6533b7d8fe1ef96bd1269747

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Conversations on contexts and meanings: On understanding therapeutic change from a contextual viewpoint

subject

description

Recent developments within family therapy theory, often referred to as the Post-Milan Movement, have once again stressed the therapeutic encounter'squality of conversation. When therapy is looked upon as conversation, attention is not only paid to the fact that most of what happens in a session is talking. Rather, a more fundamental stance towardshuman life as basically meaning- making is taken. This is one of the essential premises of the contextualist approach to the social sciences. When applied to human problems this approach claims that “symptoms” evolve when (1) a person gives meaning to and performs a social act within a context inappropriate to the socially shared meaning of that act, and (2) the behavior of the person is accepted as a “symptom” by him/herself and the observing community. The therapeutic conversation establishes an exclusive context within which the domains of discourse of the client's life can be accounted for and renegotiated. With the acceptance of these accounts, changes evolve in the context-act relationships (i.e. meanings) construed by the client. This appears to be the basis for the self-healing aspects of psychotherapy.