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Introduction
Postmodernism has profoundly affected both the practice, and
justification of practice, of family therapy (Cecchin, 1992; Epston
and White, 1992; Madigan, 1992a; White, 1992, 1993; AdamsWestcott et al., 1993; Chang and Phillips, 1993; Par, 1995).
Postmodernism figures as a philosophical position, such as empiricism or existentialism, that has displaced earlier, less sophisticated
philosophies (Par, 1995). Although we are convinced by the postmodern position, our reading of much-quoted authors, such as
Derrida, Foucault and Lyotard, has impressed us with the incoherence of postmodernism; it is not so much a philosophy as a crisis in
philosophy. Thus Lyotard defines postmodernism as incredulity
toward metanarratives (Lyotard, 1984, p. xxiv), by which he means
all-encompassing intellectual frameworks such as science, logic,
a Department of Psychology, City University, Northampton Square, London
EC1V 0HB, UK.
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anchor prescriptions, so we must approach them descriptively, looking at the ways in which authors and therapists drawing on postmodern ideas prompt their audiences to construct one set of truths
in preference to another. We have approached this work from
a Foucaultian perspective, focusing on the identification of rules
of the production of statements and the identification of rules
that delimit the sayable (Kendall and Wickham, 1999, p. 42). Our
postmodern perspective inclines us to incredulity towards metanarratives, including scientific method (Feyerabend, 1975).
Consequently, we are warranting the truth of our observations
against the degree to which our readers recognize the practices we
describe in their own explorations of the literature, rather than in
terms of the degree to which we have adhered to method. Some of
the practices we have identified are present in both writing about
therapy and discourse within it, but others are more common in
one or the other. Where practices occur in both discourses, we
discuss them separately.
Practices
Write in the first person
The first person is unexceptional within therapy. Academic writing
is, conventionally, kept impersonal, authors writing either in the
declarative or passive voice (as in authors write . . . or texts are
written) rather than attributing ideas or beliefs to themselves.
Postmodernism favours the first person.
Writing about therapy. Postmodern writers write in the first person
(singular or plural). Examples include:
I am willing to concede . . . (Madigan, 1992b, p. 285).
Thus I chose . . . (Kogan, 1998, p. 231).
I have found myself on a journey of exploration . . . (Friedman,
1993, p. 252).
I was educated as a medical doctor . . . (Andersen, 1993, p. 305).
I will propose that the widespread critique. . . (Par, 1995, p. 2).
We believe that. . . White and Epston, 1990, p. 1).
Comment. Writing in the first person makes reading like a conversation. In conversation, the first person invites the engagement
of the listener by acknowledging that they may think differently
and encouraging exchange of views. Since the reader cannot
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influence the author, the use of the personal voice in text has a
different impact. Rather than inviting debate, it can close it down
since, while it is possible to dispute the reasons why someone
thinks something, it is impossible to dispute the fact that they
think it.
Make assertions
Although incredulous about the metanarratives that legitimize
them, postmodernists make assertions about the nature of the
world. Assertions lead the reader/listener to conclude both that
there are fundamental truths and that the writer/speaker has privileged access to them. The effect is often to present postmodernism as a description of the world, converting it from problem
into solution.
Writing about therapy.
These core concepts [language and conversation] are rooted in contemporary hermeneutics and social constructionism, or what may be referred
to as a postmodern interpretative perspective. . . . They [hermeneutics and
social constructionism] emphasise meaning as an intersubjective phenomenon, created and experienced by individuals in conversation and action
with others and with themselves.
(Anderson, 1993, p. 324)
It is a cultural practice to strip problems from their social relations and
assign them to persons. Two stages in the history of this process can be
identified (Foucault, 1965, 1973).
(White, 1989a, p. 37)
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Everyone is just more sensitive. And as irritability levels go up, there are
more chances for friction.
(Friedman, 1993, p. 255)
Comment. Postmodernism makes the truth of assertions problematic, but does not outlaw them. Assertions are a legitimate move in
our language game (Wittgenstein, 1968) but postmodernism
encourages readers and listeners to reconsider how we should interpret them. In modernist text an assertion strives to be an absolute
description of the world, the truth of which is independent of the
author position. In postmodern text, an assertion is best considered
as an opening move in a negotiation between author and reader or
listener: This is what I believe to be true and I want you to believe
it too.
Assert uncertainly
The danger of assertions being read as position-independent statements of truth may be avoided by qualifying them, either by using
the conditional form of verbs, or hedging the statement with qualifications. Conditionals work well in text, while qualification works
better in speech.
Writing about therapy. I [Michael White] have argued that the text analogy provides a frame that enables us to consider the broader sociopolitical
context of a persons lives and relationship, and that Foucaults analysis
can provide us with some details of that broader context.
(White and Epston, 1990, p. 27)
It can be argued that the basic values referred to here relate to our culturally produced notions about the specification of personhood, a specification that is highly individualistic. Foucault (1979).
(White, 1989b, p. 50)
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One of their examples illustrates this tactic being used by a therapist to redefine the word control:
Client: And I have to say that um (.) that I would always I had to um be in
control of everything (.). . . .
Therapist: (hh) When you say in control you mean like sort of take responsibility for most things or feel that you are responsible for lots of
things is that what you mean by in control or do you mean something else?
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Discourse within therapy. Family therapists imply themes by introducing them across conversational turns. Anderson (1993) provides a
series of good examples. The clients are a mother and her daughter, a minor, who had been referred to another therapist via the
probation service, which had become involved due to the daughter
running away and engaging in other, unspecified, activities.
