Tom Strong

Getting curious about meaning making in counselling.

Counselling offers many experimental opportunities from which counsellors can learn and develop their meaning-making skills. Recent developments in qualitative research, and in social constructionist approaches to counselling, point to new ways of conceptualising the conversations of counselling and guidance. In particular, a hermeneutic view of counselling attunes counsellors and guidance practitioners to the particular meanings and meaning-making potentials clients and students bring to counselling and guidance conversations. Accordingly, our questions and proposed solutions can be seen as engaging the meaning-making efforts of clients in ways we, and they, can learn from. Our conversations offer many potential experiments in meaning-making, should we think of what others do with what we say—as occurring across a gap of conversational potential. This article explores ways to adopt, and learn from, such a hermeneutic frame in our conversations with clients and students.

Six orienting ideas for collaborative counsellors

An enhanced form of collaboration in counselling is made possible by recent developments in social constructionist theory and a new group of ‘postmodern therapies’. Highlighting six orienting ideas that draw from this theory and the postmodern therapies (solution-focused, narrative and collaborative language systems therapy), the author suggests that these ideas can focus counsellors’ listening and creativity broadly. Examples illustrate each of the orienting ideas, with no assumption that the ideas can be narrowed down to specific techniques.

Doing Recovery Online

Although problem gambling is becoming more prevalent, research shows that many problem gamblers do not seek help. Online social support forums have become an increasingly popular option for receiving support for problem gambling. Few researchers have explored how participants within these forums interact, or what is supportive about participation in online communities. Melding netnography (ethnographic approaches online), discourse analysis, and ethnomethodology, we analyzed the discursive interactions of self-identified problem gamblers on an online forum. We report on the characteristics of this unique setting, the common discourses that members used, and how they discursively accomplished various interactional tasks, including constructing identities, and negotiating membership, legitimacy, and support. We conclude with recommendations for practitioners and researchers interested in better understanding people trying to overcome problem gambling and other behavioral concerns.

Understanding in counselling: a preliminary social constructionist and conversation analytic examination

ABSTRACT Increasing numbers of counsellors practise using social constructionist (e.g. narrative, collaborative language systems and solution-focused) approaches. Social constructionist theory holds that matters such as ‘understanding’ are constructed and upheld in human interaction though counselling approaches derived from this theory offer little insight on how this might occur. The present study adopts a theoretically compatible research approach (ethnomethodology and conversation analysis) to empirically examine how understandings were purportedly constructed in counselling interviews. Understanding is depicted in conversational interaction terms, in how speakers make evident to each other that their shared talk is adequate for ‘moving forward’. Counsellor and client perceptions of their participation in researcher-selected passages of ‘understanding’ supplement the analyses. This preliminary study sheds light on some pragmatic considerations useful in practising constructionist forms of counselling.

Accomplishments in Social Constructionist Counseling: Micro-analytic and Retrospective Analyses

Social constructionist interventions in counseling have seldom been evaluated using theoretically compatible research methods. In this exploratory study, 11 clients participated in 1-hour lifestyle consultations conducted by narrative, solution-focused collaborative language systems counselors. The interventions (co-constructing shared understandings, inviting reflections, and introducing new discourses) were primarily evaluated using conversation analysis. Clients and counselors were also asked to retrospectively comment on their experience in videotaped passages where they had been participants. An example of each analyzed intervention, along with corresponding client and counselor commentary, is presented. The results are discussed in relation to training and supervision in social constructionist approaches to counseling, and for contributions this approach to research can make in widening the evidence base for counseling interventions.

Wordsmithing in counselling

Counselling often involves activities where client and counsellor collaboratively develop a shared language together. This article examines those activities under the colloquial term ‘wordsmithing’. Drawing from developments in interpretivist theory, research and counselling, ‘wordsmithing’ is examined as a relationally responsive conversational practice, one focused on a shared process and outcomes. Specific examples common to counselling are reviewed and suggestions made for improving counsellor participation in wordsmithing activities with clients.

Considerations for a discourse of collaboration in counseling

In this paper we consider a discourse of collaborative counseling practice drawing from developments in discourse and social constructionist theory. Collaboration, as we shall refer to it, speaks to negotiating and hopefully sharing initiatives, knowledge and judgment in counselor–client dialogues. However, such negotiations and sharing occur within perceived constraints associated with institutional and professional accountabilities, and are related to unequal powers seen as exercisable by clients and counselors. With these possibilities and constraints in mind, we articulate a discourse of collaborative practice based on counselors and clients sharing content and process expertise in areas often considered the sole prerogative of the counselor.

Introducing new discourses into counseling interactions: A microanalytic and retrospective examination

The conversational practice of initiating new discourses, by counselors adopting a social constructionist perspective, is microanalyzed using a research method compatible with social constructionist theory: conversation analysis. Clients and counselors were asked to comment retrospectively on their participation in videotaped passages to permit a juxtaposition of their commentary with passages microanalyzed. Results of this exploratory study are considered with respect to enhancing counselor-client collaboration, and for adapting the methods to widening the evidence base in counseling and psychotherapy.

Levinas Therapy as Discourse Ethics

In this chapter I introduce the ethical philosophy of Levinas and consider its implications for therapy as a discourse ethics, providing practice examples along the way. Emmanuel Levinas who died in 1995 is one of the most significant Continental philosophers of our time (Critchley and Bernasconi, 2002). Like French contemporary (1999) his thinking has influenced diverse fields of poststructuralist study including more recently psychology and therapy (Kunz, 1998; Gantt and Williams, 2002). Levinas’s unique contribution is the notion that first and foremost we are ethical beings. This ethics first philosophy was to some extent a personal response to the horrors of the Second World War and the holocaust. As (1995) says: “To overcome the ethical is the beginning of all violence. To acknowledge this is very important after the events of 1933 to 1945” (p. 58).

Conversational perspective of therapeutic outcomes: The importance of preference in the development of discourse

Abstract Major theme: Evaluation of therapeutic outcome. Logical development of the theme: We suggest a way for practitioners and researchers to assess if they are on track in conversing towards client preferred goals. We offer a critique of more conventional approaches to studying therapeutic progress, suggesting how a discursive (i.e. focused on interaction and language use) lens can address these limitations. Through this lens we examine therapeutic progress evident in ‘preference work’, where clients demonstrably indicate, imply, agree and disagree with where the therapeutic conversation is heading. Such ‘preference work’ offers a form of evidence of within-session outcomes in a process of reaching larger client preferred outcomes. Authors’ point of view: We present the results of conversation analysis – a qualitative approach to the study of therapy – to illustrate our discursive perspective on therapy progress and change. Implications: we suggest a way for practitioners to assess if they are on trac...