2 More like dancing

Exploring what Peer-Supported Open Dialogue is by creating a dialogue about it. In this second episode, Amanda and Billy talk to Fiona about what brought them here. We reflect together on how dialogues within conversations can be as complex and as beautiful as dance - and as simple, too.

POD at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

Fiona Eastmond | LinkedIn

Transcript

Fiona 0:10

Episode two. Welcome to Open POD pod,

Amanda 0:13

Welcome everybody to Open POD pod. I'm Amanda Bueno de Mesquita, I'm a systemic psychotherapist, an Open Dialogue practitioner, and I'm passionate about us bringing new ways of learning and talking and dialogue to each other. And that's the purpose of this

Billy 0:30

Hello folks. welcome to Open POD pod my name is Billy Hardy and I'm also a systemic psychotherapist and have been interested in working with the ideas of open POD pod dialogue. For many years now. So it's a great for me to some ideas with Amanda on these pods, and then see where it takes us

Amanda 0:52

the idea behind these, is to create dialogue. We are hoping that the people listening to us will create a reflection on what we are speaking about and hence create more dialogue and a polyphony of voices

Billy 1:08

What would you like to say? Fiona.

Fiona 1:10

Having done the first week of the open dialogue training, the burning question on my mind for both of you is what brought you here?

Billy 1:20

Great. Okay. I remember starting at the Family Institute, and actually I remember doing my training. Now that question is a question that has been asked. Back in, in the early eighties when the trainers said, what's brought you here? Or, or it was slightly different. They probably said, how did you get here today? And you know, some people said, I got the bus or I drove here. And then, and then over the years we used it in every, well, I would use it in lots of courses. I used it on a course, I was teaching recently to a bunch of social workers, and I asked a similar question, not these, those exact words. but then when somebody says, oh, the bus to the train, blah, blah, blah, and I said, no, but what did you have to do in your life to get to this point? And so the question expands. It's like one of those, you see, you've got a set of words that now become a collection of things that actually is is gold dust. Because if you, if I imagine, and I would imagine this, if someone has had. A diagnosis and has been pathologized a lot of their life, and you ask them that question, that's a big question about someone's life.

Fiona 2:41

Yeah.

Billy 2:42

It's a life searching and soul searching question. It's not about whether you got the bus or the train. And when you're on training, it becomes really interesting'cause it elicits a narrative that helps connect everybody who's been asked the. and, and it creates a web of connection with people'cause it's not simply about how did you get here? It's also who are you and what do you want?

Fiona 3:13

Yeah. And strikingly it very pointedly is not what's wrong with you

Billy 3:22

No,

Fiona 3:22

and very much not quite what happened to you,

Billy 3:28

No,

Fiona 3:28

but it's almost asking what is your story up until here.

Billy 3:34

What is your story and what is your place in your story?

Fiona 3:37

Yeah. I love especially how your place in your story, how you've avoided talking about yourself at that point, and immediately I'm saying, what's brought you here? And you are saying, I've heard that question a lot. And I've asked it a lot, And we've talked about the question in the same way that you and Amanda were talking about. Talking and reflecting about reflecting.

Amanda 4:07

That's a really interesting reflection, Fiona,'cause I noticed that too. I noticed that we were talking about the question. Well, Billy started to talk about the question and it's interesting that in this moment we're doing open dialogue, actually we're having a reflection together about what we've heard from Billy and sharing what we've heard or not heard. In this case

Fiona 4:36

mm.

Amanda 4:37

With Billy, instead of us going off, which we might do with a medical model and go, do you realize he never even answered the question. It was blah, blah, blah, blah. We'd be talking about him, but instead, and, and I think that's an interesting thing about reflections because when you reflect in front of somebody, one tends to reflect far more respectfully.

Billy 4:59

Yeah.

Fiona 5:00

Yeah.

Billy 5:01

You see, it seemed almost a contradiction and it's good to have this cuz this is like another layer in the conversation. So Fiona's voice becomes present in the dialogue and it almost seemed odd that yes, we were doing this thing'cause it was voice, but we're can also see each other. But even as voice then what does someone need to speak of? Because there's a richness in this and, and now that, that's exactly what we do when we're thinking systemically in relationally about relationships. turn to someone and say, what do you think about that description that your brother, or sister, or uncle, or aunt or mother has just said about how you live your life? People don't get asked those questions. They're They're just, they're just not the, the done way of making an inquiry,

Amanda 5:49

but,

Billy 5:51

and yet, it, it promotes connection,

Amanda 5:53

but, what's interesting about what you just said, Billy, is people who are in the room, people who are populating this space in this moment,

