December 2005

My plans to participate in an upcoming family therapy conference (with Lynn Hoffman, Tom Anderson and John Shotter) has led me to some of Christopher Kinman's recent writing. He challenges "the discourse of the better life," the search for the new and improved that drives so much of therapeutic work, indeed, much of our larger Western culture. He suggests that this "search for the better life," removes us from the "good life" that is currently part of our daily living. In the following paragraph, he invites us to

" ... first and foremost spend our energies on distinguishing, and giving language to those goods that are already part of our lives and communities. We should know these goods inside and out. We should be able to recite those stories of how these goods have influenced us. We should be able to map these influences in our lives and communities through time. We should know how we came to receive these goods and gifts. We should know who gave them to us. We should know whom we share them with. We should know whom we have given them to. And then ... after all this is clearly known, we can explore how these goods and gifts can further carry us into the future."

Why attempt such a linguistic challenge? What is the point of such extensive redescription? Vygotsky (1978) suggests we see through our words, just as we see through our eyes. And "...to imagine a language is to imagine a form of life" (Wittgenstein, 1953, p. 123). So, our talking together does not only reconstitute our past experience, it is formative, inviting a whole host of generative possibilities within the present living moment, and for the future.

Thank you all for the gift of your presence in this conversation .... for your hello's, your affirmations, questions and suggestions ... To all of us within this project, and to our various families and communities around the globe: very best wishes for 2006.