The Narratives Which Connect…

8. The Map of Resonance: A Middle Range Theory of Systemic Family Therapy Practice

Introduction

In this chapter a middle range theory, called the map of resonance, will be presented. This middle range theory is based on the relations between the GT categories that emerged through the data analysis of interviews and videos combined with some results from psychotherapy research in general. The concepts that are developed here are based on an understanding of the possible interactions between the therapist and the family, or client, as different types of resonance. Some findings from psychotherapy research concerning the relation between the therapist and the client will be added to support the map of resonance. I will supplement systemic communication theory with ideas about resonance.

The map of resonance will be used to discuss the consequences for family therapy practice and look at some consequences for family therapy education. Systemic communication theory (Bateson 1972, Bateson 1979, Watzlawick, Bavelas, and Jackson, 1967, Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch, 1974) will form the theoretical framework for the discussion. To develop further understanding of the research questions I will use context as a central concept.

In the presentation of the results of the data analysis,, it has been helpful to include some discussion (see chapter 5). However, I will here re-present some of the main findings and develop them in the framework of a middle range theory. The middle range theory I offer is about understanding the different ways in which therapists’ own values and personal and private experience create a context for their therapeutic work.

Power as context?

The understanding of psychotherapeutic relationships as a type of power relation is rather uncommon in many handbooks and textbooks in psychotherapy. Some of the handbooks (Lambert, (2004): Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change; Hubble, Duncan, Miller, (eds) (1999): The Heart & Soul of Change: What Works in Therapy; and Hougaard, (2004): Psykoterapi – teori og forskning) do not even mention power and power relations in their comprehensive documentation of psychotherapy research.

On the other side, Foucault claims that power is relational and appears in all kinds of relations, (Holmgren 2006). Foucault claims that power gains momentum as more people come to accept the particular views associated with a belief system as common knowledge. Belief systems define their authority figures, such as priests in a church or medical doctors. Within such a belief system ideas seem to deal with what is right and what is wrong, and similarly, with what is normal and what is deviant (Schaanning, 1993).

Psychotherapy in general and family therapy in particular may be viewed as a practice of power and should be viewed this way to some extent. When it comes to topics such as gender (Burck and Daniel, 1995), ethnic minority situations (Hildebrand, 1998; Cross and Papadopoulos, 2001) and professional culture (White and Epston, 1990; Ekeland, 2001) the need to analyse power relations seems to be as pressing today as it was forty years ago.

In constructing this middle range theory, I will use the concept of power in a limited way. However, in terms of developing the understanding of particular categories connected to the influence on clients of the family therapist’s personal and private values and culture, the concept of power and power relations will be employed.

The history of the middle range theory

The idea of constructing middle range theories was developed by the American sociologist Robert K. Merton in 1949 as a new approach to sociology and an alternative to abstract theorizing and more narrow empiricism.

“For Merton, middle-range theory meant a set of techniques to analyze reality and allowing to produce theoretical accounts that engaged with that reality in order to communicate with others, whether policy-makers or scholars from other disciplines; and providing ideas for future work” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_range_the-ory_%28sociology%29).

According to Merton (1968), a middle-range theory can be used to derive hypotheses. It has some specified assumptions; it contains concepts, relational statements and propositions. In addition, a middle range theory is delimited in scope, is empirically based, is somewhat abstract, fits with many grand theories, and is logical (Dunn, 2004). Middle range theory starts the theorizing with a more narrow aspect of a social phenomenon. It is a ladder of abstraction, a movement from an abstract to more specific use of concepts (Smith and Liehr, 2003).

Resonance

In this research, I chose to explore how the therapists’ personal and private context adds meaning to her or his therapeutic practice. My starting point is Bateson’s (1979) idea that context is our mental or psychological frame of understanding of our own life and experience. The context that has interested me is when resonance between the therapists’ personal and private life and therapeutic practice forms a meaningful whole.

The Belgian family therapist Money Elkaïm introduced the concept resonance to help us understand the dynamics between how one part of life may influence another. He says: “Resonance occurs when the same rule or feeling appears to be present in different but related systems” (Elkaïm, 1997, p. xxvii). What occurs then is a kind of symmetry that invites the person to relate in certain or similar ways to what is going on. I will emphasise resonance as a concept for giving meaning to the circularity that occurs between the therapists’ personal and private lives and clients’ narratives. Martha Rogers broadens the understanding of resonance by presenting it in a relational perspective. She says that resonance with the environment sometimes may be “harmonic, sometimes cacophonous, sometimes dissonant …” (Rogers, 1970, p. 219).

Relational resonance

In this middle range theory, the concept of resonance is developed to include both personal resonance and relational resonance. This means that resonance both takes place in a therapist’s mind and emotions (personal resonance), (and in the individual family members’ minds) and at the same time between the therapist and the family or client.

The concept of resonance is developed to include parallel connections; that is what occurs when a client or a family presents narratives that remind the therapist of her or his own personal and private experiences. This awareness is not only intellectual, but also embodied as well. The two aspects of life we are studying here are the resonances between a family therapist’s personal and private life and her or his professional life. The emphasis on resonance will be developed to include several related concepts that add new meaning to the findings in this research project.

The therapeutic relationship is one of the factors that promote change in psychotherapy. How this element in the therapeutic process adds meaning to clinical practice is important to understand (Wampold, 2001; Skovholt and Jennings, 2004; Lambert, 2004; Orlinsky and Rønnestad, 2005). In this perspective, the influence of the therapist’s personal and private experience on the therapeutic process is one important factor to take into account and understand. Skovholt and Jennings’ claim in their research that master therapists describe their awareness of their “selves” as “… an agent of change in the relationship” (Sullivan et al., 2004, p. 63). When Elkaïm mentions “the same rule or feeling” it is possible to think that rules are articulated or possible to articulate and that feelings are unarticulated or a part of analogue communication. Feelings may of course be articulated, but the articulation is not the feeling, in the same way that the map is not the territory.