"Anger Issues," "Prioritization," and the "Christmas Tree"

“Anger issues” is how Ben explained why he was in my office looking for help. Ben’s wife had passed away four years earlier, leaving him to raise their two sons on his own. Lately, he said, he had become “very short” and “lacked patience” with his teenaged sons. He connected his current difficulties to a much longer term “problem with anger” and was eager to get a better understanding of his anger and develop some strategies for dealing with it.

In our first session he named his preference for how he’d like to handle difficult, frustrating situations with his sons: with “patience,” taking “time out” before responding, and seeking to “understand the situation better before judging.” Ben connected these preferences to skills he was already using at work – being calm, listening, asking for an explanation, and explaining his own perspective – and by identifying them the skills seemed to become more accessible to him as a father.

Ben’s Strategies

Ben worked hard and started reporting progress right away. By our fourth session he described several strategies that he was finding helpful when he would start to feel angry with his sons. He described these as follows:

• “Keeping it on my side” – was Ben’s way of reminding himself not to immediately see the other person as the one with the problem; instead, he was trying to understand how he, too, contributed to the difficulties.
• “Thinking it through” – instead of reacting immediately, Ben would take some time to try to understand how he felt “crossed,” and to respond to the other only when he had a better understanding of this.
• “Taking a deep breath” and “chilling” – were both parts of a larger collection of actions aimed at getting himself to “relax more” and “take time.”
• “Listen, don’t speak” – was Ben’s reminder to himself at those times when he thought “this is a potential blow-up situation.” He said this reminder helped to keep him from “rolling his eyes” and saying to himself “here we go again.”
• “Stepping outside of the role of ‘Dad’” – described Ben’s strategy for not subjecting himself to some impersonal set of standards about how a dad should be doing things, or about what should be happening between a son and a father. Instead, he tried to observe, listen, and “think things through with his boys,” focusing on what was rather than what should be.

Along the way, Ben reflected on the demands he felt as a single-parent and provider, and how those demands often put him in a position of feeling less patient when things “mounted up” and when he had a lot of “balls in the air,” making it difficult for him to “find consistency.” These observations helped him to notice when the demands were having too much of an influence on his life and he was improving his ability to intervene to establish a calmer way of being. In stepping back, Ben was also was able to reflect in a different way about how much his sons had been through with the loss of their mother, and how all of them had been affected by not having two parents around who could work together “as a team” to create a “safe haven.”

I was inspired and impressed by Ben’s progress and was touched by Ben’s description of how he was becoming more of the father he wanted to be.

A Different Description of the Challenge

In our final session I asked Ben for his take on how he was able to make progress. In response, Ben mentioned several of the strategies described above and said these had really helped him manage his “anger issue,” his original reason for seeking therapy. As he said the words, “anger issue,” it occurred to me that it might be helpful for Ben to have a more specific description of this particular challenge. I didn’t doubt that Ben felt angry at the difficult moments he had described. But I thought the phrasing, “anger issue,” seemed abstract and somewhat removed from his actual experience – like a catchphrase that had been useful but may benefit from an update. It didn’t really capture the details of his experiences and I thought it might be useful to him to come up with a new name or description of the problem that more closely matched his experience.

So I asked Ben to describe what he was doing differently now with his sons than he had a few weeks earlier. He said he was “dealing with things that bug me,” and that he was “trying to understand how important” a particular issue was before reacting. It was about “prioritization,” he said, about where the particular difficulty with his son fit in his perspective of what’s important and what’s not so important.

I asked if it might be more accurate and more helpful to describe this problem as a “prioritization issue” rather than an “anger issue.” Ben said it would, and then commented that in the past he had been treating every difficult interaction with his sons as a high priority, when most of them were not really that important.

A Picture of “Prioritization”

In our conversation we started playing with images a little to create a more vivid description of Ben’s prioritization challenge: to paint a picture of “prioritization.”

Our first image was of a priority list. What kinds of things were high on that list and what were low?

That led to talk of the color scheme used in the U.S. to describe threat levels, with red being the highest level of threat, then orange, and so on. Ben observed that he had been treating everything as a “red” level of alert. He was responding to every difficulty as if it were the highest priority, as a crisis-to-be-headed-off or met head-on, so he found himself always on high alert – not a posture that was very conducive to the kind of calm he had described as his preference.




The imagery became more tangible as we switched to the familiar red-yellow-green of traffic lights. I observed that during Ben’s difficult interactions with his sons there seemed to be two sets of traffic lights, side-by-side. On one side was Ben’s “emotions light” – the light that turned red when Ben felt “worked up,” “stressed,” or started to get “angry” with his sons. Next to it was Ben’s “priority light,” with red flashing for the highest priority issues and green for less significant ones and non-crises.




Up until recently, when the emotion light flashed red, the priority light automatically turned red. But with Ben’s recent work he was able to separate these lights and make a distinction between them such that being worked up did not automatically make something a high priority: A red emotion light did not automatically trigger a red priority light. The imagery described an important process that Ben was already practicing: being worked up, agitated, or angry, was now serving as an indicator that there was something to pay attention to, but not necessarily something to get “worked up” about. Ben was using the flashing emotion light as an indicator to pay attention to his priorities.




Drag Racing

The discussion led to one final fun development. I was thinking of traffic lights, but Ben was taken back to memories of drag racing, and the “Christmas Tree” lights used to count down to the start of the race. He regaled me with his own experience of drag racing and the excitement of anticipating the start of the race. The lights would flash through their sequence, down the Christmas Tree, until they reached green and he could, literally, push the button to unleash the enormous power of his dragster. We ended our session buoyed by that rich imagery, and its connection to important distinctions Ben was making in his life, and the changes he was enjoying as a father.

Change is Always Happening

Nearly two years ago I had the privilege, along with about 200 others, of being with Michael White in San Diego for a conference on Narrative Therapy. Sadly, it was the last time we would get to be with Michael, as his heart failed that night and he passed away later that week (you can read more about his remarkable work and its effects on people around the world, here).

Michael was inspiring that day as he talked about the ideas and practices that comprise the familiar core of the narrative approach and as he shared the cutting edge of his own thinking about narrative. I was, as always, spellbound watching the brilliance of his videotaped work with clients (or the people who “consulted” with him, as Michael would have said it). Michael’s meticulous attention to the details of people’s accounts of their lives, and his ability to ask questions that brought out hope-filled alternative stories, was in full force, and the results for the clients were obvious and life-changing. We were witnessing an artist at work. (Michael wanted those of us who followed his work not to place him in an exalted position, and worked diligently to deconstruct his own work such that we could see the step-by-step, disciplined approach, that we all could master. And yet, watching him was still quite magical).

Theory of Change

Someone asked a question that day about narrative therapy’s theory of change. I’ve taught narrative therapy for years, so I immediately tried to think of an answer that I might give to a student. Michael’s answer was simpler, yet more elegant and profound than what was forming in my head. My notes have him saying:

• “Change is always happening. Conversations accelerate change, but it’s always occurring.”
  