Billy 6:03

Yeah, one

Amanda 6:03

of them is Fiona, and there are perhaps a room full of people that we have not yet met and might not meet. And that would sort of lead me to the idea that's also a systemic and an open dialogical sort of idea of circular questioning. You know, if there were other students here, What might they ask us about this conversation? What might they notice? And I always find that interesting when I'm working with families with open dialogue or with regular therapy to think about all the people in the room that aren't in the room and how we can bring in a question from them. You know, if, if your mother was alive at the moment, what might she be thinking about this? Or you could answer the question. Instead of talking about the question, You could say what your journey was. And I could say, if your wife was in the room, would she see your journey as that? Et cetera. So you create even more voices in the room, don't you

Billy 7:05

Yeah, yeah. But you see it's a lovely example of, you know, we're, we're now acknowledging the people who are listening are potential listeners and we've invited a listener to raise the first question to the audience of listeners, cuz we, cuz Fiona posed the question, she said that having done the first week of the open dialogue training. She had a question, and the question was how did you get to, to be in this place at this time? How did you get here? And as the question for the potential listeners is now to go away and think about that just for a few moments,

Amanda 7:43

Hmm.

Billy 7:44

and then, and then find a conversation with someone else And share.

Fiona 7:47

Hmm.

Billy 7:48

and then once they've shared that for maybe five or 10 minutes, is then joined with another pair. If there's a group of people together listening to this, and then, and then find other people and then, and then have the, the dialogues then build layer by layer. And then it becomes interesting as to what stories have unfolded.

Amanda 8:11

And, and that is really difficult to do with a standard teaching platform.

Billy 8:18

Yeah. Yeah. Unless you scaffold it in a way that, that you, that, as we always do in our sort of systemic mindedness way of doing things, is that we create exercises, we create relational exercises to. Some people call it experiential, and I'm not, it's not really experiential,'cause I would say they, they arise from the moment that you find yourself in. And so you create exercises that fit the moment and suddenly you're saying, why, why don't you have a conversation with your neighbor? And then, and then, and, and if you've got the space, you go off into little spaces and then you create that, that illusion of coming back together again. Of course, they are physically coming back. To share the stories and then y'all come back together. Maybe there's 15 people in a room. Then, then someone like me would be saying, what's the story that's, that's, that's at the top of, on the, on, on the tip of people's lips that they want to say,

Fiona 9:23

Hmm.

Amanda 9:23

You've just made me think of something else, which is, you know, with open dialogue we talk about bringing our whole selves, you know, bringing our emotional selves and being able to say, show emotion and connect as humans, rather than just arrive as people. And, and what I was just thinking about our process that might be interesting to notice is you were asked what's brought you here? You've not answered from a very personal perspective of what's brought you here, and

Billy 9:59

I can answer that. Are you asking me

Amanda 10:01

No, I'm not, I'm just gonna, I'm, I might go back to that, but what I'm saying at the moment, in a way, you've created more conversation around the, question and thickened the narrative in the room around the question without answering the question and in a way that's a very skillful thing that we can do open dialog ideologically, which is allow the person asking the question, eg. Fiona in this case, but maybe family or family members, to kind of take center stage without superimposing our ourselves fully into the room, if you see what I mean, without it becoming about us while still being authentic and responding. And in a way you've just modeled that in a way you brought yourself in yet didn't bring yourself in. So fully or so emotionally that it then bombarded or took, took center stage in the conversation. I dunno if what I'm saying's coming out right

Billy 11:07

I think I, I get, I get the meaning. I get the meaning that's beginning to emerge. It's a bit like if I say to you, what is this? It's guitar polish, but it could be a flower. It could be a plant, it could be, it's an artifact which is just here. And so if I'm in a group of people and I say, what is this? People will look at it and say, oh, is a. it's a tin'o polish. Okay. It's in his left hand. Okay. But they, they might become curious about what it's for or they might not. If it's a flower, most people look at the flower and say It's a flower. But very rarely do they go beyond the flower and say, actually there's a person holding the flower and I'm really interested in the person who's holding the flower. What's he thinking about, by introducing this idea at this time? who is the person who's holding the flower? We very rarely do that

Fiona 12:08

Mm.

Billy 12:09

We become preoccupied by just what is in front of us.

