February 2007
Much of my writing in this month has taken me back into our project’s first face-to-face conversation in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. I notice the novel character of our dialogues as I write. Usually a ‘researcher’ poses a question or series of questions and research participants respond. In this project, participants responded to the research question with - surprise - a myriad of questions… and I become a respondent as I try to write into the complex gap between the already said, and the yet-to-be-spoken.
It is the prevalence of question mode in our dialogues that intrigues me this month. Thinking of Witttgenstein’s interest in the practical use of words, I note multiple functions of 'the question'. Questions can be used to ‘hide’ statements we would never dare to make… they have a presumed innocence and neutrality perhaps evident in the expression “I was just asking…” We can raise questions to delay our own involvement and disclosure, to avoid spontaneous response, and keep distant… We can question mechanically to analyze, to test a hypothesis, to translate lived experience into some kind of cognitive construction... we can use questions to direct conversation (ie interview). Asking questions of something or someone can help maintain positions outside of.
Continually questioning our work can keep us in “evaluation” mode, forever subject to interrogation, denied the pleasure of a moment of tentative resolution. Questioning can distract us from noticing the richness of the unfolding present moment, just as it is, without any need for improvement or addition. Sometimes questions thrust us forward out of the ‘emerging now’ prematurely.
But in the context of this project, I connect the prevalence of question-asking with the ‘not-knowing’ stance characteristic of collaborative practice. It is not simply that collaborative practitioners ask many questions; what intrigues me is the way in which we situate our practices within a continual questioning without end. As Harlene Anderson writes ('97) if we genuinely do not know, then we must learn… Questioning is the language of the learner, the "language game" of one who does not know and yet longs to know deeply.
We spontaneously raise questions when we encounter the unfamiliar and the novel… when we enter into perilous terrain or some kind of uncharted “first time.” Questions, with their “over- to-you” function, can orient us to an other… they acknowledge the other’s presence; they can signal vulnerability, openness, anticipation and readiness…creating an entrance… or a bridge… or a flow of movement… Questions presume explicit response is possible and desirable while statements do not depend on the other’s direct participation in the same way. Questions advance, they require something of the addressee, and so we say we “ask” questions: the question asks something of the persons listening. Might this in any way relate to our project question which explores the reciprocity and generative mutual influence of conversation in therapy practice? Just a question...!
Many of us are thinking “Mexico” these days as we book tickets to meet at the International Summer Institute in June. I include pictures from last year's visit to remind us...
Warm greetings everyone,
Janice
It is the prevalence of question mode in our dialogues that intrigues me this month. Thinking of Witttgenstein’s interest in the practical use of words, I note multiple functions of 'the question'. Questions can be used to ‘hide’ statements we would never dare to make… they have a presumed innocence and neutrality perhaps evident in the expression “I was just asking…” We can raise questions to delay our own involvement and disclosure, to avoid spontaneous response, and keep distant… We can question mechanically to analyze, to test a hypothesis, to translate lived experience into some kind of cognitive construction... we can use questions to direct conversation (ie interview). Asking questions of something or someone can help maintain positions outside of.
Continually questioning our work can keep us in “evaluation” mode, forever subject to interrogation, denied the pleasure of a moment of tentative resolution. Questioning can distract us from noticing the richness of the unfolding present moment, just as it is, without any need for improvement or addition. Sometimes questions thrust us forward out of the ‘emerging now’ prematurely.
But in the context of this project, I connect the prevalence of question-asking with the ‘not-knowing’ stance characteristic of collaborative practice. It is not simply that collaborative practitioners ask many questions; what intrigues me is the way in which we situate our practices within a continual questioning without end. As Harlene Anderson writes ('97) if we genuinely do not know, then we must learn… Questioning is the language of the learner, the "language game" of one who does not know and yet longs to know deeply.
We spontaneously raise questions when we encounter the unfamiliar and the novel… when we enter into perilous terrain or some kind of uncharted “first time.” Questions, with their “over- to-you” function, can orient us to an other… they acknowledge the other’s presence; they can signal vulnerability, openness, anticipation and readiness…creating an entrance… or a bridge… or a flow of movement… Questions presume explicit response is possible and desirable while statements do not depend on the other’s direct participation in the same way. Questions advance, they require something of the addressee, and so we say we “ask” questions: the question asks something of the persons listening. Might this in any way relate to our project question which explores the reciprocity and generative mutual influence of conversation in therapy practice? Just a question...!
Many of us are thinking “Mexico” these days as we book tickets to meet at the International Summer Institute in June. I include pictures from last year's visit to remind us...
Warm greetings everyone,
Janice
posted by Janice DeFehr at 10:00 dop.
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