Inga-Britt Krause

Gregory Bateson in contemporary cross‐cultural systemic psychotherapy

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the relevance of Batesons ethnographic work to systemic psychotherapy.Design/methodology/approach – The paper addresses this by examining Batesons work with the naven ritual practiced by the Iatmul people of New Guinea. Bateson published this work in an ethnography entitled Naven, which has largely been ignored by systemic psychotherapists.Findings – It is argued that Batesons early work has been neglected in the field of psychotherapy despite being highly relevant to the development of cross‐cultural approaches in this field. The paper summarises Batesons arguments in the main body of the book and in the two epilogues which provide Batesons own commentary on this work. Key concepts such as “context” “pattern” and “ethos” are discussed. The paper also addresses the issues of how psychotherapists and ethnographers have access to the meaning of their interlocutors and outlines some pointers given by Bateson upon which psychotherapists may build in their cross‐cultu...

Cultural differences stand to universalities as practice stands to theory: comments on Rober and de Haene

Comments on the original article by Peter Rober & Lucia De Haene (see record 2014-13242-002). Rober and De Haene note the limits, even regressive effects, of using the framework of cultural competence and the importance of recognising universalities in human nature. In their article, Rober and De Haene propose a view of intercultural family therapy in which the unresolvable dialectical tension between differences and universalities is central. Rober and De Haene remind us of the complexity of the issues. But, note the current author, with complexity also comes a requirement to be clear about how we talk about it. Rober and De Haene use the terms ‘shared humanity’, ‘human being’, ‘universality’ and ‘the universal’. The present author thinks that this calls for clarification.