Fiona 12:15

Yeah. One thing that really struck me about your description of what is this? Is that there's a whole meditation that is called What is this? And it really gets on my nerves actually the particular meditation, because it keeps asking the same question. So throughout the meditation you are kind of bringing yourself constantly back to the present moment as the mind wanders. and in the present moment, the person who's reading out the meditation is saying just really quietly after what seems like about a decade of silence, what is this? And I was honestly thinking throughout the whole meditation, shut up.But apart from that, I was also thinking, What is this? What am I actually doing here? What am I trying to achieve? What am I looking at? What am I feeling? Like what's happening in this actual moment and this one, and this one, and this one. and I'm not just breathing in and out, other stuff's happening. There's, you know, there's always some kind of noise around. I'm usually in bed when I'm meditating, so the covers are on me and I can feel the pillow and all of that kind of meditation stuff. But when you said, what is this? it brought me to a reflection about meditating, which has also been certainly a part of the training. And it, it brings me also in, in this moment, back to the present moment where we're both, we're all sat here in front of our mics, in front of our computers, quite kind of dryly on tiny little postage stamp size videos. And when you held up the bottle of stuff and said it was guitar polish, I just wanted to see your guitar.

Billy 14:24

You wanted to see my guitar.

Fiona 14:27

straight away. And only since you actually said the word guitar, have I been able to see it in the background?

Billy 14:34

There is.

Fiona 14:35

Oh, it's beautiful.

Billy 14:39

And you see, the thing is it's not just one guitar. I have a collection of 25.

Fiona 14:46

Wow.

Billy 14:48

And I used to buy and sell guitars

Fiona 14:50

Ah,

Billy 14:51

and import them. And so it, it becomes really interesting to me to talk about that cuz this is, this becomes symbolic of, of, of the guitar. That is a guitar. Those two guitar, that guitar that I showed you is, is now 50 years old. And I recently, I recently took it to a man and a guitar. A guitar builder is called a luthier and they're trained to, to do things with guitars. and I have another guitar there, which is even older. it was built in 1976. And so I have, I have a lot of stories about guitars cuz this room that I'm sat in has 25 guitars.

Fiona 15:36

Yeah.

Amanda 15:38

I'm just

Billy 15:38

They're in boxes.

Amanda 15:39

I'm conscious of something though. I'm conscious of how

Billy 15:43

yeah,

Amanda 15:45

by stopping,

Billy 15:47

yeah,

Amanda 15:48

we are connecting with who you are, more the person and how that takes us back to what open dialogue is. It's stopping sitting, not looking at somebody through a diagnostic lens and just truly feeling and hearing. Not to mention, we may well be in someone's home

Billy 16:15

Yeah.

Amanda 16:17

We will see little items that could create some conversation so that somebody feels heard. I'm wondering for you, billy fiona, showing curiosity in a different way about what you, held up, how that that feels for you, how that resonates with you.

Billy 16:41

Well, it's a, it's a great response to the question because, because the fact that it was a, a, a guitar polish, why would anyone have guitar polish without having a guitar? And then, and then there's the whole. There's the whole thing about musicality, and then, someone else might play another instrument and and then you have a different conversation about music. and then, And then that helps me even therapeutically get to thinking about dialogical processes. When, when I, when I then think of a man who teaches jazz, his name is Barry Harris, and he, he used to teach at the Juilliard school in New York. And and he's teaching, you can see this, on YouTube. It's a beautiful film of him teaching. and he's, he's a, he's an African American and he smokes a cigarette and he calls his students cats. and he's got gray hair. And he sits there and he says, okay, cats, we're going to learn some jazz today. And he says, and, and the title of this footage is called the Ands. it's just called the Ands. And of course, you've got any musical knowledge at all. Just even just a little bit. Then you'll know that if you do a 1, 2, 3 and that the and is not a number, it's a space. and, when you're teaching jazz as he does and he does it, he shows there, he's looking at the ands with an orchestra. He gets the orchestra to play in the ands. Now that's the important thing. He's teaching them space, spatial awareness. It's the relationship with themselves in relation to space that creates the 1, 2, 3, and, and, and then he talks about how singers use the and

Fiona 18:41

Hmm.

Billy 18:42

sing. It's, it's, it's the marker for them developing their repertoire for singing. Without the, ands, it would, it wouldn't seem the Some people call it phrasing. they look for the S and that gives'em the phrasing.

Amanda 18:58

And what's interesting, what I'm thinking at the moment is that to some people listening, this conversation may be about music, but actually it's still about that space in the middle. It's still about the space between the people that are coming into the room and

Billy 19:20

is a.

Amanda 19:21

go.

Billy 19:21

There is a French writer, if I might raise the name. His name is Bashad. And Bashad wrote a book called the Poetics of Space,

Amanda 19:31

Oh, that's a nice title.

