Social Constructivism and Cultures

I had an interesting chat about Social Constructionism with a friend who recently came to London for a vocation. Social Constructionism is a postmodern movement that shifts people from believing that there is only one definite way to explain the same thing happening in our lives, to positions that there can be many ways to explain it, all of which could be true depending on the social contexts. An example I could think of, in Singapore, is that when I was a child, most people found it outragious for a man to wear earrings, as they perceived it to be too girlish a thing to do. Today, earrings are worn by many men and most people would see it as acceptable.  Many Singaporeans may be surprised to know that archaelogists have found evidence that men started wearing earrings earlier than women, such as in ancient Indian tribes (click here to read more). 

Wearing earrings is just one of the many ways some societies demarcate what is masculine and what is feminine, yet what has been assumed to be the common sensical differences between men and women are not universal truth but shaped by the cultural environment we live in, which may be similar or different in other cultures, time or space.  Having only two gender categories - men and women, itself, is also not as definite as most people still believe; there are at least five gender categories! (See Anne Fasuto-Sterling's The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough)

While I was very intrigued by the Social Constructionist position, my friend opined that it  has contributed nothing new or substantiate enough to change the world. The context of his argument came from his personal experiences and belief that this movement has  not helped to bring the world a step further towards eradicating the oppression of the marginalized groups in today's societies. For instance, developed countries like Singapore still retain archaic Victorian law against homosexuality handed down from the Colonial period, even though where it came from, UK, has long repealed it in the last century. To my friend, the way forward for a more long-lasting way for decriminalization of homosexuality in a country, is to win over a majority of public opinions. He also spoke about his discomfort with the use of emotions in the form of public sympathy, such as that with a Malaysian, Yong Vui Kong, from drug trafficking in Singapore. Instead of asserting a judicial call against death sentence, Court of Appeal granted Yong Vui Kong a hearing, and a second stay of execution on 8-December-2009. (Click here for link to article below)

On reflection, I can see my friend's point about wanting a fundamental shift in a societal position based on compassion and depth in understanding, as moving people towards embracing multiple perspectives does not eradicate the risk of still having one dominating others based on its position, power and influence within that society.

Meanwhile, my friend seems to have the belief that changes that take effort from emotional appeal is less sustainable than a change from the legal constitution. In my view, they are  actually interconnected. Many a times, strong emotions precipitate crises that perturb a current state to the extent that public opinions may shift to a new and more comfortable position. A documentary-drama I watched illustrates this point. It featured Peter Wildeblood, a diplomatic correspondent of Daily Mail, who, in 1954, became the second public person in UK since Oscar Wilde to be sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment for buggery. Peter’s imprisonment stirred public's outcry, especially after his inprisonment, he campaigned publicly for the rights of gays and testified before the Wolfenden Committee. The Committee report in 1957 recommended that homosexual acts between consenting adults in private be legalized. This recommendation was passed in the UK law in 1967. 

 

Screen shorts from a Channel 4 documentary drama featuring Peter Wildeblood, entitled “A Very British Scandal”

Two online references Peter Wildeblood: Click A or B.

How is this relevant to family therapy? Stories of courage drawn from the clients or communities could be thickened via therapy sessions to amplify strengths.  Telling stories unravel emotions. Reading the feelings underneath the expressed emotions help draw the underlying meaning attached to belief systems which help families and therapists understand how they impact the relationships within the family in their cultural context. 

My friend also shared an encounter where he was invited for dinner by an Indian male friend. While the two men were eating, my friend noticed the Indian wife, who cooked and served the food, standing by a corner. He invited her to join them at the dining table but she declined. Most people at this point would have jumped into conclusion to think - how dare the husband treat the wife like a maid? Such unfairness for women in such a culture with total lack of gender equality!

What happened then was that after declining, the wife asked my friend how he found the food. My friend praised  and thanked her for it. Immediately he could see the wife smile and her face was lit up with bliss. This incident made my friend realise that what bring happiness to the wife is not to join the husband and guest at the dining table but to be appreciated for her cooking. Who is he to judge the gender inequality in her culture to be problematic if it serves a function  without her or anyone suffering or being exploited? 

