http://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/issue/feedMurmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice2024-02-07T00:21:29+00:00The Editorseditors@murmurations.cloudOpen Journal Systems<p>A journal for relationally attuned and systemic social constructionist practitioners and practitioner-researchers with a commitment to social responsibility in community, leadership, therapy, education, organisations, health and social care.</p>http://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/243A Letter from the Future to Ourselves2024-02-07T00:21:29+00:00Psychotherapists and Counsellors of 2026gail@pinkpractice.co.uk2024-02-07T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2024 Psychotherapists and Counsellors of 2026http://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/241Editorial: Decolonising Systemic Practice2023-12-06T12:35:02+00:00Marilena Karamatsoukimarilena.karamatsouki@murmurations.cloudJoanna Michopouloujoanna.michopoulou@murmurations.cloudLeah Salterleahksalter@gmail.com2023-12-14T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2023 Marilena Karamatsouki; Joanna Michopoulou, Leah Salterhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/240Decolonising Management. Reflections of a Human Resource Practitioner from the Global South2023-10-28T20:30:59+01:00Patrick Gohpatgoh@me.com<p>This article takes a slight detour from this edition's theme – decolonising systemic practice – by suggesting that systemic practices can be used to decolonise dominant discourses, such as Western-centric management and its associated form of knowledge production. My views are voiced from an insider–outsider, intersectional positionality – a person from the Global South now working as a Human Resource Practitioner in the United Kingdom.</p> <p>The article posits management and human resource management as Western in their cultural roots and neoliberal in their economic worldview and proposes that underlying assumptions embedded in these discourses have resulted in epistemic othering and subjugation on an international scale. It suggests that decolonising management could begin with making the paradigm shift from a diagnostic to a dialogical understanding of organising human systems. It holds up this epiphany as an example of embracing indigenous knowledge and practices. The article also suggests, through a case story, the use of a systemic practice known as Social GRACEs (Burnham, 1992), that systemic reflexivity and the re-constitution of language games are paramount for making such a paradigmatic shift to decolonised practice.</p>2023-12-14T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2023 Patrick Gohhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/239Reflexivity 3. Breaking out the Reflexive Loop to Decolonise Practice2023-11-19T20:23:22+00:00Gail Simongail.simon@murmurations.cloud<p>Reflexivity guides our everyday relational ethics but always takes place within a cultural loop. We find what we recognise. Reflexive practice is a commitment to ethical practice but it isn’t a safety net which stops us from reproducing the same dominant discourses of who or what counts and structures which maintain inequalities.</p> <p>In this paper I explore the question, “How can systemic therapists develop reflexivity in their practice to intentionally change and connect personal struggle with wider systems which reproduce power and inequality?” I describe some differences between what I call Reflexivity 1, Reflexivity 2 and Reflexivity 3 to show the impact of ideology on theory, method and what we (think we) notice and act on.</p> <p>I share some reflexive questions, stories from practice and research and examples of wider systemic activism. These working ideas are a response to concerns that the clinic and the organisations which host them are oppressive, colonial structures which limit the progress members of the public can make within them and restrict opportunities to develop practice-theory which takes into account and challenges social, historic and material inequalites and injustice.</p>2023-12-14T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2023 Gail Simonhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/237Towards anarchy?2023-10-20T15:57:44+01:00Mark Huhnenmark.huhnen@gmail.com<p>The theme of this edition on decolonisation inspired me to remember, rethink and reclaim my relationship with a philosophical and political idea and movement: anarchy and anarchism. Despite having tried to distance myself from this label in the past due to its negative connotations, I now move towards it and embrace it. Finding connections in my own history, I roughly outline anarchism’s history and some of the diversity of the ideas labelled as anarchist. I will explore how these ideas, particularly the concepts of ontological and political anarchism and the idea of assemblages of power, directly influence my therapy and leadership coaching practice. I believe that some ideas within anarchism align well with systemic theory and can be an inspiring companion in our processes of decolonising our practice.</p>2023-12-14T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2023 Mark Huhnenhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/235Decolonising Pedagogy and Promoting Student Well-Being2023-09-28T10:46:09+01:00Catherine Richardson/Kineweskwêwcathyresponds@gmail.comNicolas Renaudn.renaud@concordia.ca<p>In this paper, we position ourselves as Indigenous educators, involved in the creative healing arts, through filmmaking and community-based therapy. We discuss through an ongoing conversation our decolonising approaches to teaching and education, with a view to upholding student well-being and creating ‘communities of care’ in the classroom. This approach includes integrating the natural world into the process, encompassing Indigenous worldview, values and relationality with Mother Earth.