhibit our ability to
  learn about the uniqueness and novelto see the
  familiar in an unfamiliar way.

8
Problems Dissolve in Dialogue

• . . . 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

9
Ever-Present Question

• "How can professionals invite the kinds of
  relationships and conversations with their
  clients that allow all participants to access
  their creativities and develop possibilities
  where none seemed to exist before?"

10
A Philosophical Stance

• A way of being
• A posture, an attitude, and a tone that reflects
  a way of being in relationship and conversation
  with the other, including a way of thinking
  about, talking with, acting with, and being
  responsive with them.
• Consistent with this way of being, the
  philosophical stance becomes a philosophy of
  lifea worldview that does not separate
  professional and personal.

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• The stance communicates to the other that they
  are a unique human being, not a category of
  people, and that they are recognized,
  appreciated, and have something to say that is
  worthy of hearing.
• In holding this belief, connecting,
  collaborating, and constructing with others are
  authentic and natural actions, not techniques.

12
Philosophical Stance

• Conversational Partners
• Relational Expertise
• Client as Expert
• Professional as Expert
• Not-Knowing
• Being Public
• Mutually Transforming
• Living with Uncertainty
• Everyday Ordinary Life

13
Inviting Dialogue

• Respect the other
• Listen generously to the other
• Pause and allow silences--space for listening
• reflecting
• Create space for the other to tell their story
  in their
• manner pace
• Allow each person to choose what peaks their
  curiosity
• invites
• them into inner outer conversation
• Learn with the other
• Try to understand the other

14

• Respond with the other
• Reflect/Share inner thoughts
• Experience the richness of different voices, and
  each as poly-vocal, holding multiple, and
  sometimes simultaneous contradictory thoughts.
• Participate in conversations that invite the
  other person into them.
• Striving for a goal or outcome is not necessary.
• Spontaneous, endless shifts and possibilities
  (thoughts, actions, meanings) emerge from the
  process.

15
Advice from Clients(in my words)

• Coherence Invite and have respect and humility
  for, and stay close to each person's story.
• Client's story takes center stage Be genuinely
  curious and ask questions that come from within
  the conversation and that lead to other
  questions, not answers ask questions that help a
  client tell, clarify, and expand their
  first-person narrative.
• Client authors his or her own story Create and
  safeguard room for each person to develop his or
  her own views and edit his or her own story.
• Repetition Repeating a story version may be an
  attempt or struggle to create a new meaning.
• Choices Let each person participate in
  determining what should be talked about, when and
  with whom.
• Familiar Explore the known in a way that allows
  for doors to be created where there were none.
• Uniqueness Avoid the temptation of
  across-the-board diagnoses, goals, and strategies
  for reaching goals, and to categorize and label
  people. Consider the uniqueness of each person,
  the multiplicity of possibilities for each
  person, each context, and each situation.
• Stay in sync Walk along side the client stay
  within each person's rhythm, pacing, and timing,
  not the therapists.
• Public Make invisible therapist ideas and
  prejudices visible keep them open to question
  and change.
• Try to understand Do not know, assume, or fill
  in the blanks too quickly.
• Trust and believe Try to make sense, from the
  clients perspective (their sense-making map, not
• the therapists), of what may appear
  non-sense or illogical.
• Self-identity Foster the development of
  self-descriptions that free and allow for
  multiple, contradicting, and simultaneously
  existing selvesinviting self-agency.
• Newness Client and therapist together create
  knowledge and expertise that is unique and
  specific to the situation and community.

16
What can I read on the beach?

• 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 Books.
• Anderson, H. (2005) The myths of not-knowing.
  Family Process.
• Anderson, H. (2003) A postmodern collaborative
  approach to therapy Broadening the possibilities
  of clients and therapists. Ethically Challenged
  Professions Enabling Innovation and Diversity in
  Psychotherapy and Counseling. In Y. Bates R.
  House (Eds.). PCCS Books Herefordshire, UK.
• Anderson, H. (2000) Supervision as a
  collaborative learning community. American
  Association for Marriage and Family Therapy
  Supervision Bulletin. Fall 20007-10.
• 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., Cooperrider, D., Gergen, K.,
  Gergen, M., McNamee, S. Whitney, D. (2001)
  Appreciative Organizations. The Taos Institute
  Chagrin Falls, Ohio.
• Bakhtin, M. (1986) Speech, Genre and Other Late
  Essays (W. McGee, Trans.). Austin University of
  Texas Press.
• Gadamer, H-G. (1975) Truth and Method. New York
  Seabury.
• Available through Amazon or the publisher.

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• 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.
• 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.
• McNamee, S. Gergen. K.J. (1999) Relational
  Responsibility Resources for Sustainable
  Dialogue. Thousand Oaks, CA Sage Publications.
• McNamee, S. Anderson, H. (Eds.) (2006)
  Expanding Organizational Practices Lessons from
  Therapeutic Conversations. AI Practitioner,
  August 2006.
• 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.
• Shotter, J. (2005) On the Edge of Social
  Constructionism Withness-Thinking versus
  Aboutness-Thinking. London, KCC Foundation.
• Shotter, J. (1984) Social Accountability and
  Selfhood, Oxford Blackwell.
• Vygotsky, L. (1986) Thought Language. Trans.
  Newly revised by Alex Kozulin. Cambridge, MA MIT
  Press.
• Please share readings that are stretching your
  mind.
• See Publication List Articles to Download
  on
• www.harleneanderson.org and www.access-success.com
  

18
Adventures in Collaborative PracticesRelations
hips Conversations that make A Differencein
Therapy, Research, Training Organizations
across Cultures

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