As Michael elaborated, here’s some of what I captured in my notes:

• Change is ever-present.
  
• We are constantly constituting life as we give expression to our experience of life.
  
• As therapists we can ask, “Where is a certain expression taking a person?”
  
• We are constantly constituting and re-constituting our lives. (As an example) “These aren’t the same tears as last time.”
  
• Who are we becoming in our acts of living (what we say, do, feel, etc.)? How are we different than we were five minutes ago?
  

Michael contrasted this belief about ever-present change and the “re-constituting” of our lives with other approaches to therapy that try to “uncover” people’s “authentic self” – something that’s fixed and relatively unchanged through time – and with approaches that subscribe to a “repressive hypothesis” where “our job is to throw off the repression to become who ‘we really are’; to get back to the original.”

Hope in Change

I remember how Michael’s response to the question about change rekindled my sense of hope. It is this belief that change is always happening that gives me confidence in my work as a therapist. If change is always happening, then the question in therapy is not, “How can we create change here?”, but:

• How can we notice and build on changes that are already happening?
  

Further, in the therapy setting, and outside, the assumption about change helps us be curious in several ways:

• Are there changes in our lives that might be “small” and easy to overlook, that may hold promise, and that may be change in the right direction?
  
• How do such changes reflect, reveal, or shape our desires and hopes?
  
• What are the conditions that most foster these desired changes?
  
• What steps have we already taken to help bring about these changes?
  
• What is the potential in these changes? In what direction are they leading us?

Red-winged blackbirds

In her book, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard has a wonderful description that speaks of unexpected change. She writes of hearing the “racket” of migrating red-winged blackbirds near her home, and going to explore. As she walks toward the Osage orange tree that seems to be the source of the noise, she sees nothing but the tree and its leaves. Then, as she moves closer, a hundred birds “materialize” and take flight. Just as quickly, the tree returns to just branches and leaves.

She steps closer and another hundred birds fly away, surprising her again. Thinking that all the birds have left the tree, she steps to its trunk only to see the remaining hundred birds take to the sky. She writes of her experience: “It was as if the leaves of the Osage orange had been freed from a spell in the form of red-winged blackbirds; they flew from the tree, caught my eye in the sky, and vanished.”

Dillard’s experience, combined with Michael’s ideas about change, have me wondering:

• What is present all along in our lives, that is beautiful, helpful, or life-giving, that is hidden by our perspective, assumptions, or stories?
  
• What changes do we start to notice when we look from a different angle, from a closer-up inspection, or when we allow the possibility of change?
  
• What red-winged blackbirds are there all along behind the leaves and branches of our lives, waiting to appear?

Photo by Walter Siegmund, copyright 2008

Describing my Work with Couples

Recently, a client in couple’s therapy, who was obviously struggling with our work, asked me about the purpose of therapy and how it works. I thought it was a good question, and, surprisingly, one that I had been asked directly only a handful of times in my 20-plus years of working with couples. With his wife also in the therapy session, the three of us discussed his questions, but it was a brief conversation and left me wanting to give a more complete response. That led me to begin thinking more about how I would describe what actually happens in couples therapy and how I would capture that in writing. Below is my attempt to do so.

I think of this as a draft that will continue to be re-written and updated through time. Having articulated these ideas, having put them on paper, lets me step back and consider them from a little distance. It gives me the opportunity to edit and refine them as I think about my work, as my work changes through time, and as I continue to learn from clients about what is helpful and unhelpful to them. I welcome your feedback and questions, too.

What is the Purpose of Couple’s Therapy?

Although the purpose of couple’s therapy changes according the specifics of the clients’ situation and their goals, in general it is to help couples improve their marriage or relationship; to help them live together in ways that are more satisfying and meaningful, or just easier than what’s currently happening in their relationship. The exact nature of what a couple would find more satisfying, meaningful, or easier, depends on the couple, so I can’t say, except in general terms, what “improvement” looks like. But I do have as one of my primary goals, helping the couple describe what “improvement” looks like for them, so that we have a reasonably clear understanding of what we’re working toward. This also lets us check in along the way to see if we’re making the progress they desire.

How does Couples Therapy Work?

Therapy works or happens in a variety of ways depending, again, on the interests and abilities of the couple. In a very basic sense, couples therapy happens by talking and listening; by exploring, thinking, and feeling; and by the partners making changes in behavior, in ways of thinking, and in emotional responses. More specifically, the following processes or goals are components of nearly all the work I do with couples.

• Understanding Concerns or Problems

I work with couples to try to develop a clear understanding of the concerns or problems they have about their marriage or relationship. For most couples, some of these concerns are shared by both parties, and some are seen as a problem by one person but not the other.

Through conversation we explore how these problems “show up” or what they “look like,” and try to understand their effects on the couple, as individuals and on their relationship. I try to get beyond the common labels we often use to describe problems in our relationships, to get a detailed understanding of how the couple actually experiences these problems or concerns and the impact they have on their lives.

• Understanding Preferences

We work together to identify the couple's “preferences” for their relationship. How do they want their relationship or marriage to “be”? What do they want it to “look like”?

For example: How do they want to show or give affection? How do they want to make decisions or plans for the future? How do they want to divide up housework? Who should earn income, one or both? What principles do they want to guide their raising of children? How do they want to manage their finances? What are their preferences for religious or spiritual practices? How about friendships, in-laws, vacations, play?

There are many aspects of a marriage or intimate relationship, and some matter a great deal to a given couple, while others matter little. My goal is to understand what is preferred by a particular couple, what their hopes and dreams and deepest desires are, and why those matter to them.

• Listening and Acknowledging
  

Because problems, concerns and preferences can be difficult to talk about and can elicit strong emotions, it can be a real challenge just to listen to one’s partner talk about such things. And yet, it’s very difficult for couples to improve their relationship if they don’t feel “heard” and if they don’t believe their partner really “gets” or understands them.

So my work with couples often involves helping them develop their ability to listen to one another with interest, compassion, and empathy: to try to put themselves in one another’s “shoes,” and let themselves be affected (be “moved” or “touched”) by the other’s concerns, fears, hopes and dreams.

Often such intentional listening leads one or both partners to want to acknowledge or “own up” to the effect they’ve had on the other. Such acknowledgment can be a powerful step toward creating a different atmosphere or spirit in the relationship, one that can open the door to more effective ways of being together as a couple. So we might spend time figuring out how one or both partners can provide meaningful acknowledgment to the other.

• Developing Strategies
  

In light of the couple’s preferences and concerns, we work together to develop strategies to help their relationship become more like the relationship they want it to be. This might involve a discussion to identify times when the relationship has “worked” better, to develop an understanding of how that was possible. It might involve identifying the skills that could be used to bring about more of those “preferred” qualities. And it might involve “borrowing” strategies and abilities that have worked in other areas of the couple’s life, and put them to work in the marriage or relationship (e.g. strategies from work or friendships, or from involvement in sports, the arts, clubs, or other organizations). The strategies usually have practical implications that the couple can put into practice outside the therapy setting, so they can add to their repertoire of ways to build their relationship.

