Reading Freedman and Combs (1996) reminded me of my days as a volunteer counsellor, how I felt powerless whenever I encountered clients who talked about problems that were not within their locus of control, eg. societal perspectives about homosexuality, what kind of parents they have, etc. I would always try to get them to see how pointless it would be to focus on what is beyond their control and look at what is within. Reflecting back, I had probably made them feel belittled or small. Now I could see that there is never such a clear distinction between what is internal and external locus of control; they are interconnected in multiple ways. In fact, having clients who externalise problems is a good opening space for exploration of how they could deal with the problems as a separate being, eg. the "society's problem" rather than "I am the problem".
There have been people (including myself) wondering how systemic is Narrative Therapy when it often favours stories from one person's perspectives but wait a minute, isn't the very act of helping a person externalise the problem an approach that work with the person and problem as if they are two separate members of a system? I think this is the same argument for working systemically with an individual - exploring his inner world and this relationships with the outside world.
I think Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) goes an extra mile. It not only look at stories from a person's perspectives but also from how stories are formed through the social interaction between two or more people. This implies that the moral positions and sense of responsibilities to the stories told through a therapist-client conversation could evolve overtime. Both Narrative and CMM models see that the very act of speech is itself a commitment of seeing or doing things in a different way.
This thought bring me back to the impact of the final group supervision I participated end last month. It was a closure session for the Children Mental Health family therapy clinic that was terminated. During the session I asked - couldn't we manage the challenges ahead by being flexible and versatile? Being in an environment that lacked understanding and support of family therapy and systemic practice, we could continue to practise what we believe in and be the ones to nurture and influence others, in hope that in the near future attain a ripple effect?* Group supervisor's reply was that the problem with being too flexible is that overtime, our passion and ideas would be washed away by other people. I felt quite perturbed by her reply then. Days after, her answers began to make sense to me. I remember the days when I first started my first direct social work full-time job working with at-risk and offending adolescents and their families. How enthusiastic I was in believing I could make a difference. To date I do believe that I had made some differences, yet a larger part of me, overtime, simply adapted to the system, or should I say, was recruited to become part of the muddle?
Through the supervision conversation, I felt our group supervisor had helped to pull us together to a balanced position. I will bare in mind my key takeaway - the need to keep a semi-permeable boundary; to continue to keep like-minded people close at heart to co-construct empowering stories for ourselves and our clients, yet at the same time stay in contact with the not so like-minded ones to keep in touch with the contextual interactions and events. Whether or not this constellation of interaction makes a difference at a wider context, I believe is a matter of time.
* Recently read the 110th issue of Context, Aug 2010 and understood that that the essence of systemic practice is to cross-fertilize such practices to other colleagues or settings such as social care, education, etc.
References
FREEDMAN, J. & COMBS, G. 1996. Questions in Action. Narrative therapy : the social construction of preferred realities. New York ; London: Norton.