Billy 19:33

which is a lovely title and it's a great reading. It was written in 1966 or 67, and I, I read it because I was reading something else who quoted. But it's about space. It's about, and of course, dialog ideologically at an open dialogue. There's a reason why it's called open dialogue because it's about space

Amanda 19:53

I think. I'm just aware that we should have told anybody listening to us that Billy comes with a warning, which means that you will end up on Amazon buying a book,

Fiona 20:04

I, I'm on Amazon right now.

Amanda 20:06

Yeah, I know. You can't help yourself. I never come out of a supervision or a conversation without another envelope coming through my door with that perforated strip the next.

Billy 20:17

Yeah.

Amanda 20:17

All excited.

Fiona 20:19

Gaston Bachelard,

Billy 20:21

There's the one that's gas. Sorry. Yeah.

Fiona 20:24

The Poetic of space.

Billy 20:26

Can I give you a little anecdote that goes along with

Fiona 20:29

Yes, please.

Billy 20:31

I was examining A PhD at the Tavistock recently, And the person who was chairing the the examination was from the School of Architecture. She was an architect, and it was, It was really interesting and we had a conversation and, and it was just like she, she was, she was complimenting on the ideas of psychotherapy. I suggested it wasn't that much different from architecture. and she says, how so? And I said, it's about space.

Fiona 21:05

Yeah, it's very much about space. I, I feel like dialogically with what Amanda's reflected and what you've said and how we've got come to come through guitar polish and guitars and jazz that we've come back to. Improvisation, which is something that you mentioned about maybe about an hour ago. And, um, in improvisation, my husband has always taught me that there's a, a conversation and people will stand up and play A piece of. A line of music that they've never heard before that's come straight out of their bodies. It sometimes looks and feels like through their instruments and into our, into the air and into our ears. And another musician will stand up and they'll have a dialogue. And in so many ways, improvisation is dialogical.

Billy 22:00

Yeah, it is.

Amanda 22:04

It's also

Billy 22:04

What does your hu what does your husband do?

Fiona 22:08

My husband is a composer and arranger he's

Billy 22:12

Ah, there you go. He knows more about this than I.

Fiona 22:15

he's a, trumpet player.

Billy 22:18

Oh my God. There you go. I was just listening to Miles Davis earlier on today.

Fiona 22:22

you.

Billy 22:23

Yes, I listen to it every day. I listen to Green. Every time I see a client in my therapy room downstairs, I play Miles Davis, blue and green'cause it clears the room.

Fiona 22:37

Wow, that's just beautiful. That's

Billy 22:41

the space.

Fiona 22:42

Yeah.

Billy 22:45

and then I might listen to John Coltrane after that just to give me a little bit of Ooph, you know?

Fiona 22:49

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Billy 22:53

Well, there you go. You know all about this stuff already.

Fiona 22:56

I feel

Billy 22:57

husband's a composer. Good god.

Fiona 22:59

I feel like my knowledge of this could fit on the head of a pin, perhaps maybe half the head of a pin. Um,

Billy 23:07

where they can fit on a pin these days. Come

Fiona 23:09

well, it's true. It's true. But watching some of the most incredible kind of free improvisation that I've seen where the where the band communicate with each other through making signs. This is a band called Union Division not my husband's band, but one of his colleagues. And I really wanted as a member of the audience to stand up and to draw one of the shapes in the air because one of this shape means one thing and the the, like I'm making a square shape means another. I really wanted to, so I asked Moss later if it would be okay if a member of the audience stood up and did that, and I didn't quite get to a, a fully comprehensive answer of that. He's doing his PhD about these things, and,

Billy 24:03

That's

Fiona 24:04

but that was where I was listen to the music and watching what the people on stage were doing. And I was so much feeling a part of it that I felt him here in my heart, which is like just tapping my chest here, that I wanted to stand up and join in the conversation. and that's the absolute magic of of music, but also I suppose how much space there was in the room as well. And I think in a lot of ways that what we create in a network meeting, in open dialogue is a piece free improvisation. And I think musicians who, who work from charts and who work from, piece of a piece of sheep music that you open up and then you play it exactly as it's written, are often quite put off by, or intimidated by, or even scared by free improvisation. And I wonder if that's something that's, that's happening with open dialogue if that's how it seems, if it seems wild and discordant and strange and a rhythmical to therapists who have a very. Set Rhythm and meter.

Amanda 25:15

An evidence based,

Fiona 25:18

Yeah. A score. They've got a score.

