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Towards a common ground in psychoanalysis and family therapy: on knowing not to know
Author(s) -
Larner Glenn
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.52
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-6427
pISSN - 0163-4445
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6427.00138
Subject(s) - narrative , family therapy , meaning (existential) , postmodernism , narrative therapy , psychoanalysis , conversation , interpretation (philosophy) , psychotherapist , psychology , common ground , epistemology , psychoanalytic theory , social psychology , philosophy , linguistics , communication
In this paper a common ground between psychoanalysis and family therapy is discussed in terms of postmodern theorizing in both disciplines. Recent systemic, narrative or social constructionist thinking in psychoanalysis and a psychoanalytic turn in family therapy offers the possibility of a shared epistemology. This is described in terms of a critical not‐knowing stance which allows for the therapist’s/analyst’s contribution of meaning, interpretation and knowledge in therapeutic conversation. Here the holding of not knowing and knowing together provides a narrative container for personal meaning and thinking to develop. This ‘knowing not to know’ is what a postmodern psychoanalysis has in common with family therapy: both are ways of being with persons to help them develop and hold their own knowing. This therapeutic process is illustrated in a clinical vignette of narrative child family therapy. For what one knows does not belong to oneself. (Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past , p. 898)