Murmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice

Here Be Dragons: an autistic woman and clinical psychologist’s reflections on narrative therapy

Francesca Lassman — 2024-12-14

This paper is a collaboration between Hannah- an autistic person seeking therapeutic conversations- and Fran, a non-autistic clinical psychologist and narrative therapist. We are writing this paper to share some of our journey together as expressed through Hannah’s therapy inspired poems. Our hope is to make visible how narrative therapy can be a powerful therapy for autistic/neurodivergent people as well as an honest reflection of the hazards we have encountered. The original intention was for this sharing to be generative for practitioners, as well as a useful reference for neurodivergent people seeking therapy. However, as the journey of writing unfolded something different seemed to emerge. It became a dive into what happened in the therapeutic space, in the relational space, how ideas were experienced, taken up and what was created in the process. We have tried to keep this writing as honest and frank as possible- it is a conversation that unfolded through writing and we have left this conversation as raw as possible, only really editing for clarity. We hope you find some connection, resonance, thoughts, questions, or perhaps something else entirely!

Often I would offer Hannah an invitation in sessions (a preferred term for question, which has connotations of needing an answer and getting it right) and she would not have a verbal answer. But several days later she would share a response in the form of a poem. Hannah had not written poetry for many years. These poems were received as gifts; they helped both of us to step closer to Hannah’s felt or experienced landscape and make meaning in preferred ways. We have chosen to weave our discussions through these poems, and the form and structure we have used reflects how the poems were received and responded to.

Please note that when we refer to autistic/autistic person we don’t mean having a professional diagnosis of autism but anyone with a formal or self-diagnosis of autism.

Bakhtin's Viva - Transcript - Edited by Professor John Shotter

John Shotter — 2017-10-22

The Viva / Defense of Mikhail Bakhtin was performed at the Bedfordshire International Systemic Winter School February 2015. This transcript is an edited version of Comrade Bakhtin’s defence of his doctoral dissertation: "Rabelais in the History of Realism" at the Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow on 15 November 1946. Professor John Shotter edited the rather long transcript of the viva for this performance in February 2015 at Brathay Hall , Ambleside. The original translation was adapted and directed by Lars Kleberg and translated by Denis Zhernokleyev and Caryl Emerson for a round table reading at the 15th International Bakhtin Conference, Stockholm on 25 July 2014. The cast was made up of John Shotter and doctoral candidates on the Professional Doctorate in Systemic Practice. The video of the performance is here

Can therapists be autistic?

Beth Levy — 2024-12-10

This article explores a systemic therapist’s dual role as a family therapist and an autistic person, detailing her journey of integrating her autism diagnosis with her professional identity. The article explores autistic communication in reference to the double empathy problem (Milton 2012), the concept that communication difficulties between autistic and non-autistic individuals are due to mutual misunderstandings, and the importance of direct communication in working with autistic clients. It explores the stigma associated with autism and the considerations of disclosing one's autistic status in therapeutic and personal contexts, highlighting the importance of understanding and accommodating autism in therapeutic settings. Therapeutic approaches with autistic people are explored, such as the PPRR model (Burnham 2017). The paper advocates for post-diagnosis support and longer-term work with families, stressing the value autistic therapists bring to the profession by offering unique insights and validation to autistic clients.

As far as I can see

Kieran Vivian-Byrne — 2024-08-18

Self-medicating in a difficult world

Monica Whyte — 2024-12-10

To me, as a systemic family therapist working in the substance misuse field, it seems that family therapy has always had somewhat of a dilemma when it comes to working with family systems where there is a substance misuse disorder present. In this paper, I will be describing current thinking in family therapy practice within the substance misuse field and how systemically informed substance misuse services are beginning to pay attention to issues of neurodiversity. Particularly concentrating on how adolescent (under 18) services are adapting to become more neuro-inclusive and neuro-affirmative. For substance misuse services, this is the opportune time to discuss and highlight the use of substances by the neurodivergent population. In this article, which is an elaboration on the presentation at the 4^th Systemic Autism conference I outline changes that could be made to substance misuse treatment services to remove barriers to accessing substance misuse treatment that neurodivergent individuals may encounter when trying to change their relationship with substances.

Stories of "Self". Ideology in action.

Gail Simon — 2024-07-31

Theory about “self” is political. It immediately situates a person’s problems within an individual, and/or within wider social systems. This paper encourages therapists to be curious about their stories of “self” and about the ideologies that produce them. By taking responsibility for one’s preferred stories (theories) of “self”, we can understand and take responsibility for therapeutic theory and practice as cultural products, products which create social consequences. Many therapeutic theories frame the problems that people have as indicators of personal inadequacy. These theories are at work within the therapeutic relationship, a relationship of unequal power. The storying of people and their struggles by professionals is frequently a one-sided imposition of theory and values by one party (the professional) on another (the client). In this sense, therapeutic relationships have the potential to colonise. This is particularly worrying given many people look to therapy to support their journey in overcoming experiences of being colonised in other contexts.