</p>2023-12-14T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2023 Catherine Richardson/Kineweskwêw, Nicolas Renaudhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/230The grief diaries number 1. Screenprint on paper, octavo map book.2023-04-23T18:02:34+01:00Elizabeth Dayliz@the-graig.co.uk2023-04-23T00:00:00+01:00Copyright (c) 2023 Elizabeth Dayhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/229Editorial: Systemic practitioners living with illness and health conditions2023-04-23T17:53:25+01:00Marilena Karamatsoukimarilena.karamatsouki@murmurations.cloudJoanna Michopouloujoanna.michopoulou@murmurations.cloudLeah Salterleah.salter@murmurations.cloud2023-04-23T00:00:00+01:00Copyright (c) 2023 Marilena Karamatsouki, Joanna Michopoulou, Leah Salterhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/227Being and becoming2023-03-27T11:19:44+01:00Smaro Markouiounios45@gmail.com<p>This paper is a personal testimony, a short account of my experience of suffering from the side effects of covid-19 on underlying heart disease. Writing from within moments of pain and agony, I unfold my inner journey to the void and back. Reflecting on that journey I offer my thoughts, born upon my contact with therapists, doctors, and nurses in the hospitals where I was treated, and my inner dialogue with the voices of many people who have nourished my thinking and practice all these years. Traveling through the unknown conditions of my illness and recovery, who I am and who I am becoming personally and professionally, have been in constant movement and intra-action. From this place I offer some reflections on identity, power and on being a therapist.</p>2023-04-23T00:00:00+01:00Copyright (c) 2023 Smaro Markouhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/226Dark days and vomit2023-03-25T10:17:41+00:00Joanne Hipplewithjoannehipp@outlook.com<h3>Exegesis</h3> <p>The spoken word piece that follows is from a “withness” sense of us all having mental health, not just those we work with. It is raw, disturbing and provocative. A living assemblage of words, rhythms, sounds, beats, feelings and thoughts that stir. A jigsaw of personal and professional contextual living in and habitation of different and similar landscapes, hxstories and environments. This piece resonates with the near and far, steps and breaths, in settings, books, home and abroad. Relational contexts are performed from inside/outside and outside/inside knowledges. The poem was written in one sitting late in 2022. The rawness of the grammar in places and words combine and create this piece in which a rhythm is created on living substances, a heartbeat, a drum, an urge and whispers.</p>2023-04-23T00:00:00+01:00Copyright (c) 2023 Joanne Hipplewithhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/225“If Pain Could Speak, What Would It Say?” Re-lational Inter/Intra-rogation of sickle cell disease: A Poetic (Inquiry) Insight.2023-03-17T22:00:57+00:00Peace Anumahpeace_anumah@outlook.com<p>If pain could speak, what would it say? If it could have a form, what would it look like? </p> <p>I start with these questions to illustrate the line of inquiry I am reframing as <em>insight</em>. The insights come from a conversation with a <em>therapist warrior</em> battling sickle cell disease (SCD). I use the language of <em>therapist warrior</em> for multiple reasons. To protect the anonymity of my conversational partner; to obscure her name but <em>not</em> her identity or infinite resourcefulness; to work with an archetype in a way that is congruent with the model of engagement I use within our conversations - Internal Family Systems (IFS), (Schwartz, 2013).</p> <p>I work with this model in my therapy practice. I draw on it in this paper to highlight the transformational power of externalising the pain experienced by the therapist I am conversing with. I will offer an overview of the model and an overview of the new language I am introducing in relation to methodology.</p> <p>IFS offers a different lens through which to view pain. Pain can be externalised as a “part”, no longer within the individual. This helps to empower the individual and their experience of pain.</p> <p>In this paper, I seek to highlight the resilience of the therapist I am conversing with and raise awareness of sickle cell disease. The paper actively examines the oppression and racialisation experienced by individuals with SCD from within the health <em>care</em> system. <em>Care</em> is contested.</p> <p>I use “re-lational inter-rogation/intra-rogation”, a methodology I am developing, to examine this. This way of engaging with conversational material highlights the importance of intentionally exploring relational changes after every re-connection or newfound acceptance between and within a group and connecting those insights with wider political forces.</p> <p>I use my embodied reflexivity for witnessing the impact, experiences, and happenings that occur during and after our dialogue. I illuminate my conversational partner’s resilience within the wider discourse of racialisation and marginalisation.</p> <p>Poems are transcribed from the conversation to add to the quality and aesthetics of the paper for the readers, as well as a reflexive process for me during and after my conversation with the therapist warrior. Poetry has a long history as a counter-narrative to the status quo and can be viewed as a decolonial, political act (van Rooyen and d’Abdon, 2020).</p>2023-04-23T00:00:00+01:00Copyright (c) 2023 Peace Anumahhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/222Inching forward, lunging back. A duoethnographic poetic inquiry into practitioner experiences of health and ill health2023-03-02T10:37:44+00:00Julia Evansevans.julia@virgin.netLeah Karen Salterleahksalter@gmail.com<p>This contribution is, in essence, a collection of poems that the two authors wrote over a period of four weeks. The temporal element is interesting. It speaks to a commitment to “go on” (Wittgenstein, 1953) at a time of illness and recovery.