To me, this is where the social constructionist perspective is helpful. It informs me that I am in no position to be at a moral higher ground than anyone else. What is more important is to start with an open mind, accompanied by a non-judgemental curiousity to listen and observe before drawing conclusions or connection with my personal experiences and values. This is especially important when we face people from a different culture from us, regardless of race,  socio-economic status or class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, language, political orientation, disability or age*.

* A combination of the differences stated in the Codes of Ethics for the Singapore Association for Counselling and the UK Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice.

Reflections at End of Term 1

What has happened to the part of me I brought with me to London 

In Clinical Skills Seminar I was given the task to review of where I am now coming to the end of the term, in reference to the symbolic cultural item we brought to the clinical skills class at the beginning of the term. I thought of taking this reflecting diary as an opportunity to do this piece of reflection.

The item I brought to class was brown rice - while white rice is a staple food in Singapore, I purposely brought brown rice as it represents the coarse (not so refined) culture of my country, i.e. in my view the social aspect is less developed than the economy. At a personal level, I experienced the ease of being who I am and sharing about who I am here in London, as compared to back in Singapore, where the dominant culture has too superficial distinction between what is black or white, right or wrong, good or bad.  It gives me strength in dealing with challenges by bringing my learning home. At the professional level, I have gained a clearer chronological understanding of the development and approaches of family therapy, as well as the first hand experience of what systemic means through my placement. There are however, still many concepts and approaches that I have yet grasped fully and would have to continue to persevere.

Portfolio 

It was great to have a reference point of how a portfolio looks like via my supervisor's sharing of hers. A few key points worth noting down here:

Adaptation from supervisor's style:

· split the critical learning points from the clinical log like the way she did, as it gives more room for the learning points to be presented than being cluttered with other facts of the log;

· split the logs and clinical learning points by months like the way she did, as herslooks really more organised and neat;

· add a page that decodes my abbreviation;

· add in more reflection, eg. reflection from feedback from assignment, reflection of my reflection, where deemed necessary.

New ways of improving my portfolio:

· I will add a one-page summary of the number of clinical hours and non-clinical hours clocked for it to be presented clearly;

· Under "configuration", instead of just specifying those who attended the session, I would include all of whom are deemed to be “Significant Others” as important persons to be involved in systemic work but may not be willing or available to attend sessions;

· Instead of just race, I will also insert specific cultural facts about the family known and important eg. class, sexuality, sole-parenthood, etc. 

Reflections on First Co-therapy & Post-Milan

My First and Second Attempts as Co-therapist (Taylor Family)

12/11/09 Initial plan was for me to remain as observer and participate in the reflection with my supervisor at end of session. Supervisor, however, invited me to participate at the start of session, which I jumped at it. While Supervisor was leading it mostly, I was given the space to speak my thoughts and observations throughout.

Felt this is a good session as it allows me to slowly transit from an active observer to supporting therapist, applying some executive skills leading from the perceptual and conceptual skills, eg. observing there were less emotional upheaval in the family as compared to the previous session I observed. Hypothesized that it was the absence of Tom that result in no sibling rivalry and jealousy for mother's and therapists' attention, and no aggravation of mother's anxiety and helplessness over the competition of the siblings for her attention, and her guilt over her being more affectionate towards Tom than Lara. My response, when invited by supervisor to comment at the beginning, was to verbalise my observation, yet affirmed Lara and mother of their calmness in the session, which allowed my supervisor to leverage on it to explore with Lara her negative emotions and self-talk.

Prior to session, I shared with supervisor my learning from reading about reflecting team, something that I noticed to be missing in both the home visits and Family Therapy Team 's reflection I was involved for the past weeks - the importance to reflect not just about clients but therapists and processes as well,  or else reflecting team will be re-enforcing the facilitators to be at higher level of power than the participants and presuming facilitators to be not part of the system. We agreed to include this in our reflection if it flows. In the end, we did apply it, sounding each other out our awareness of talking more with mother and noticing Lara's reaction, while positively reframing it to be that we are attending to her indirectly by giving her space to listen to her mother.