A table shows a sample of psychotherapeutic modalities. It contrasts the different ideologies and the stories of self they produce. Different levels of context (Afuape, 2012; Oliver, 1996; Pearce, 2002; Pearce and Cronen, 1980) show how different ideologies play out in therapeutic practice, and how therapy maintains or disrupts social change. Beyond the table, there are questions at each level of context for therapists to explore how their own subscription to specific ideologies has implications for their therapeutic practice, supervision and training The paper ends with a reflection on how theorethical reflexivity could move the levels of context into a fluidly reflexive process which involves being prepared to change an ideology so that theories of self are contextually responsive and intentionally decolonising (Afuape, 2012; Reynolds, 2010).

Ways We Learn

Leah Karen Salter — 2024-08-18

The Word Collector

Danna Abraham — 2024-08-18

Crash the Clinic

David Steare — 2024-12-10

This is an edited transcript of the 4^th Autism and Systemic Practice Conference 2023 presentation in which David asked Amanda some questions and Amanda shared the story of her family trying to get her for their family. David shared some of his responses to the wider issues in stanza form. Amanda is a parent of two young women and David is a retired systemic practitioner working voluntarily to support local families with neurodivergence. Amanda’s words are in ordinary font and David’s are in italic.

Towards a heart-centred philosophy: Embracing poetry as transformative practice

Danna Abraham — 2024-08-18

Traditional educational practices often impose constraints on the connection between learners and their educational opportunities. A heart-centred philosophy serves as a response to the prevalent pedagogical methods entrenched in academic educational systems. The focus of this work is the transformative potential of poetry in fostering the conditions for the realisation of a heart-centred education. Poetry serves as a catalyst for establishing new forms of interaction with learners, while a heart-centred pedagogy stimulates a profound sense of liberation and connection that can flourish within the classroom. By encouraging learners to reflect on their personal narratives, ethical choices, and aspirations, the focus of concentration is to cultivate a space where critical thinking and emotional engagement while challenging traditional educational norms and empowering learners to embrace connection.

Move to Live

Justine van Lawick — 2024-07-31

We, Hans and Justine, share the love of walking with many. To move proves beneficial for body and mind which are connected and interdependent. This article has three parts. We start with a brief introduction about movement with a focus on walking. The second part contains a dialogue about our own experiences with walking. Several themes are addressed: getting stuck and getting unstuck; the art of doing nothing useful; getting back to basics; the body thinks; time and duration; alone and together; silence. In the third part, we try to highlight the relevance of movement, both physical and also as a form of community action, for systemic practice, and its connection to change. We distinguish between first, second and third order changes.

Landing within systemic stories

Finn Finlayson — 2024-07-31

This paper shares stories of conversations in my personal and professional lives, the theories which informed the incubation of those conversations, and what developed as a result. The relationships cultivated through those conversations are recorded here in written form, which offers the illusion of stability, suggesting that what I write now will remain true when you read it, but the relationships will continue moving beyond this static written form. For instance, the coaching relationship mentioned in this paper is temporarily on hold, and the peaceful glow, with which the story of my marriage closes, has been ruptured on several occasions since. Understanding that creating space for stories yet to be told allows them to change and transform, has challenged my previous high regard for permanency. The movement of relations now fuels my work and seasons my life. My systemic and new materialist learning, simultaneously at foundation and doctorate levels, enables me to search for that movement in conversations within this writing. I acknowledge the changes that the writing process has created in me. I have begun to question how we reference our learning, who we ascribe our learning to, and how the land on which the learning occurred might be recognised and honoured for its part in the process.

Sensing Nature’s Pulse: On Relearning to Read the”‘Book of Nature”

Catherine Stevens — 2024-08-18

In recent years there has been a growing body of literature on nature based art therapies. Within this relatively new specialism there are a number of emerging models of environmental art therapy practiced by art therapists in the UK. Alongside this interest in the natural world, there is a growing awareness that for therapeutic practices to remain relevant in today’s world they need to recognise that we exist as a part of, and not apart from, nature and that humans are having a significant detrimental impact on the natural world as seen in the climate emergency, Bird (2023) and Deco (2021). The British Association of Art Therapist’s (BAAT) focused on this concern in their 2023 annual conference on the theme ‘Art therapy and the climate crisis.’

In writing this paper I seek to explore an area where I think art therapy would benefit from developing deeper reflections on the systemic nature of the ecological crises we face. The relationship between ourselves and the natural world necessarily involves ecological thinking such as Deep ecology, [a concept developed by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess (1990)], and the systemic thinking of Gregory Bateson (1972).