• Clients Working Outside of Therapy
  

The research is pretty clear that the biggest factor in therapeutic change is the effort made by clients outside the therapy session. So at the beginning of each session I try to check with couples to see what kinds of changes they’re making: what kinds of skills they’re developing, what new ideas or strategies they’ve come up with on their own, how they’re currently thinking about their relationship, and what’s working and not working for them. The developments and insights that come from clients’ efforts “on their own” then influence how we proceed in therapy.

• Agreeing to End our Work or Take a Break
  

Ideally couples reach a point in their therapy work where they are pleased with their progress and are experiencing the kind of marriage or relationship they want. At that point they may decide they want to focus on other areas of the relationship in therapy, or they may decide to slow the frequency of therapy into more of a “check-in” or “maintenance” mode (meeting every few weeks or months), or they may decide that we’ve completed our work together.

In the decision to end therapy, I want to be guided by my clients’ thinking about what’s best for them. If they decide to end, then I hope I get to hear from them about what they’re “taking with them” from the therapy experience (e.g. the insights, skills, helpful perceptions, “stories,” goals, self-understandings, and strategies they plan to utilize in their marriage), so that I can learn from them about how I can improve my work as a therapist.

I welcome your thoughts and questions.

Name the Game

I loved recess in elementary school. It was all about playing games for me, and the games usually involved a bouncy red rubber ball.

Between my 2nd-grade and 5th-grade years the volleyball-sized red rubber ball was the only piece of equipment needed for several of the games that occupied most of my recesses. With it we’d play games called two-square, one-square, dodge ball, and kickball. In a pinch, the red rubber ball could also be used as a basketball or soccer ball or to play three-flies-up.


Because it could be used for many purposes, just being in possession of the red rubber ball on the playground at the beginning of recess did not give a clear indication of the game to be played. Unlike a football or basketball, which mostly spoke for themselves, your intentions with the red rubber ball had to be announced, in words or actions. You had to “name the game.”


CONVERSATIONAL “GAMES”


The idea of “naming the game” came to mind recently as I was thinking about a fairly common pattern I see when I work with couples. It’s a pattern that begins with a discussion between them about a particular issue of concern, that quickly grows in complexity, frustration and tension. After a few minutes it becomes unclear to me, and usually to the couple, too, whether they’re still talking about the thing they started talking about.


Those conversations had me thinking about the value of taking a moment to “name the game,” to pause and reflect on the following: If the conversation you’re having with your partner had a title, what would that title be? How would you name the conversational “game” you’re engaged in? What’s its purpose? What are its rules? When is the game over?


NAMING THE CONVERSATION


In a recent session with a couple, we were in one of those conversations that started in one place and was quickly drifting into several new areas. What had begun as a difficult discussion about spending money on a vacation or home improvements was, within 10 minutes, bouncing around among several conversations, and becoming more complicated, confusing, and more laden with emotion. Before getting too overwhelmed we agreed to pause the discussion to see if we could name the various conversations that were occurring. Together we listed on the white board the names of the conversational games we were noticing, including:

• Worry about debt: How are we going to dig out of our growing burden of debt?
• Competing values: What is most important, investing in our home, spending time away as a family, or digging out of debt?
• Comparing financial faults: Whose financial “flaw” is worse, his lack of planning ahead or her always feeling anxious and worried about money?
• Longsuffering: Who has waited the longest for something that really mattered to them? Who is more “due”?
• Troubling family legacies: Whose family-of-origin had worse financial habits?
• Is my work valued? Are our contributions to the family’s finances valued equally?
• Who decides? Do we have an equal say in how this decision will be made?
• Hurt: Who feels hurt, in what ways, by past conversations about money?

Until we paused to name them, most of these conversations were only implicit. That is, the only conversational “game” that had really been named was the Vacation vs. Home Improvements one. All of the conversations above just seeped into the discussion. The effect of their presence, however, was to increase confusion and emotional intensity, and create a growing sense that there was a mess here that was going to be difficult to fix.


My primary point about naming the game is not that the couple should have stayed on topic and not “strayed” into these other “games” – we live complex lives and so our financial decisions are often intertwined with our histories and emotions. My point is that when we feel captured by such complexity and are suffering in its grip, or when we have a sense that one conversation has become too many, it may be helpful to pause and name the conversations. Once we name them, at least three things may become more possible:

1. We may gain a better understanding about why the conversation feels so messy. Without necessarily knowing it, we may have been playing several games at once, each with different “rules,” roles and objectives (from a narrative perspective we might think of these as multiple or competing stories).
2. We have the opportunity to evaluate the relative importance of each of the conversations we name (What are their effects? How do they help or hinder us? Why do they matter?).
3. And we can start to identify our preferences for the conversation(s) we want to have. We can ask, for example, “Which of these conversations seems most important to our relationship?” or “Which one seems like the best place to begin? (are some conversations contingent on others?)” or “What do we want to accomplish and which conversation(s) is(are) most likely to help us get there?”

We might then decide to focus first on the conversation about getting out of debt.


Or we may decide that before we move on to talk about money, hurts need to be repaired or fears addressed.


Or maybe we reach an understanding that this is complex territory (not a simple choice between two options). So we agree that we’ll set aside time to talk, we’ll do some homework to get the facts we need, we’ll move slowly, and we’ll make sure that we show respect to each other even in the midst of confusion and difficult decisions: The name of this game might be “Staying close to each other in the face of life’s complexities.”

Quick Note - An Anniversary

Hi friends and faithful readers.  You may have noticed that I haven't posted in a while.  Alas, life has conspired against my finding much time to write.  But I didn't want to lose any good will I may have gained with you, so I wanted to send this little note to say that I'm working on some more pieces and aim to have the next one posted by the end of the month. 

I'm pleased to say that I just passed the one-year anniversary of my first post.  I started this blog as a vehicle for writing about some of the interesting things I get to experience as a narrative therapist.  Writing in such a public forum has been important to me as it's required that I think about my writing from the perspective of others: people real and imagined, known and unknown, critical, skeptical, open, curious, or just having stumbled in.  The main benefit to me, in addition to trying to imagine the many responses a given piece may elicit, has been that by "going public" I "get to" face the challenge of working on a piece -- revising, refining, throwing out and starting over -- until I feel good about having others read it.  So, thank you.  The fact that you're reading, and that some of you are even responding, questioning and engaging the ideas, is very helpful to me, and makes this whole process extremely satisfying.