26/11/09 Felt the post discussion with my supervisor after the home visit very helpful. It was incorporated as part of my individual supervision.  Our reflection drew out possible alternative tracks the session could have led us to and possible reasons for us feeling stuck at which portions of the session. 

I found myself not fully plunging in as a co-therapist in this session; there were quite a few entry points that I had thoughts in my mind but did not execute them. After voicing them out to my supervisor, she was pretty receptive to the ideas. On reflection, I was probably positioning myself still as a trainee waiting for cues to lead the session. The discussion with my supervisor has helped to understand her receptiveness and the confidence I need to have next time to attempt in c0-leading the “dance”.

Reflections on Post-Milan

27/11/09 Social-constructionism and post-modernism, the building blocks of the newer Family Therapy approaches like Post Milan and Narrative models... how they fascinates me... The Academic Seminar on Post Milan today was very helpful and cleared some confusion I had, eg. the use of reflecting team came from Post-Milan, rather than early Milan. Read the papers written by the Milan and Post-Milan teams (the former by Palazzoli et al and latter by Cecchin/ Tomm) given by my clinical supervisor at Oogachaga  about two years ago. I did not know anything about these teams then and could only understand the concepts superficially. Now everything makes so much more sense!  While to some extent found Post-Milan concepts on the interventive interviewing, curiousity and irrelevance more of a reframe of Milan's circular questioning, neutrality and hypothesizing, I think the major paradigm shift is the move from the use of one-way mirror and expert position, to reflecting team and collaboration.

Browsing through some of my old readings from my social work undergraduate studies, I was amazed to spot "Milan" and "Systemic Therapy" being mentioned - I actually had zero memory about them! Somehow only Minichin's Structural and Haley's Strategic models registered in my mind then. While it could be different emphases then, it could also be that now that now I have a historical context of the development of family therapy that has helped bring clarity.

Small Talk

I shared at the second session of the Personal  and Professional Development (PPD) * group about my discomfort in engaging small talk, especially with people I do not know well.  I am aware of this all along, it used to be a big issue when I was younger as I felt incompetent in front of crowds and strangers. 

I shared that it has been less so now as my self-confidence has improved since I started working 6 years ago. Having had to interact with several new groups of people after moving to London - housemates, coursemates, tutors, placement colleagues and friends, I became more conscious  once again about this side of me. One example I cited was that when I bumped into my supervisor at a conference last Friday, she initiated small talk the first time, yet the second and third time, we just smiled, even though I wanted to say something. I felt a tinge of awkwardness as I had wanted to small talk, as well as share my thoughts about her sharing at the conference but decided otherwise. 

I drew two (of many possible) connections to this small talk issue, the first of which I shared with the PPD group, the second only occurred to me after the group ended :

1. I tend to be a task-oriented person, i.e. speak to people only when I have something to ask or need some help. Right now, the people-oriented side of me wishes to get to know people better, rather than  just for tasks. Very often I am not able to initiate it as I would be at lost with what to ask. While writing this I also recall feeling irritated and frustrated each time a friend approached me, as she is the sort who only approaches people when she needs help; I believe it is this similarity that stirred up my negative emotions towards her. On the contrary, I enjoyed conversations with her  sister, as she chats and take genuine interests in hearing and confiding with me; a character I yearn to be like.

2. My family rarely engages in small talk with one another; we only speak when there is a task to be done, or when care and concern is expressed,  like in many Asian families, through questions about basic needs like money, food and safety. This relational pattern persists even till today when I am overseas and speak to them over the phone. It does take me a long time to come to a good place to appreciate and accept this as our love expression.

  

My PPD tutor, in response to my sharing, said I could do small talk with myself to start off with, asking myself things like what another person would want to know or ask, or even imagine what questions I would ask five years ago or five years from now. He also suggested the team to help me work on a devil's pact, which he hopes to elaborate further in future sessions.

