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Dialogical Ethics: Imagining the Other
Author(s) -
Larner Glenn
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.297
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8438
pISSN - 0814-723X
DOI - 10.1002/anzf.1093
Subject(s) - dialogical self , narrative , perspective (graphical) , sociology , character (mathematics) , epistemology , order (exchange) , aesthetics , psychology , social psychology , literature , philosophy , art , visual arts , geometry , mathematics , finance , economics
This article explores dialogical ethics in terms of imagining the other. Following Bakhtin it suggests that in the dialogical imagination therapists are like novelists recounting the voice of a character: they take the words of clients and make them their own as part of a therapeutic dialogue or narrative. This is a creative act of the imagination that attempts to make sense of the world through the other's eyes and invites the client to do likewise while contributing a therapeutic intention and perspective. The article draws on the writings of Bakhtin and Levinas and contemporary therapists influenced by their ideas in order to locate therapy as a dialogical ethics. This is illustrated by a detailed example from therapy practice.