Metaphors - Part 3

THE BOOKSHELF METAPHOR: SIDE-BY-SIDE UNDERSTANDINGS OF GRUMPINESS

Instead of arranging the different ideas about Dave’s grumpiness in a hierarchy, with one key underlying cause, in the bookshelf metaphor the ideas or explanations are arranged side-by-side, like books. Below are the items from the layers of the mining metaphor, now shifted 90 degrees to become books on a bookshelf, with slight name changes to move from “causes” to book titles:


[These titles are also listed at the bottom of this blog entry, along with the original list of causes from the mining metaphor blog entry]

From a narrative therapy perspective this simple change from a top-to-bottom to a side-by-side arrangement of these items can prompt some important shifts in our thinking about a problem situation.

BOOKS AND STORIES REPLACE “CAUSES”

First, what were “causes” or “underlying causes” in the mining metaphor now become “books” in the bookshelf metaphor. The imagery and idea of books tends to evoke an interest in stories, drama, action, plot, and character, which I don’t usually think of when I see causal statements like those in the mining metaphor. And whereas calling something a “root cause” tends to function like a period at the end of a sentence (“It’s been explained, conclusion reached: It’s all over!”), calling it a “book” functions more like a comma, and elicits my curiosity: I want to know more. I’m drawn to learn about the chapters of the book and the details of the story, to see how it was developed and where it goes.

As an example, let’s look at one of the “deeper” causes we named as part of the mining metaphor:

"Dave's unresolved anger toward his parents keeps him unclear about the direction of his life and uncomfortable as a father."

When I see this idea presented as a cause, two or three thoughts occur to me rather immediately:

• The word “unresolved” jumps out at me and makes me think that it’s a problem that the anger hasn’t been “resolved.” I don’t know what “resolved” means or what it would look like for Dave, but I wonder what’s wrong with him, and how messed up his family is, that he hasn’t been able to resolve this anger.

• It seems that it’s imperative that Dave resolve this anger issue if he is to have any hope of being less grumpy at home.
  

• As depicted in the mining metaphor, in Part 2 of this series, there are even deeper issues than “unresolved anger,” so I suspect that Dave will be unable to resolve his anger until he addresses those deeper issues: introversion, insecurity, and fear of intimacy. And when I think about this, I start to feel overwhelmed for Dave, and lose hope that he will ever make any real change in his grumpiness at home.
  

In contrast, when I see the book on the bookshelf, “Anger at My Parents: Effects on My Parenting and Life’s Direction – by Dave,” I feel much more curious about Dave and his experiences with his parents. Instead of being pulled toward the elusive imperative of “resolving” something, I want to know more about Dave, his family, his experience of anger, and the effects of anger on his life. Some of the specific questions I start to have are:

• What experiences have led to this particular story about how anger is affecting Dave’s life and parenting?

• Who holds this story? Is it Dave alone, or did others help in putting together the different events and experiences of his life to build the story about anger at his parents? Does Dave find that the story fits his experience?

• How does this story help to make sense of Dave’s relationship with, feelings about, and experiences of his parents? And how does it tie in with grumpiness?

• Under what circumstances are the anger and its effects most pronounced, and when are they least noticeable, powerful, or influential?

• Are there experiences that Dave has had with his parents that don’t fit with this “anger” story? If other stories were told about those events, what would the titles of those stories be?

• If these other stories were added with the anger story, would this become a richer, more complex story overall, and how well would the “larger” story fit with Dave’s own experience?
  

FREED FROM THE SEARCH FOR “ONE TRUTH” – FINDING PERSONAL AGENCY

Second, and what may be the most helpful for me, the bookshelf arrangement of these ideas frees me from the almost impossible search for the “one truth,” “one right answer,” or one core, essential explanation of the problem. I’m freed from trying to make distinctions between “core causes” and “surface manifestations.” I’m freed from trying to reach definitive conclusions about whether a particular explanation is true or false. Instead, I can think about the different books or stories on the bookshelf and consider the specific ways each is helpful and unhelpful. The downward pull of the mining metaphor, to find the core cause “underneath it all,” is replaced by a less pressured desire to examine the different books to see what’s in them and what each has to offer.

What may be most valuable here is a sense of personal agency: the feeling of having the authority to decide, through my own thinking and conversations, how a given story is helpful and unhelpful for my life. In contrast, answering the question of whether a particular cause is true or false, or is, indeed, the root cause of the problem, seems to require either the “objective” evaluation of an “expert,” or making a fairly arbitrary choice among alternative explanations. And because the mining metaphor often carries with it the “requirement” that I “get it right” and address the “core issue” before moving on, it’s easy to remain stuck (paralyzed by the nearly impossible challenge to define the “one truth”). Identifying what is “helpful” seems much more within my grasp. I feel more freedom to “take action” or “move forward” based on what I find helpful rather than waiting until I’ve figured out “real causes” and “core truths.”

FINDING PREFERENCES ON THE BOOKSHELF

Third, the bookshelf metaphor is a much better fit than the mining metaphor for thinking about preferences (which is where we first met Dave and grumpiness several months ago – click here to read more about the practical value of preferences). Several features of the bookshelf metaphor help to create a context for thinking about preferences:
By portraying the explanatory ideas as existing side-by-side rather than top-to-bottom, it helps us to more easily consider them all as legitimate alternatives, rather than having one explanation be true or core and the others be false or “surface.”

• So I can ask, if there are several legitimate ways of understanding or making sense of my difficulties, which explanations (or “stories”) do I find helpful, and which do I prefer?
  

By leading us to think in terms of “stories” or “texts” rather than “causes,” the bookshelf imagery invites us to explore the experiences, events, plots, dramas, chapters, and details that have helped shape particular understandings of our problems and our lives.

• So I can ask, of the many experiences contained in these stories of my life, which have I found to be most life-giving, most exciting, and most desirable? In light of this, which do I prefer?
  

By helping to free us from waiting for an expert to determine what’s really true about our lives (or who we “really” are), we can feel more authority to consider which stories about our lives matter most or most reflect the values and commitments we hold.

• So I can ask, which stories, ideas, or explanations do I prefer because they provide me with a focus or direction that fits with my values and commitments?
  

By helping to free us from the search for the elusive “one true cause,” we can focus on what we already know about ourselves, and we can draw on our experiences to name our preferences.

• So I can ask, if I have expertise about my own life, and can draw on the wealth of experience I already have, how do those experiences lead me to a better understanding of what I prefer?
  

By evoking images such as libraries with aisle after aisle filled with books, or a whole wall or room filled with bookshelves, we can imagine that there are even more possibilities than those that are currently visible. This might be especially valuable if none of the current batch of stories is particularly moving or compelling.

• So I can ask, what book would I like to see on the bookshelf that would capture my preferences more accurately or powerfully? What is its title, its main characters, its plot? Why does it move me or draw me in? What does it make possible for my life and why do I prefer it?
  