I made a pact with myself for the second realisation - to attempt to make small talk with my family on over the phone on a fornightly basis.


* PPD is a class that helps students explore how and what the personal aspect of ourselves enhance or limit us in our professional work with families. This could be done by looking at our own families and membership of other systems in our lives. Genograms, role-play and other experiential exercises could be used in the group session.

My First Observation of a Therapy Session at My Placement

I like the placement arrangement at IOP. Unlike my undergraduate social work placement which happened during term vocations, it is throughout the academic year, i.e. 2 out of the 5 days in a week are dedicated as placement days.

Once a week I participate in a family therapy workshop. This is a team in which  my placement supervisor works as a team with one other family therapist and 2 mental health practitioners currently pursuing their partime family therapy courses. The team adopts the Post-Milan reflecting team approach - while 1 or 2 therapist(s) conduct(s) the family session, the rest act as reflecting therapists, i.e. being proactive observers who, once invited into the session near end of the session, convene a conversation  among themselves, with the therapist(s) and family listening. The conversation could revolve around observations and hypotheses of the covert/overt conversations, dynamics and actions during the session, as well as the observers' personal reflection, feelings or thoughts triggered from observing the session. Suggestions and questions could also be raised. After the reflective dialogue ends, the therapist(s) and family would resume the session, bringing into the session what they just heard that make sense to explore further.

This approach enriches and demystify the therapy process, bringing closed-door professional discussions in front of the family. Not only does it increase transparency but also broaden the multiple perspectives the family and therapist(s) could experience to create differences. This approach is built from the concepts of second order cybernetics and social constructionism.

As this is my first day joining the team, I was told to remain as observer and not participate in the reflection yet.  Learnt possible ways to therapeutically engage mother and young children in play and music making. I'm amazed at how the team constantly attempt to engage children as young as 3  and a toddler in therapy, even  though their attention span is short and half the time nosily playing with the toys in the therapy room. This makes me reflect back on how much I had missed out in my previous work, when younger children brought to family sessions were totally ignored or assumed to not benefit or able to participate.

Observed the flexibility and risk-taking of reflecting team - the impromptu use of dolls and motherese-talk, which captured the children's attention during reflection (for a first time for the team). Noted also how the children's attention could easily be lost over time and when the reflection is not engaging enough.

The second family did not turn up for the session but the team made use of the time to convene a case discussion. Understood the constraints of scheduling sessions to track the role and involvement of care coordinator, based on the hypothesis of him/her being possibly a homeostatic member of the referred family, as suggested by Palazzoli et al (1980).

A vintage photo of 6 siblings, probably taken in the 1950s or 60s, which happens to be the era when family therapy first started. The girl on the top left hand corner is my mother!

Reference

PALAZZOLI, M. S., BOSCOLO, L., CECCHIN, G. & PRATA, G. 1980. The problem of the referring person. Journal of the Marital and Family Therapy, 6, 3-9.

Day One at IOP

I was very much at peace and feeling calm throughout the first day of my journey as an Associate Family Therapist - contributing to this would be the friendliness of staff and course mates, as well as my prior experiences of group supervision and participation in reflecting team. An observation I shared with the team is that most coursemates are still rather reserved, probably keeping the energy to keep up the stamina for future; also the more risk I take to share and experience, the more I would learn and take responsibility for my learning; the more colleagues who do the same, the more the group growth too!

I like the way our programme leader addresses my course mates and I as 'colleagues', which is a constant reminder that these two years will be a bridge leading to our future careers as family therapists or psychotherapists.

I enjoyed the experiential learning portions like the "speed dating", reflecting team and dyad discussions. I also liked our first class Personal Professional Development (PPD) class answering the century-old Marcel Proust questionnaire on "What do I like doing most". All in all, lots of experiential learning!