Amanda 25:20

got a score. I'm just, I'm just sitting feeling and thinking about the fact that one of the glorious things I learned under Billy's being my tutor was how not to have problems, saturated conversations and how we often think in you know, in a therapeutic environment that we are talking to people and we forget or can forget that they're people and they come in and we have the diagnosis that leads the conversation. Whereas what's been beautiful and what's unfolded today is. A spray that Billy held up has led the conversation, which isn't problem saturated, which is in many ways taken us down different paths around the same, explored the topic from different perspectives and how we are allowed to do that in a room with open dialogue or show interest or show curiosity or truly understand or try to understand more the person that's and the people that are with us

Fiona 26:38

Hmm.

Amanda 26:41

rather than the narrative they may come with. And I guess that's what sits with the uncertainty.

Billy 26:55

It's also a lovely example if I may say this. Of attending to the unsaid

Amanda 27:04

Hmm.

Billy 27:05

because Fiona's presence today led us to be curious about the unsaid,'cause there was another person

Fiona 27:12

Mm.

Billy 27:14

and, then, and then we, then we find out that Fiona's husband is a composer and Then we have a musical conversation. You know that you, know that thing I was talking about earlier about sometimes you have to capture a

Fiona 27:29

Yeah.

Billy 27:31

The moment you said, my husband, that was an invitation to explore with you what he did and who he is. You see, you gave us permission, but you have to notice It's permission, you see?

Fiona 27:44

yeah.

Amanda 27:45

Hmm. Yes. Without the other approach, which would be more tick listy, are you married? Are you single? Are you this? Yeah. One is an interrogation and the other is a noticing of what the person has brought in with them that you can then legitimately show curiosity about.

Fiona 28:06

Yeah,

Billy 28:07

It's less like therapy and more like dancing

Fiona 28:10

Yes.

Billy 28:12

and I don't know anything about dancing, but I know that it moves me. Greatly. Any sort of dance moves me greatly'cause I keep thinking about, I keep thinking about lots of things and I, and I I've sat in theaters and cried at dancers

Fiona 28:28

Yeah.

Billy 28:28

partly because I can't do it, but partly because there's something absolutely magical about it, you know?

Fiona 28:37

Hmm. I think one of the great things about open dialogue as well is that speaking of dance as a performance, but as also as a, a thing of beauty and a conversation that's had between the performer and the audience and where I felt like I was so into it, I wanted to join the conversation. Is that in, in open dialogue, there's no performer and audience.

Billy 29:09

No.

Fiona 29:11

We're all, there's only participants. That's what I really like about it, and that's what, that's what makes it easier to speak in an open dialogue situ.

Billy 29:25

Yeah. But one of the things I think it that becomes important, Fiona, and you may have done this on the training, and it's important for, I think people engaging in open dialogue to think about, reflect on, is that you have to talk about The rules for talking

Fiona 29:44

mm

Billy 29:45

And although it's, it can seem like it's freeform. There are certain rules.

Fiona 29:51

Mm

Billy 29:52

And they're simple ones. They're just about humanity really. And respect, and, and it's an ethical position is that we listen to the speaker And we listen with our body and we respond with respect and we don't talk over people. and you know, it's, it, it, they're simple principles, but trying to do It is very difficult. the last time I introduced the idea, It, took me two And a half days to get social workers just to listen.

Fiona 30:26

Hmm.

Billy 30:28

Not because they couldn't listen, because they've hadn't, they've been out of practice. They, they were doing more talking than listening.

Fiona 30:36

I think the word that strikes me there is practice.

Billy 30:42

Mm.

Fiona 30:43

I don't think that I or anybody would have any level of understanding of what open dialogue is unless we'd had some practice.

Billy 30:54

Yeah. And you've been doing some.

Fiona 30:58

Yeah.

Billy 30:59

That training must be useful to you,

Amanda 31:03

I, I've Noticed myself quietening down

Fiona 31:06

Mm.

Amanda 31:07

and what I, and what I'm finding is that by including and inviting your voice in Fiona, in a way, I feel less pressure to fill the space with billy with something useful that people will hear, you know, that the project to get this message across. and it's interesting cuz in the message itself, I've slowed down to just being and listening and allowed some more spaces because I was caught up in the doing of a podcast, ironically, if You see what I mean. And and, and maybe that's where people get caught up. We get caught up with doing the medical model and doing what we think we need to do. And, and so this this conversation becomes, I love the word isomorphic. I use it so often, but it's an isomorphic conversation whereby I've can feel myself slowing down to just sit, what's interesting is we still don't have an actual answer.

Fiona 32:26

Oh, to what brought us here.

Amanda 32:27

Yeah,

Fiona 32:29

Wow. That has to be the next episode then

Narrator 32:33

and that's it for this episode of Open Pod Pod. Join us for the next episode.