  

SOME ALTERNATIVE STORIES FOR DAVE

With these questions in mind, and using a little imagination, the practical results of this kind of thinking, for Dave, might look something like the revised book titles below:



A CONFESSION

It’s difficult for me to write about mining and bookshelf metaphors and have them remain metaphors. As I write, they often stop being helpful representations and turn into hard, cold, essential realities. Quite often in writing this piece, I’ve had to step back and get some perspective, to remind myself that these are, indeed, metaphors I’m writing about. Mostly, I have to remind myself that it’s quite possible to use the bookshelf imagery to think about my life, but to have that bookshelf be just as confining and limiting as the way I’m portraying the mining metaphor here. It’s possible to use the imagery of books on a bookshelf to think about my problems, but then to launch into a frenzied pursuit of the “one true book” or the “real, essential story” of my life.
In other words, whether it’s a bookshelf or a mine – or a jungle or a machine or a box of chocolates – the metaphors that you and I use to help shape our thinking about our lives, our problems, and our relationships, can end up constraining our thinking and limiting our options, or they can provide us with alternatives, a sense of freedom and playfulness, the authority to know what we prefer for our lives, and the desire and will to act on that knowledge.
*****

Mining Metaphor "Causes"

"Dave's Problem - 'On the Surface': Grumpiness at home in the evenings"
"Underlying cause: Stress at work, compounded by Dave not knowing what he really wants to do"
"Deeper cause: Dave's unresolved anger toward his parents, keeps him unclear about the direction of his life and uncomfortable as a father."
"Deeper yet: Dave is an introvert.  It's his personality type.  It's painful to have to interact with others."
"Even deeper: Dave is a very insecure person."
"Root cause: Dave is afraid of and avoids intimacy because he hasn't accepted his real self."

Bookshelf Titles - Version 1 - Stories Related to Grumpiness

"Grumpiness at Home in the Evenings"
"Stress at Work: What do I Really Want to Do?"
"Anger at My Parents: Effects on My Parenting and Direction in Life - by Dave"
"Experiencing Introversion: Difficulty Interacting with Others"
"My Story of Insecurity"
"Understanding what Scares Me About Intimacy: Why I Avoid It"

Bookshelf Titles - Version 2 - Stories Related to Grumpiness ... With Preferences Added (in Orange)

"Why I Prefer Playfulness over Grumpiness at Home in the Evenings"
"How I Learned to Leave Stress at Work, And Paid More Attention to What Really Matters to Me"
"Anger at My Parents Taught Me to be Patient and to Connect with My Son - by Dave"
"Beyond Introversion: How the Night Sky Helped Me Engage with Others"
"My Story of Insecurity: Seeing It, Naming It, and Stopping the Pattern"
"Understanding what Scares Me About Intimacy: Remembering how Closeness and Calm Overcome All"

Metaphors - Part 2

AN ILLUSTRATION: GRUMPINESS AND DAVE

In Parts 2 and 3 of this article I want to illustrate the mining and bookshelf metaphors by revisiting Dave and his dealings with grumpiness (from one my first entries in this blog). You may recall that Dave struggled with grumpiness in the evenings at home with his wife and two kids. He described grumpiness as a fog settling over his house and we identified the effects of the fog on Dave and his family (increased tension, distance, feeling “on edge,” a sense of heaviness and sadness).

Our conversation eventually helped Dave to name his preference: He preferred to be happy, upbeat, and pleasant rather than grumpy. He then was able to identify some skills and abilities he could use, and some experiences that reflected his preference, which could help him achieve the lightness, engagement, and playfulness he desired. But to explore our two metaphors, we’ll back up to when Dave was stuck in grumpiness.

THE MINING METAPHOR AND GRUMPINESS

If we look at Dave’s experience of grumpiness using the mining metaphor we think about layers, and digging down through them to get at that “core” or precious nugget of truth that lets us understand the cause of Dave’s grumpiness. From this perspective, grumpiness exists on the “surface” or top layer, but it’s just a manifestation of something more essential, deep down or at the core. So we might ask, “What’s really going on underneath all of this grumpiness?” We would probably think something like, “Grumpiness isn’t really the problem, we just have to figure out what the real problem is.” Or, “If we dig down through the layers of Dave’s grumpiness, we’ll find what’s really driving it.”

With our thinking guided by the imagery of layers arranged in a hierarchy, and an inner or deep-down, hidden truth, our answers about the causes of, and solutions for, Dave’s grumpiness might look something like this:

• Dave has so much unresolved anger toward his own parents that he’ll never be at ease around his kids until he resolves it. His grumpiness is a way of expressing in his current family what he could never express with his parents.

• Underneath it all, Dave is just a very insecure person, so he’s never really comfortable in his own skin. He just gets grumpy when he feels stuck in a situation that makes him feel insecure and inadequate. It’s his underlying inadequacy and insecurity that he has to address.
  

• Dave is an introvert. He can take only so much “togetherness.” He can put on a brave, false front for a while, but then his real self, his real introversion, his inner need to be alone gets the best of him, and he starts being grumpy as a way of getting out of a painful situation.

• It’s really Dave’s unhappiness with his job that is causing him so much stress and unhappiness. He’s never been good at knowing what he wants and being able to pursue it, so he just keeps finding himself in these work situations that cause him stress, and it’s that stress that seeps into his family life.
  

Using the mining metaphor, we might start arranging our different interpretations of Dave’s grumpiness in a hierarchy, from “surface manifestations” to the “deep-down-inner-core truth that is driving the grumpiness.” A visual depiction of one such arrangement might look like this:



The imagery of the mining metaphor both guides and reflects the thinking behind it: It leads us to think that to truly resolve grumpiness Dave has to get to the root cause, which is often hidden and deep (we might even use words like “denial” or “repression” or speak of the “Unconscious” to indicate how difficult it is to accurately identify such root causes). Once identified, the root cause must be “addressed” and the “issue” be “worked through” or “resolved” for Dave to have a real solution to grumpiness.

This kind of thinking is so pervasive that I’d be surprised if most of us don’t automatically go down the path of asking, “what’s at the bottom of all this?” when trying to deal with some personal or relational difficulty. And I’d be equally surprised if most of us haven’t gained valuable insights by applying such thinking. We’ve probably been helped by reaching conclusions like: “I wasn’t really mad at you, underneath it all I was just so stressed from being humiliated at work that I was really ‘on edge’ and taking everything too personally.”

I also assume that the mining metaphor has helped most of us by leading us to do the mental and emotional work of “excavating” our own lives: looking more closely at a tricky situation to understand it better, and sorting through possible explanations to find the one (underneath it all) that really rings true.

LIMITS OF MINING

Despite its potential benefits the use of the mining metaphor can be a real liability. Being convinced that there is one truth, and that it is hidden beneath other more superficial layers, can get us stuck in some frustrating patterns. Here are some of the limitations of the mining metaphor I encounter often, both personally and with the people who consult with me in therapy.

First, the “one truth” or “one root cause” perspective is usually unhelpfully simplistic and inadequate given the complexity of our lives. How does Dave meaningfully decide whether his grumpiness is “really” caused by stress at work, parenting challenges, financial worries, marital misunderstandings, physical ailments, family-of-origin memories, the latest news about war or economic meltdown, or some biochemical, neurological, or genetic factor, when the most accurate answer is probably, “all of the above”?