I'm also mindful of my tendency to doze off when it comes to lecture-style learning situations. I'm glad that I did not feel so for the entire day. Also found it amazing that a century-old questionnaire could still be so intriguing and useful right now, helping me to get to know myself a little more though asking myself questions I have never thought of asking - the question of how I would want to die (in my sleep with my closed ones at my side). I will keep my answers and compare them with my answers one year from now as an MSc student!

What struck me most in the Placement Introduction class was that we are not just acquiring clinical skills to work with families, but also creating a platform for ourselves to understand the role of a Family Therapist and to re-position ourselves as a family therapist, over and above our current profession, in my case, a social worker. A word used which I like is "de-skilled", just like we need to take off our clothes, feel naked first before we could don on fresh ones!

From the questions posted and sharing by the MSc students, as well as my own thoughts, I gather that we are all concern about the challenges that we would face in clocking the 60 (Certificate) or 240 hours (MSc) of supervised clinical hours. IOP is stricter - the only hours we could clock are 1.5 hours for conducting therapy (or co-therapy) and 20 minutes as a reflecting therapist. Important thing I learnt though is to have a balanced sentiment over this - on one hand to be proactive to raise red alert as soon as I notice I'm really lagging behind, yet on the other, to also stay mindful of the experiential learning I would gain even from the hours that I were to be unable to clock such as case conferences, discussions, etc.

Two key pointers for myself to stay mindful which I hope to record it here so that I could revisit and remind myself regularly:

1. A colleague reflected something important that never occurred to me, that my tendency to be overly focused in organising things to the extent that I could get overwhelmed and lose the sense of priority; this could have been my way to overcompensate my lack of self-confidence, especially in the past. I now believe these two have strong co-relation to each other in me, as through my years of working, my self-confidence have been built up and the times when I get overwhelmed with overly organising things have lessened.  

2. The importance of being consistent in writing and not to accumulate back log, something which I was mindful when I started working as an aftercare officer but lapsed over the months. This will be a huge goal I am committed to achieve and to gather mutual support from my colleagues!

Who is Amethyst Rippling?

Who is Amethyst Rippling?

Amethyst Rippling is the blogger-double of Yang Yang, existing on the world wide web, in my mind and perhaps overtime becomes part of the readers’ narratives in your own realms.

HW suggested I choose a blog name that integrates me and family therapy. Amethyst is my birthstone and is the name I used for my email address for ages. I initially have resistance in reusing it, wanted something different. I thus avoided it totally. Some initial ideas were - Reflecting Ripples, Rippling Reflections, Rippling Mirror and Rippling Forest. In the end I decided to embrace amethyst, after reading up more about it and realizing how apt it describes me and family therapy!

Amethyst

The name originates from the Greek work “amethystos”, which refers to being not drunk, or the cure for drunkenness. In Greek mythology a person called Bacchus felt remorse after turning a young maiden to stone. He poured wine and stained the statue, which created amethyst.

Today we know amethyst as the precious stone from the quartz family, colour ranging from reddish to bluish purple or violet. I presume not many people know that it is transparent at its purest form. and called Citrine  and turns yellow orange when heated. Its scientific formula is SiO2, made from sulphur and oxygen. It is usually found crystallized with rippling inside that are called thumb markings.

Amethyst is the aquarius birthstone (20 Jan to 18 Feb) and the 4^th and 6^th wedding anniversary jewellery. It also symbolises stability, balance, harmony, peace, courage and inner-strength. Believed to be the stone of spirituality and sobriety, it is said to have healing power against addictions, calms the mind, relieve headaches, insomnia, arthristis, pain relief and circulatory problems.  It is also called the Stone of Transformation. One special type of amethyst named Chevron Amethyst is purple with banded white and said to help change old karmic patterns to promote self-love for one to live in harmony with one’s loved one(s) and family members.

Rippling

It refers to the forming of small waves outwards on the surface of a liquid when something drops into it. The ripple effect is a term often used in economics to describe how the reduction in spending of a person decreases the earning of others and their ability to spend. In sociology, it refers to how the interaction of people affect those not directly involved, or how altruistic action by individuals or one community could influence or spread to others.

