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Deconstruction and the Ethical Relation in Therapy

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Deconstruction and the Ethical Relation in Therapy Deconstruction and the ethical relation in therapy Glenn Larner B.A. (Hons), Dip.Psych. (Syd. Uni) A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University of Technology, Sydney August, 2010 Certificate of Authorship/Originality I certify that the work in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree, nor has it been submitted as part of requirements of any other degree except as fully acknowledged within the text. I also certify that the thesis has been written by me. Any help that I have received in my research work and the preparation of the thesis itself has been acknowledged. In addition, I certify that all information sources and literature used are indicated in the thesis. Glenn Larner i Table of Contents Certificate of Authorship/Originality ..................................................................... i Acknowledgements ............................................................................................. iii Abstract ................................................................................................................. v Chapter 1: Deconstructing Therapy: a Synopsis of Previous Publications .......... 1 Chapter 2: Deconstructing Theory: Towards an Ethical Therapy ...................... 58 Chapter 3: Ethical Therapy as Language of the Other .................................... 100 Chapter 4: The Ethical Play of Irreverence as Deconstruction in Therapy ...... 138 Chapter 5: Levinas: Therapy as Discourse Ethics ............................................ 166 Chapter 6: Intersecting Bion and Levinas: The Ethical Container in Psychoanalysis and Family Therapy .............................................. 200 Chapter 7: Exploring Levinas: The Ethical Self in Family Therapy ................ 227 Chapter 8: Integrative Family Therapy with Childhood Chronic Illness: An Ethics of Practice ..................................................................... 246 Chapter 9: Integrating Family Therapy in Adolescent Depression: An Ethical Stance ........................................................................... 277 Chapter 10: Summary and Reflections.............................................................311 ii Acknowledgements I am greatly indebted to my supervisor, Professor Mark Tennant, who provided a welcoming place in the doctoral program at UTS and offered much needed guidance, encouragement and dialogue to help me complete the process. I also thank Professor Alison Lee at UTS for the liberating idea to let the thesis emerge in writing about the ethical relation. I would also like to acknowledge my colleagues in the family therapy community who have encouraged and helped my professional writing along the way, beginning with Max Cornwell former editor of ANZJFT who invited my first publication. The thesis demanded an advanced level of philosophical sophistication particularly for more theoretical chapters. I was fortunate to have dialogue with Rosalyn Diprose, Professor of Philosophy at UNSW about my interpretation of Levinas. I also presented chapter 3 at a philosophy conference in Sydney called Derrida Today, after which I had the opportunity to meet with Vicky Kirby, Associate Professor of Sociology at UNSW. These meetings provided valuable feedback about my interpretation of Derrida and Levinas and their relevance for therapy. I would also like to thank my workplace and colleagues for providing support and generous study leave. iii Last but not least my wife Elizabeth for her kind patience over several years. Finally much of the thesis was written listening to the sacred cantatas of J.S. Bach, which provided ethereal inspiration at an entirely other level. iv Abstract This thesis explores the ethical relation in therapy in two parallel but connected themes or movements. The first deconstructs an epistemological breach between modern and postmodern paradigms in therapy that has divided practitioners over two decades. This sets modern, scientific or evidence-based knowledge against a postmodern therapy based on narrative, dialogic and relational forms of knowing. Drawing on the philosophy of Derrida and Levinas the thesis proposes the ethical relation as a third path or way of bringing the polarized theoretical positions of the modern/postmodern into dialogue with each other. I call this ethical positioning towards modern and postmodern knowledge and theory paramodern, which means both beside and beyond at the same time. It moves the focus from fruitless debates about epistemology or whether knowledge is modern or postmodern, scientific or relational etc. to the issue of how it is applied in the ethical relation. Such a stance allows