Second, to find that “one truth” in the face of so much complexity, we often engage in a process of dismissing as irrelevant many of the factors or variables that might be helpful. If there’s room for only one, the rest has to go, and we can easily dismiss something that could be quite helpful, just because it’s too obvious or not sophisticated enough, or because we don’t actually give it enough “airtime” to point us in a helpful direction.

A third limitation shows up often in my work with couples: the limitation of the zero-sum game. If there’s only one truth about the cause of problems in a marriage, then the table is set for nearly endless arguments about whose explanation is correct. Couples often show up to my office with the emotional scars and exhaustion of such battles. (I think one of the most important things I do with couples is to provide them a place in which the “multiple truths” of what they’re saying can be heard and respected by one another.)

Fourth, the mining metaphor can leave people feeling isolated. If there’s one true, real cause of the problem, it’s usually “located” inside the person. It’s an internal problem in his or her own “psyche,” or “personality,” or “unconscious,” or reflects an “unresolved issue” in the person’s life. The work, then, is for the individual: alone. The battle is an individual one of facing the truth and “working” on one’s issues. The shame or frustration of even having such an internal flaw in the first place, or the feeling that one’s friends don’t want to hear about it anymore, makes the isolation even more pronounced.

Fifth, trying to identify the one thing that’s “really going on” can take a ton of effort and is often exhaustingly elusive. Usually the people who consult with me in therapy have lots of ideas that help explain, and could even help solve, their current particular difficulty, but the underlying-root-cause-nugget-of-an-explanation remains elusive, and they continue to dismiss explanations that don’t quite explain it all. Often I see real suffering in people who have become desperate to find that one truth or root cause, pressing on in an earnest attempt to “get to the bottom” of the problem while also kicking themselves for not having already figured it out (or being ashamed for having such an entrenched problem in the first place, or for having to talk to a stranger/therapist about it).

ONLY ONE CORE TRUTH?

Since so much of what I see as the limitations of the mining metaphor have to do with its implication that there is one core or essential truth about ourselves and our problems, it would be fitting to ask whether the mining metaphor inevitably leads to this one-truth or one-real-cause kind of thinking. My answer is that I suppose not: it is, after all, a metaphor. We could, for example, use similar imagery of layers and digging down, but expect to find a “mother lode” of explanations or causes or perspectives rather than just one. And the literal layers of the mine don’t necessarily have to imply that the bottom-most layer is the most precious. I can imagine a literal mining situation in which one valuable mineral is found near the surface while another is found a few layers down.

But my use of the mining metaphor in this article is intended to reflect what I find to be that very common and almost automatic way of thinking that so frequently shows up in my therapy room: a way of thinking that makes distinctions between “surface manifestations” and “underlying real causes,” and that tends to believe that there is “one” truth or cause or “real self” underneath it all. It is that version of the metaphor that makes it hard to imagine “mother lodes” of explanations, or a multitude of precious nuggets. It is that version of the metaphor that so often has my clients feeling frustrated with themselves for not being able to resolve or fix their deep-down flaws and limitations, and feeling stuck in their search for helpful solutions to their problems.

I find the bookshelf metaphor a simple, but powerful, alternative – taking the useful ideas from the mining-led explorations, but turning them on their side to free up creativity and provide more options to people stuck in entrenched problems. In Part 3, we’ll look at Dave and grumpiness through the lens of the bookshelf metaphor.

Metaphors - Part 1

Metaphors help us make vivid, colorful comparisons. They capture complexity in just one word, or a few. And the metaphors we carry around in our heads lead us down certain paths rather than others when we’re trying to think about our problems. They guide us toward certain ideas or beliefs about ourselves, and keep other ideas or beliefs hidden from view.

This article is about two metaphors we might use to understand ourselves when dealing with problems: the mining metaphor and the bookshelf metaphor.

THE MINING METAPHOR

The mining metaphor is the one I hear most often when I meet new clients and hear their perspectives on their lives and relationships. The metaphor has us looking at a problem as a surface-level indicator of some deep-seated cause or underlying issue: “Here’s what’s happening, but underneath it all, this is the cause.”*

The mining metaphor guides us to dig through many layers to try to unearth or uncover the truth about who we really are or the real cause of the problem. It has us thinking that the truth about ourselves is hidden, deep down, and hard to find. But once we find that truth we’ve uncovered a precious nugget. And that nugget is often “one” truth, one root cause, one drive or need or personality characteristic or underlying dysfunction that explains us and our problem situation, and promises a solution. We might depict the mining metaphor like this:



When we are guided by this metaphor we ask questions like: “What’s really going on underneath all of this? What’s the real cause of the problem? Who am I really, underneath all of my actions and words? And what does the truth say about what I need to do to change things?”

THE BOOKSHELF METAPHOR

The bookshelf metaphor turns the mining metaphor on its side.** The layers of the mining metaphor become, instead, books on a bookshelf: different options for understanding who we are or what’s the cause or solution to the problem. Instead of seeing a problem as about one thing (or requiring us to confront the one truth of “who we really are”) we can see the problem as having multiple truths. That “precious nugget” from the mining metaphor is still there on the bookshelf, as a book, so to speak. And although it might remain precious, it’s no longer seen as the only story or only explanation or the one-and-only-one real truth that must be accepted, confronted, and/or “resolved.” Other “books” or “stories” become more apparent and are not automatically discarded as irrelevant or of lesser importance. And they offer alternative understandings and perspectives and solutions. In general, the bookshelf metaphor might look like this:



When we are guided by the bookshelf metaphor our main question is: “What are the different ways to understand this problem, and in what specific ways are these different ways, or ‘stories,’ helpful?”

NEXT

In the next piece in this series, we’ll revisit Dave’s situation with grumpiness and see how these ideas might apply.

* The onion metaphor is similar to the mining metaphor, but with layers that are “peeled away” to reveal an inner-core truth.

** Michael White and David Epston called my attention to this idea of turning our conventional understandings and root-cause-type explanations on their side, in their book, Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends.

Taking Life Back From Exploding

I'm very pleased to have my partner in therapy and marriage, Michelle, contribute the piece below. It describes her playful narrative work with an 8-year old named "Amy," including parts of the book that Michelle and Amy wrote together to help Amy and others find alternatives to Exploding. (You can read more about Michelle here) -- Kurt

By Michelle Naden

The following is an account of my meetings with a very vivacious and tender 8 year old. I’ll call her Amy so that her privacy is honored. Amy is the oldest of three girls. They live with their mom and dad who are among the most loving of parents I have met. Too, they are playful and helpfully engaged in their children’s lives. But even with such good things going for her, life has been difficult for Amy. She felt challenged by some significant changes in her young life and by the complications of her relationships. Before coming to see me she had lost a good neighborhood friend after a painful struggle between their families. She hated school and didn’t want to go. Overall, Amy didn’t feel very good about herself and she struggled with very BIG feelings that would well up and often erupt into explosions. These had her family tired, confused, sometimes angry, and perplexed about how to help Amy. Explosions were affecting everyone in the family, including Amy, who felt quite dispirited and beaten down when she first came to meet me.