Here I explore how, in taking my art therapy practice outdoors, (rather than the traditional art therapy studio) my therapeutic practice comes into immediate contact with the natural world, its dynamic rhythms, and its ecosystems. This makes it possible to develop a practice which is open to engaging in a dialogue between humans (therapist and clients) and the many other life forms, plants, animals, insects, etc. found in a garden.

Passing it on – oral traditions and future orientations in a learning community

Leah Karen Salter — 2024-08-18

This paper is written in/as dialogue by two colleagues who have shared connections with (the plus fifty-year history of) The Family Institute, Wales, and the (newer) Centre for Systemic Studies (CSS). CSS, a Community Interest Company, now provides a home for The Family Institute since its separation from The University of South Wales in 2020. The authors offer reflections on the developments over time within and around this community of practice and their hopes for the future. The core themes are of teaching and learning as relational activity and Systemic practice as both situated within cultural and geographical contexts and inherently nomadic and processive in nature. The paper also draws on poetry as a means for expressing the not-yet-said and the hard-to-articulate. Billy sadly died before the construction and publication of this paper but his contributions to it are strewn across its pages

Ethical considerations in practitioner research

Marilena Karamatsouki — 2024-07-31

Systemic psychotherapists and practitioner researchers face various ethical considerations, with which they have to engage critically and reflexively. In this paper I discuss some of these considerations, which include participants’ agreement to take part in the research, the power in play that exists in the relationship between practitioner researcher and participants, writing ethically and including participants’ voices in the research, the practitioner researcher’s ethical standards of care, to name a few. Having these considerations in mind and talking openly about it with my clients helped me navigate through the complexities of relational ethics. My writing in general is mixed with relational ethics, in order to offer readers another perspective on how we can conduct therapy and relationally reflexive practitioner research. In this way, I hope this paper will serve as a tool for other practitioners to make sense of the world of practitioner research and bridge the gap between research and practice.

Περίληψη (Ελληνικά)

Οι συστημικοί ψυχοθεραπευτές και ερευνητές αντιμετωπίζουν διάφορους ηθικούς προβληματισμούς, τους οποίους χρειάζεται να διαχειριστούν με κριτική και αναστοχαστική σκέψη. Σε αυτό το άρθρο αναφέρω κάποιους από αυτούς τους προβληματισμούς, οι οποίοι περιλαμβάνουν τη συμφωνία των συμμετεχόντων να συμμετάσχουν στην έρευνα, τη δυναμική που υπάρχει στη σχέση μεταξύ ερευνητή και συμμετεχόντων, το πώς να γράφει κανείς με έναν ηθικό τρόπο ώστε να συμπεριλαμβάνει τις φωνές των συμμετεχόντων στην έρευνα, καθώς και την αυτοφροντίδα του ερευνητή με βάση την ηθική. Αυτό που με βοήθησε να διαχειριστώ την πολυπλοκότητα της σχεσιακής ηθικής ήταν το να έχω αυτούς τους προβληματισμούς στο νου μου και να τους συζητώ ανοιχτά με τους θεραπευόμενούς μου. Σε γενικές γραμμές στα γραπτά μου συμπεριλαμβάνω τη σχεσιακή ηθική, ώστε να προσφέρω στους αναγνώστες μια άλλη προοπτική του πώς μπορεί να διεξαχθεί η ψυχοθεραπεία και η έρευνα που είναι προσανατολισμένη στο σχεσιακό αναστοχασμό. Με αυτό τον τρόπο, ελπίζω αυτό το άρθρο να λειτουργήσει ως εργαλείο για άλλους επαγγελματίες ώστε να κατανοήσουν καλύτερα τον κόσμο της έρευνας μέσα από την πρακτική και να γεφυρώσει το χάσμα μεταξύ έρευνας και πρακτικής.

A Letter from the Future to Ourselves

Psychotherapists and Counsellors of 2026 — 2024-02-07

Editorial: Decolonising Systemic Practice

Marilena Karamatsouki — 2023-12-14

Decolonising Management. Reflections of a Human Resource Practitioner from the Global South

Patrick Goh — 2023-12-14

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.

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.

Reflexivity 3. Breaking out the Reflexive Loop to Decolonise Practice

Gail Simon — 2023-12-14

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.

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.

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.

Improvisational practice: engaging neurodivergent young people with addiction and mental health problems

Denis Dominic Murray — 2024-12-10

Issues and trends in relation to substance misuse, normally develop in the transitional phase of adolescence, as young people begin looking to their peers for connection and simultaneously question the values/attitudes of their parents and other non-parental adults. Risk factors are predictors of the likelihood that an individual or group may become involved in activity leading to adverse consequences. In relation to substance misuse, it is recognised that risk and protective factors exist in equal measure within different context including within the individual, family, peer group, community and school settings. Research indicates that young people, who are neurodivergent, are at increased risk of developing problems in relation to substance use, due to their sense of otherness and potential inability to read social cues, combined with a strong desire to fit in.