Although the purpose of the referral was to enable the daughter to
find ways of complying with the disciplinary demands of being a
minor, much of the work in the session relates to the mothers way
of relating to her children. There is the unstated implication that
the problems which led to the referral will disappear if the mother,
not the daughter, changes her view of the problem and how it
should be resolved.
This is achieved in three ways: (1) giving the daughters position
equal time, by spending part of the session alone with the mother
and another part alone with the daughter, while the other person is
behind the one-way mirror, thus obliging each to listen to the
others view without being able to interrupt; (2) normalizing the
daughters behaviour by statements likening the daughters to the
mothers behaviour, indicating that although it is upsetting, it is not
as extreme or inappropriate as the mother might think; (3) transferring control of the agenda to the daughter, making it difficult for
the mother to sustain her demands during the session.
Examples of normalizing include:
H [Therapist]: So weve got two women in this family with very strong opinions and minds of their own. (Anderson, 1993, p. 329).
H: So when you [daughter Anna] run away, is that similar to when your
mother says she closes the doors to kind of get away from it. . .?
(Anderson, 1993, p. 337)
D [Mother]: But as long as there is authority over her, she has problems
with it.
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H: So that part of her personality, you are saying, sort of clashes with the
everyday rules of life in terms of school and . . . .
H: So you think that all this has been complicated by the medical problems.
(Anderson, 1993, pp. 3334)
When the mother starts indicating how she would like things to be
different, the therapist moves the conversation on to other topics,
suggesting that the mothers agenda for change is inappropriate. In
contrast, when the daughter indicates how she would like things to
be different, the therapist seeks elaboration, confirming the daughters right to expect change:
H [Therapist]: What if you were a mother and you had a thirteen-year-old
daughter and some of the same kinds of things were going
on, what, as a mother, would you do to solve this problem?
A [Daughter]: Well, Id understand.
H: How would you understand?
H: How does a mother understand a daughter? Say more about that.
(Anderson, 1993, p. 338)
Comment. Implication is effective because it elides the crisis of legitimization by transferring the onus to the reader or listener. All
White and Epston (1990) are doing is reporting on the contents of
another text, while Madigan (1992a) is expressing the difficulty he
has encountered in understanding Foucault, and the fact that
other, unnamed individuals have experienced similar difficulty. If
readers choose to interpret what they have heard or read in a particular way, such as concluding both that White and Epston agree with
Foucault and that what Foucault says is true or that Madigan, unlike
many others, has mastered the unique terminology of Foucault
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Madigan emphasizes that Luepnitzs problems stem from not grasping the subtlety of the post-structuralist position which emphasises the interaction of reader and text as productivity. Whites
interpretation of Foucault is not one of passive consumption but
performance, where the unity of the sign is considered unstable
and is viewed as operating in structures of power, knowledge and
rhetoric (p. 286).
Comment. Criticism is equated with incomprehension. Critics
have failed to understand the nuances of arguments; hence their
criticisms must be discounted. Conventional argument is like
playing a game (Wittgenstein, 1968) where the rules and acceptable moves are established and the winner is the person who has
operated most effectively within them. Postmodern argument
centres on the rules of the game themselves. Unacceptable arguments are not wrong but derive from applying inappropriate
rules.
Repeat yourself
In writing about therapy, repetition is achieved in multi-authored
texts in which all contributors present essentially the same position
(e.g. Friedman, 1993) and by the same author publishing the same
ideas in a number of different places (White and Epston, 1990;
Epston and White, 1992; White, 1989a, 1989b, 1992, 1993).
Repetition is one of the fundamental rhetorical tools used within
therapy (Gale, 1991; Gale and Newfield, 1992; Kogan and Gale,
1997; Kogan, 1998).
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Linda [the wife] interrupted and said that when George called some time
ago and wanted a divorce, she knew that she did not want to go back to
how it had been. The fighting made her crazy. I [Andersen] waited until
Linda finished and turned to Arlene [the consulting therapist] again . . .
T [Tom Andersen]: I wondered about what you said. In Norway there are
very many types of dances.
Comment. Ignoring what people say controls the contents of conversations and marginalizes discourses (White and Epston, 1990).
However, since it represents a profound violation of conversational
conventions (Potter, 1996) it works best when the person using it
has sufficient power to be able to resist the listeners demands for a
reply.
Summary
These are some of the rhetorical devices used in contemporary
family therapy. They are persuasive even though, when text is
considered in detail, it is impossible to identify any unqualified
claims that something is actually true. How can we be persuaded of
truths when authors/speakers have eschewed asserting them?
Under what conditions does postmodern rhetoric actually work? Is
its widespread application desirable?
Paradoxically, while postmodernism has undermined the status
of truth, postmodern rhetoric restricts discourse to utterances that
are either true or impossible to deny. It also relies on control of the
discourse to limit the other parties opportunities to assert contrary
positions. Writing in the conditional voice, or using the technique
of reciprocal editing, ensures the automatic truth of some statements. Working with citation achieves a similar effect. Using the
first person is particularly effective, because it moves the debate
from disputable statements like X is true to indisputable statements like I believe that X is true. Controlling discourse allows the
author/speaker to determine what are legitimate statements so that
contrary positions are not untrue but simply inappropriate moves
in a novel language game. Thus authors adduce postmodern ideas
to protect their own statements from dispute and to delegitimize
arguments. Within therapy, the combination of the repetition of the
therapists view with a refusal to acknowledge unacceptable client
positions allows the therapist to control the range of permissible
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