The Use of Story in Therapy

Before continuing with Amy’s story I want to say something about my work so you have a context within which to understand some of the steps Amy and I have taken together.

The idea of “story” is central to how I listen and work with people of all ages. To explain this in a little more detail, the “narrative mode of thought” (White and Epston, Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends, 1990):

(1) privileges the particulars of people’s lives, and pays special attention to the unique ways they live them. Out of these particulars come the unique meanings that people themselves hold about their lives. These meanings are the “stuff” of therapy conversations.
(2) “Time” is a critical dimension in the narrative mode. As events unfold over time, stories can be told that help to make meaning of these events. These “plots” of people’s stories “place us at the crossing point of temporality and narrativity” (Ricour, 1980), which is a fancy way of saying that paying attention to sequences of time and plot is what makes a really good story!
(3) To enhance the development of preferred stories, “rich” (i.e. poetic and picturesque) descriptions are elicited and conversations always are more exploratory and less purpose-driven.
(4) Narrative exploration acknowledges that stories are co-created between at least two participants. The protagonist or subject (or person consulting a therapist) is always accorded the status of privileged author. Therefore, it is the subject’s words and meanings that are taken as most valuable rather than a therapist’s interpretation or clinical evaluation of them.

Now back to Amy. I quickly realized that Amy was a fabulous artist. Her beautiful flowers put mine to shame and her skillful ways with making things and illustrating her ideas riveted me to the possibility of our work together centering around her creations. Because reading books was her passion, the idea of focusing on the story of her own life made really good sense to Amy. Too, Amy loved to dictate what we should do in any given meeting and so I put this talent of hers to good use and asked her if we might work together on a book that would document our progress with the very tricky problem of Exploding. Here is the result of this dynamic collaboration between us that took place over a period of a few months. It ended up in the form of an actual book that Amy illustrated and carefully dictated to me as I faithfully scribed.


Amy's Story

My name is Amy and I am eight years old. I am still having problems with exploding. But Michelle is helping me with them.

I have two sisters. Their names are Sally and Hannah. Sally is one and Hannah is four. Sometimes Hannah can be a pest and she aggravates me. When Hannah makes me mad this is what I used to do:

HIT HER!!

Sometimes I would get so mad I would even jump on her! When I would hurt Hannah I would feel sad and my mom and dad would be mad. Then he (dad) would almost spank me but he didn’t because my mom stopped him. Everyone in the family was frustrated—except Sally.

Then things began to change in our family. We all went to see Michelle in her office.

We talked about Exploding. Exploding happened when Tired and Hungry got together to make me miserable. It was all because of Exploding. We went to work to get rid of Exploding. Here are some of the things we tried.

We tried playing games with Exploding and chased it away from the house. He went thumping down the street in a cloud of dust.

He’s kind of like a robot to me. Everyone has their own imagination of what Exploding looks like. Everybody is different.

One day things got really, really hard and Exploding went crazy! We were away from home, which is hard for me. So we came up with a new plan so that everyone would be safe. The plan was for me to be able to go to sleep without my mom there and without a fuss. If I could do this I would get to go to Apex, which is a super fun place.

The plan:

(1) Take my Michelle CD to play at bedtime.
(2) Read my book until I fall asleep.
(3) Take my three favorite animals: Cheddar, Puzzle, and Nuzzle. They will help me get to sleep.

I think I am pretty determined and can do hard things. Even though this won’t be easy I am going to be able to do it!

[Later…]

I really did do it!!!
I took Cheddar and dressed her up in ski clothes.
And NO EXPLODING!!

One day we decided that sometimes I don’t know that Mommy loves me. She surprised me one day with a box and a card. In the box was a beautiful real gold necklace. It was a circle that means forever. Mom said it reminded her of the gold in my heart. If I touch it I remember that my mom loves me and it helps me to feel much better.
Fantastically better!

Now I am eight years old I understand more. Like not hitting my sister. Like stopping myself, writing it down, talking it out. I like talking it out best.

Exploding is kind of like a ghost now. He’s gone. I‘m not going to pack Exploding on our trip to Apex.

Mom says things are really good at home now. She sees me coming up with solutions when I don’t get my way.

I am much happier now.

[The End]

Here’s one of the book’s illustrations:

One day, after meeting with Amy and her family, I discovered a very scary picture of Exploding under one of my office chairs. Amy strictly forbade me to include a picture of this horrible problem in her book and so you’ll just have to take my word for how frightening he was!

Witnesses and Celebration

As a part of our book-writing project, I visited Amy’s second grade teacher to interview her about the unique qualities that Amy brought to her classmates and her teacher. All sorts of treasures came out of that conversation and I copied down verbatim what the teacher told me and included a copy in Amy’s book. Amy didn’t say much about these reflections from her teacher but she did begin to express enjoying school and her teacher.

Amy and I decided to have a celebration and to bring her parents and sisters to our final meeting. She decided that we should eat strawberries and have lemon and vanilla cake. Too she wanted strawberry Italian sodas. For entertainment I read her book to the family and we played a card game that Amy decided we would enjoy. Following is a certificate that I prepared to honor Amy’s work. We all signed this as witnesses to Amy’s newly developed story of “Creativity Brought to Tough Problems that No Longer Exist” and entered it into her book that she proudly took with her.

CREATIVITY AWARD

This is to certify that AMY has successfully applied her very significant creative talents to the very tricky area of relationships. Her biggest achievement of talking it through has turned Explosion into a ghost and has her feeling more successful and happy at school and at home. Reading stories has helped her through tough times as well as remembering for sure that her mom loves her—fantastically!!

Witness_________________________________

Witness_________________________________

Date____________________________________

Amy gave her permission for me to publish her book here. She felt it was a good idea to share her success and strategies with other kids who might also struggle with tough problems like Exploding.

There is one catch, though. Amy would like to hear if anyone finds her experience to be useful in their own struggles with tricky problems!

The Voice of the Narrator

How can couples break away from those familiar conversations that get stuck in point-and-counterpoint, accusation and defense? Conversations where the content is lost to a frustrating, confusing process?

One answer might be found at the movies, in the voice of the narrator: that disembodied voice that speaks from outside the movie or on top of its action, that helps set the historical context, explains a key plot point, or conveys thoughts that would otherwise be only “in the head” of a character.

The voice of the narrator came to mind recently when working with a married couple, Maria and George, who were frustrated by a regularly occurring conversation that would lead to nowhere but misunderstanding, defensiveness and distance. As we looked closely at their conversation, what was both obvious and saddening, was how, in the course of their difficult interaction, they would drift away from their original good intentions. Those good intentions would get lost in the background, implied but never spoken.