therapy practitioners to access a broad range of knowledge, models and techniques. It defines an ethical and integrative approach to therapy that is at once scientific, evidence-informed, practice-based and richly grounded in relational, dialogic and narrative perspectives. In the thesis this integrative ethical model is applied to various clinical issues like adolescent depression. v The second theme of the thesis draws on Levinas and Derrida’s commentary on his ethical philosophy to ground the self, therapy and the therapeutic relationship in the ethical relation. It argues the ethical is central to the framing of therapy whatever the theory or approach. Both these themes are connected in the overall argument that to deconstruct is to be ethical and vice- versa. The thesis draws on my experience as a practitioner, teacher and author in the field of family therapy over more than two decades. While a theoretical enquiry it is illustrated throughout by constructed examples of therapy practice. The main body of the thesis consists of eight chapters written for publication (chapters 2-9), six as articles in peer-reviewed family therapy/ psychology journals and two as book chapters. All of these have been published except for chapter 2 which is in the process of submission and chapter 3 which has been accepted for publication. Within this framework the introductory Chapter 1 provides a detailed synopsis of the author’s previous publications with a commentary on their links to the thesis and describes how the thesis is presented and structured. The final chapter 10 summarizes and reflects on what the thesis has achieved. vi Chapter 1: Deconstructing Therapy: a Synopsis of Previous Publications This introductory chapter presents a detailed synopsis of the author’s previous publications, which includes a brief commentary that connects each of these writings to the thesis and its various chapters. It then briefly describes the structure of the thesis in relation to the theme of deconstructing therapy in the ethical relation. A synopsis of my previous publications achieves three objectives. The first is to provide a historical context for the thesis, one which locates it in terms of my previous thinking and demonstrates links to a prior body of work. The second is to provide a philosophical and theoretical foundation for the thesis, namely Derridean deconstruction, as a platform from which to launch a more focused study of the ethical relation in therapy. The third is to construct a reflective space that allows an opportunity to take stock and consider how my writing and thinking has evolved over nearly two decades of research. List of previous publications The 12 publications leading up to the thesis were written between 1991 and 2004 as follows: 1. Larner, G. (1991). Tolstoy and the Heroes of Family Therapy. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 12, 61-67. 1 2. Larner, G. (1994). Para-Modern family therapy: Deconstructing post- modernism. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 15:11-16. 3. Larner, G. (1994). A miracle metaphor for family therapy. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 15: 208-214. 4. Larner, G. (1995). The real as illusion: Deconstructing power in family therapy. Journal of Family Therapy, 17:191-217. 5. Larner, G. (1996). Narrative Child Family Therapy. Family Process, 35:423-440. 6. Larner, G. (1998). Through a Glass Darkly: Narrative as Destiny. Theory and Psychology, 8:549-572. 7. Larner, G. (1999). Derrida and the deconstruction of power as as context and topic in therapy. Chapter X in I. Parker (Ed.), deconstructing psychotherapy. London: Sage. 8. Larner, G. (2000). Towards a Common Ground in Psychoanalysis and Family Therapy. The Journal of Family Therapy, 22: 61-82. (U.K.). 9. Larner, G. (2001). The Critical-Practitioner Model in Therapy. Australian Psychologist, 36: 36-43. 10. Larner, G. (2002). Towards a critical therapy. The International Journal of Critical Psychology, 6:9-29. 2 11. Larner, G. (2003). Integrating family therapy in child and adolescent mental health practice: an ethic of hospitality. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 24:211-219. 12. Larner, G. (2004a). Family therapy and the politics of evidence. Journal of Family Therapy, 26:17-39. There are several ways one could approach a classification of the above papers, however in a nutshell they all apply Derrida’s philosophy of deconstruction to key theory and practice issues in psychology, therapy and family therapy. At a practice level they attempt to articulate a common ground between traditionally opposed approaches to therapy, like family therapy and psychoanalysis in papers 5 and 8, or family therapy and cognitive-behavioural therapy in paper 11. At a more theoretical level they seek to redress the schism
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