Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-1-2008

Published In

Journal Of Family Therapy

Abstract

This paper emerges from an attempt to shift the locus of understanding human action from the individual to relationship. In doing so we come to see persons as multi-beings, that is, as constituted within multiple relationships from which they emerge with multiple, incoherent, and often conflicting potentials. Therapy, in this context, becomes a collaborative relationship with the aim of transforming the client's broader relational network. In this view, schooling in a singular practice of therapy artificially limits the therapist's potential, and thus the possible outcomes of the client–therapist relationship. Invited, then, is a reflective eclecticism, in which the myriad potentials of both the therapist and client are considered in tandem. This view is illustrated by contrasting three relational conditions in which clients find themselves, each of which invites a different form of self-expression from the therapist.

Comments

This work is a postprint and is freely available courtesy of the author.

The final publication version can be freely accessed courtesy of Wiley's Content Sharing service.

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