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Disintegrating the House that Objectivity Built: Consensual Domain, Irreversibility and Symmetry‐Breaking Interventions
Author(s) -
Gibney Paul
Publication year - 1988
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/j.1467-8438.1988.tb01264.x
Subject(s) - objectivity (philosophy) , psychological intervention , epistemology , clinical practice , phenomenon , psychology , medicine , philosophy , psychiatry , nursing
This paper considers a difficult clinical problem, namely chronicity or recidivism, and examines the appearance of the phenomenon in a number of clinical vignettes. From the vantage point of a clinical introduction, it will be argued that chronicity is an epistemological problem in that it arises from a belief in the clinical value of ‘objectivity’. It will be suggested that ‘objectivity’ is an insufficient concept for dealing with the recursive complexities of clinical practice, and that its application to clinical issues leads both to fragmentation and timelessness. Drawing on the concepts of post modern science, ‘consensual domain’ and ‘irreversibility’ are put forward as more appropriate principles for orienting practice, and the development of ‘symmetry‐breaking interventions' is advanced as a useful therapeutic strategy in addressing situations where chronicity has taken hold.