</p> <p>Duoethnography, as collaborative activity, invites new meaning by layering what could be seen as separate narratives and creating a dialogue between the evolving stories. This enables new meaning to evolve and intertwine. Undertaking an inquiry through poetry was an important decision. The intention being to provoke and promote creativity, to generate feelings of wellbeing at a time of depleted energy. Writing to and with each other was both an act of generosity and an act of self-preservation. Mutual support, maybe one way to frame it, but it was also outward looking, connecting with how we practice as therapists, how we are in the world, the causes we care about, all part of the awkward dance of living with health challenges.</p> <p>The poems provide their own context in a way but we have wrapped prose around the main body of the paper which is written in stanza. We feel the poetry offers a window into individual, seemingly separate experiences of ill health and a developing shared narrative of “going on”. Through the writing process, it has become clear that the poetry benefitted from the scaffolding of prose, to give the reader greater insight into the structure and sense making process.</p> <p>The language of inquiry speaks to what we learnt/are learning about ourselves through the process, rather than describing a research project with particular anticipated outcomes. The reflections are contained within the poems and expressed through limited words but expansive feeling.</p> <p>Poetic inquiry aims to humanise research with an emphasis on lived experience and researcher reflexivity. In this case the researchers and their research material could be seen as one and the same thing, an “entanglement of matter and meaning” (Barad, 2007, p. 1). But they might also be seen as separated by time and space. Since writing the pieces, new</p> <p>space has developed between illness and life unfolding, life that includes our practices as therapists. And new space has developed between the feelings we experienced at the time, the words we chose to convey them and how we feel now, looking back. Time and space may offer differing lenses, but maybe not.</p> <p>The paper as a whole is an example of writing from within lived experience, written in poetic form. The form supported the authors to write their way through illness and into new territory of living with and beyond life impacting health conditions.</p>2023-04-23T00:00:00+01:00Copyright (c) 2023 Julia Evans, Leah Karen Salterhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/220In the Clearing2023-02-27T11:09:55+00:00Billy Hardycpractice@ymail.com<h3>Some context</h3> <p>I brought these words together in 2022 following a weekend I spent with my younger sister, Annemarie, and my younger brother, James, who came to visit me together, something that hadn’t happened before and I was left humbled by their visit.</p> <p>The conversations we created as the remaining elder generation of our family were moving and it was the first time such conversations took place. The context for this coming together was triggered by a chemotherapy treatment phase following my recent diagnosis of cancer.</p> <p>This weekend became an important event in our lives thus far, and as I was exploring poetry as an antidote to patient-hood, as well as making my voice find its relationship to myself inhabited by cancer, I try to capture our conversations and share them with you here.</p> <p>My sister and brother have given me permission to publish this. I honour them as “us” and our experiences we have shared.</p>2023-04-16T00:00:00+01:00Copyright (c) 2023 Billy Hardyhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/219Failing health. Exploring tensions.2023-03-02T10:35:55+00:00Leah Karen Salterleahksalter@gmail.com<p>Recently I was invited to write a short paper for <em>Context</em> magazine, a magazine for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice in the UK. It is a themed edition, due to be published in the summer of 2023, edited by Joanne Hipplewith who generated the theme of “Failing, to do better” (Context, 187). For me the title speaks to the idea that there is a tension to explore within failure; the tension of present pain and future opportunity that the inclusion of the comma brings into view.</p> <p>I wrote about experiencing the theme as a writing prompt and used the opportunity to reflect on times I have experienced failure in academic contexts and to reflect on the process of writing for publication. For many this can invite anxiety around failure and provoke fear of “getting it wrong”. I explored also the tension between the pain of failure and the hope of learning something useful from the experience (Salter, 2023).</p> <p>A sub-theme emerged in my writing linked to current health status and the recent loss of my father who died from cancer in September 2022. I suppose I was reminded of the invitation to see ill health and end of life as a failure of some kind, that I had been <em>failing</em> in terms of my own health and that my father ultimately had <em>failed</em> to survive cancer. But there were opportunities, even here. My father and I found a way to live with (and for me, live through and beyond) the health challenges we faced and we were able to create space in our relationship to honour each other’s challenges. This was new territory. A new tension.