I was quite sure of picking Rippling. Why rippling, not ripple? Rippling gives a more circular way of looking at life as continuous changing process, whereas ripple refers to just a linear snapshot of  something dropped into the water that creates waves and dies off. The former aligns better with more systemic perspective, with the latter as just describing one segment of the whole process; the waves do not just die but expand outwards and form to other phenomena, while the process continues each time a new object drops into the water. Rippling also occurs on the surface of water, where a blurred reflection occurs, just like how we usually experience the uncertainty and confusion when we face initial struggles when changes occur in our lives. As the ripple spreads out over time, the reflection becomes clear. Helping myself and others (including co-therapists, clients and society to reflect) are important skills and processes in therapy, and in life, as well.

Rippling marries Amethyst

The tipping point for Rippling to marry Amethyst was when I read about the rippling (=fractures) on amethyst crystals. The combination kind of tell me that scars or imperfection contributes to beauty and serves as a part and parcel of healing. It is also interesting to visualise a precious stone (a solid) rippling (create waves); how fascinating it would be if hard objects could be as versatile as liquid to be able to expand and change with just the slightest touch! A little difference creates a widening difference. Even if this difference is just observed from the surface, we are not sure how much mystery is beneath - what remains unchanged or what shifted along, or there could still be undercurrent or perhaps calmness beneath all along.

Amethyst Rippling is at the same time mobile (moving waves) yet stationary (calm); awake yet resting; mindful yet at peace. All in all, a higher level of consiciousness that is in harmony. This is where I see the potential of Family Therapy, a combination of Science and Art – having a rippling effect and simultaneously, possess ing the aesthetics of healing.

Sources:

http://www.gemstoneeducation.com/Amethyst.htm

http://www.birthstones.org.uk/jewels-gemstones/amethyst.htm

http://www.astrologyzine.com/crystal-5.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_effect

See how amethyst looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yBW4qDef8s

How I got pregnant with Blog

Post Blog Days

I supposed I'm an opportunist. I started writing diary in 1992 under the instruction of my Chinese Language teacher back then. I took this as a chance for me to continue this writing habit throughout my days as a teenager. It went through a slow death nearing the end of my undergraduate days because of my lost of interest and other parts of my life superseding. It lasted for about 10 years.

How I got pregnant with Blog

It took almost another 10 years, in 2009, for another opportunity to arise. As a trainee in Family Therapy, I am tasked to write a reflective diary and a clinical log, as part of my course requirement to chart my growth both personally and clinically.

I choose to back date this entry as this idea of blogging was mooted on my first day at my Family Therapy course in Oct 2009. When my course programme leader introduced the concept of reflective diary and clinical log to us. I asked if I could turn it into a blog. While she was agreeable, I was cautioned against confidentiality for clients and sensitivity towards things said about colleagues, as well as to yield a more concise version for submission as part of course requirement.

But why blog? I could just keep it as a personal diary. Well, I hope to share this rebirth of me as a social worker, to a family therapist cum social worker. I hope the sharing could circumvent boundaries, especially with those interested in systemic family work but not able to witness in person this journey with me here in London. By having more people observing and participating in this journey, it also enriches my learning. Together, hopefully we create new perspectives about ourselves and the worlds we live in.

It took me 3 months of pregnancy before I finally set out on this as my first major task in 2010 . After a day of brainstorming for the blog name with HW, I finally decided on the blog name Amethyst Rippling. I have some reservation initially whether to keep it within restricted view but decided in the end to make it fully public for whoever interested to participate in this learning journey with me, It also embraces the transparency and  the effect of second order cybernetics in the post-modern approaches in Family Therapy.

I must say I am 10 years behind time since blogging became ubiquitous way back in 1999 … also regardless of how many years I will sustain writing this moving ahead, I am glad that I have finally, officially launched it online on 6-Oct-2009 (idea mooted)/ 5-Jan-2010 (actual publishing date) !

There will be two different labels to the blog - a reflective diary that focuses more on my personal growth and another clinical log, that focuses on my clinical learning points.