This time their difficult conversation began with a concern expressed by Maria, which felt like a criticism to George. He then responded defensively, or self-protectively, or with a counter-criticism (they disagreed on the exact nature of George’s response), and the conversation went back-and-forth, and headed from-bad-to-worse.

I asked Maria what her intentions were when she started the conversation earlier that week. Was she hoping for something in particular? What did she want to accomplish by raising the topic? Why was it important to her? What was her preference for how the conversation would happen?

Maria said her intention was to “connect with George, as a partner,” around an issue that was of concern to her (I’m not naming their particular issue here; feel free to insert one that’s familiar to you). Her hope was that George would be “open” to her concern, that he “could understand” why she was concerned and maybe even appreciate her for raising the matter. When I questioned her further she was able to cite occasions in the past when they were able to interact in this preferred manner, and she was clear that this was a strongly held preference, or preferred story, for their relationship.

Then I asked George about his preference for that same conversation. Similar to Maria he expressed his desire for “non-defensiveness,” “mutual care,” and listening with “openness” to one another, to build more understanding and closeness.

In that moment I was aware of how vastly different were the two conversations they described: the conversation that actually happened earlier that week where they got lost in the content and their reactions to one another – I’m calling it the “lost-in-the-process” conversation; and the second conversation, which didn’t happen that week, except in their descriptions, that was built around their intentions and preferences – I’m calling it the “intention-focused” conversation.

The lost-in-the-process conversation had all three of us feeling sad and overwhelmed by the mess of hurt, fear, accusation and counter-accusation George and Maria described (and that they actually re-lived, to a certain extent, while they were describing it in session).

The second conversation, the intention-focused one, had us feeling more optimistic about Maria and George’s desire for closeness and connection. We were clearer about what they wanted and how they would like to talk with one another; what they wanted felt do-able, and certainly worth doing.

In session I moved to the whiteboard and tried to visually depict the two conversations. For the lost-in-the-process one, I used back-and-forth arrows and words like “fear,” “hurt,” “vulnerability,” and “defensiveness” (words they had used) to depict the pain and stuck-ness they felt. It looked something like this:



Then I depicted their intention-focused conversation and wrote the words they used to describe their intentions and preferences: “clarification,” “talking about things that matter,” “tackling the tough topics,” “being open,” “being respectful,” and becoming “closer” in the process. It looked something like this:



With both drawings on the board, and with all of us feeling the different effects of these two depictions, I asked George and Maria to indicate their preferences. They both opted for the intention-focused version. Among the reasons they cited for their preferences were that they thought this kind of talking “brought out the best” in both of them, and rekindled “hope” and “love” that was often hidden by frustration. They also said that this kind of conversation didn’t let fear and vulnerability rule the day.

Later in the session, I wondered with them about what it would be like to step out of the lost-in-the-process conversation and into the intention-focused conversation. That is, if they found themselves in the midst of a lost-in-the-process conversation, headed in an unproductive direction, would it be desirable to step out of that conversation and into the other one? Or, might it be worthwhile to just begin some conversations by focusing on intentions and preferences, as an introduction to raising any concerns?

In other words, would it be valuable for Maria and George not to leave all of their hopes, desires and good intentions in the background, but to bring them up-front in their conversation? Would it be valuable to name those intentions – to “own” them, so to speak – and allow those intentions, like the narrator in a movie, to provide the context in which the desired conversation could take place?

From a narrative perspective

Michael White’s work on “landscape of action” and “landscape of identity” has been helpful to me in understanding how the “story” of an experience, how we understand or make sense of it, is derived both from our actions (what we do and say), and from the meanings, values, hopes, commitments, and intentions (“landscape of identity”) we ascribe to the situation.

For example, when Maria first raised her concern George not only heard the words Maria spoke and saw her gestures, movements, etc., but he also attributed or viewed them through the lens of certain meanings, like: “she’s unwilling to accept that my ways are just as legitimate as hers”; “she doesn’t like it that I’m so happy”; “she’s still afraid of me.” Likewise, George’s responses were also viewed and interpreted by Maria using these dual landscapes (“his words and tone are ‘defensive’; he knows I’m right but he’s too proud to admit it”).

From a narrative perspective we see these dual landscapes informing all interactions, and we assume that there are always multiple possibilities for how we understand a situation (we believe that multiple stories are always present). There are lots of interesting applications of these narrative ideas and assumptions to the situation with Maria and George. I’ll highlight just two or three of them here.

One application is that these ideas help us see that it is possible for George and Maria to explicitly influence the meaning they’re making of a given interaction rather than “leaving it to chance.” By stating, up front, that her intention is to “tackle an important issue,” or “make a tough decision” and to “work together” while doing so, Maria is helping to shape the unfolding story. She’s offering a lens or perspective to George to help him interpret what she’s up to. By doing so she’s increasing the likelihood that George hears her concern as an effort to work something out and get to a better place, rather than as criticism. (And, yes, it is possible that George won’t believe Maria when she says that her intention in bringing up a concern is to “work together” or “get closer.” And it’s likely that Maria has multiple intentions and may be choosing to highlight just one of them. There may be much to discuss even in the simple statement that “I want to be close to you.” Did I mention that relationships can be pretty complex?)

Another potential benefit of George (or Maria) naming his intentions at the beginning of the conversation (or during it, perhaps), is that he puts himself in the position of considering what actions and attitudes would be most consistent with his intentions: “If I really want to accomplish this, how should I behave? What words and tone-of-voice would best match my intentions?”

One thing I really like about Maria or George making a clear statement of their intentions is that it lets the other person make a more-informed decision about whether they want or feel able to participate in such a conversation. If Maria wants to “talk about a tough subject” in order to “be clearer” and “possibly get closer,” is George interested in or able to talk about that subject? Is he able to do it now or would it be better in an hour? Does he want to get clearer? Does he want to get closer? And is he willing to extend himself toward that end? In other words, Maria is naming her preferred story for the conversation, and now George can make a more-informed decision about whether he wants to help create or build that story with Maria. Of course, George may not want to or feel capable of doing so at that time, but maybe that’s better to know at the beginning rather than finding out at the end.

Finally, I’m aware that this discussion about naming one’s intentions can seem like an overly cautious, scripted, or regulated way of being in a relationship – not “free” or “natural” or “in the moment.” I think spontaneity or “free-flowing” or “open and honest sharing” can be beautiful and delightful, and when a relationship is working well, such conversations may predominate. The fact that they are possible and that they do work well may also indicate that those in such a conversation already have a good understanding of one another’s intentions, and that their conversations are consistent with and supportive of those intentions. But I think we also need options for when difficulties arise, or for when we want to give ourselves the best chance to have a good, productive conversation about something difficult. To return to the voice of the narrator: Sometimes the movie’s action and dialogue carry the story, and sometimes the narrator is needed to set the stage or fill in the gaps.