</p>2023-04-23T00:00:00+01:00Copyright (c) 2023 Leah Karen Salterhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/215Burning Bright, Not Out! Therapist Well-Being in the Face of What We Face 2023-02-27T19:03:41+00:00Cathy Richardson/Kinewesquaocathyresponds@gmail.com<p>At a recent conference in Lyon, an American researcher declared that <em>we </em>are <em>all </em>traumatised, all of us including counsellors, clients, workers, lawyers, activists. I was taken aback thinking, “wait a moment!” I am not willing to believe that, in the face of struggle and adversity, we are all mentally ill. Counsellors/therapists form part of a community circle responding to violence, harm, betrayal, grief and heartbreak. We are often inspired by our clients, their survivance, their resistance and the ways they signal injustice. The academic presenter was likely influenced by theories of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma - ideas that accuse our clients of hurting us. I wonder to what extent <em>these theories</em> hurt us or get us thinking in ways that are individualising and unhelpful. </p>2023-04-23T00:00:00+01:00Copyright (c) 2023 Cathy Richardson/Kinewesquaohttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/214Getting On With Pain2023-03-02T10:27:13+00:00Judy McCarthyjudye.mccarthy@gmail.com<p>This paper provided the welcome opportunity to write about how I have come to understand and relate to chronic pain. My systemic psychotherapy training and interest in Narrative Practice has strongly influenced my conceptualisation of pain. I have found this useful in my experience of living with chronic pain. I hope the reader is invited to reflect on the many dimensions of pain and illness and the multitude of possibilities for understanding and relating to it. I experience pain as a very significant aspect of my life and my relationships including therapeutic relationships. For this reason, I believe it is important to talk about the therapist’s illness and health conditions in the same way that other aspects of human experiences are talked about.</p>2023-04-23T00:00:00+01:00Copyright (c) 2023 Judy McCarthyhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/212"Do I look pale?" A therapist's life-changing journey2023-01-28T10:35:41+00:00Marilena Karamatsoukimarilena.karamatsouki@murmurations.cloud<p>The subject of therapists facing an illness or living with a health condition that impacts their practice hasn’t been addressed much. In my research I confirmed what I have been noticing in my practice as a systemic therapist: the relational space within myself, my thoughts, emotions, memories and embodied reactions, interconnects with the relational space between client and therapist. My inner voices, what I experience, feel and think (Rober, 2010) affect the way I connect to my clients. This means that when I am fully present with my various selves in the therapy room, more of the client is in there too. Therefore, when I was diagnosed with cancer, I chose to disclose my illness to my clients. In this paper, I discuss my experience with cancer, the way it had an impact on my practice and how I found a way to include the relational space within myself facing an illness in the therapy room. The story that is included in the paper is a story from within practice that appears in my doctoral thesis (Karamatsouki, 2020).</p>2023-04-23T00:00:00+01:00Copyright (c) 2023 Marilena Karamatsoukihttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/211Holding space with insomnia2023-01-19T10:09:27+00:00Shelby Hopland Guidishelbyhoplandguidi@gmail.com<h3>Exegesis</h3> <p>Like so many in my community, and around the world, I experienced COVID-19 – as a community member, as a student, and as someone who contacted the virus. While navigating the illness was difficult, for me the aftermath, and the arrival of insomnia as a symptom of Long COVID-19 is where my story begins. I was a Master of Social Work student, integrating my learnings into practice to become a therapist. I had to learn how to show up authentically and with competence, while having not slept, sometimes for days. Walking this line so often invited the question: How can I show up fully, when I am so empty? Beyond being able to show up, how could I hold space for all my family’s stories of COVID-19, while simultaneously having such a predominant story myself. Now, a year later, this poem is my journey of building an ongoing relationship with insomnia and my COVID-19 story so that I may hold my family’s stories as a family therapist – and for both to be tended to with gentleness and love.</p>2023-04-23T00:00:00+01:00Copyright (c) 2023 Shelby Hopland Guidihttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/210Editorial2022-12-17T16:32:58+00:00Birgitte Pedersenmail@birgittepedersen.dkElizabeth DayElizabeth.Day@murmurations.cloudGail Simongail.simon@murmurations.cloud2022-12-19T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2022 Birgitte Pedersen, Elizabeth Day, Gail Simonhttp://murmurations.cloud/ojs/index.php/murmurations/article/view/209Distinctions in Practitioner Research between Professional Practice and Research Practice2022-12-03T17:50:03+00:00Gail Simongail.simon@murmurations.cloud<p>Practitioners undertaking research into their professional practice and those involved in evaluating it often struggle to identify distinctions between the professional practice under investigation and the research practice used to study it. This paper identifies ten areas of distinction between professional practice and research practice. It provides some example questions under each of the ten categories. These questions can be adapted for practitioner researchers as both a preparation exercise and to develop documentation to submit with research proposals or research ethics applications. The paper starts with a definition of practitioner research and then gives a brief history of practitioner research followed by reflections on the relationship between academic and professional knowledge and decolonising practitioner research.</p> <p><em>The material in this paper was originally delivered at the 7th International Conference on Professional and Practice Based Doctorates, UKCGE, 25<sup>th</sup> February 2021 (Simon, 2021).</em></p>2022-12-19T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2022 Gail Simon