2.4 Harlene Anderson - retaining curiosity

In this episode Amanda and Gareth listen to Harlene Anderson talking about the ins and outs of embedding Open Dialogue ways of working into systems, using the Reflecting Team. Harlene gives us the full benefit of her wisdom and there is a book recommendation too. 

Transcript

Fiona: 0:09

Welcome to Open POD pod,

Amanda: 0:11

This is season two of our podcast, so I'm Amanda Bueno, and I'm the practice development lead at CNWL to embed open dialogue across our team. So that's the idea, to make sure that There is a joining up between the theory and the practice. That's my aim.

Fiona: 0:29

I'm Fiona Eastmond and I'm a deeply creative and very easily distracted person who loves helping people.

Amanda: 0:37

We are awarded today with Harleen Anderson joining us, and we've also got the medical director of CNWL, Dr. Gareth Jarvis, with us. some

Gareth: 0:51

division at central and northwest London NHS foundation trust. And I'm a consultant psychiatrist by background, and I've been interested in open dialogue now for about seven years ever since I went on a training here in the UK, and I've been on a bit of a quest to try and think about how could we bring these ideas into the everyday practice of mental health care here in the UK.

Amanda: 1:13

Gareth and I met Harleen when we were visiting, Tornio to meet Jaako Seikkula and Harleen was there as a keynote speaker working alongside him. And that's what has brought us all here today.

Harlene: 1:25

I'll let you start and I'll respond.

Amanda: 1:28

So I think one of the questions I would say is first of all, it would be lovely if you introduced yourself you're sitting on my bookshelf, I hope you're comfortable up there. You've been up there for many a year. So please introduce yourself.

Harlene: 1:39

Okay. I'm Harleen Anderson. I'm in Houston, Texas, and I first became interested in what I think of as dialogical practices several decades ago. My original training was in traditional psychology, and then I happened to start working at a medical school. In the pediatric and psychiatry departments and I bumped into something called family therapy. I'd never heard of that term before and I went to the, I thought, okay, now I'm in my family of origin. My one of, one of my many nicknames was Rosie Nosy. I always wanted to know who are you talking to? What are they saying? What it, what was for dinner, etc. So I saw these flyers posted about family training starting and I thought people are talking about this with a lot of excitement. It could be a cult. I'm not sure, but I'll go to this first meeting and I'll find out what it's about and make a decision. So I went to the very first meeting and I've written about this. I called it. I found something that I did not know I was looking for. I was totally surprised. And in that first meeting, they were talking about two notions or concepts that I had never encountered. And that was, Context and multiple realities. And I was hooked because then I started reflecting on my previous practices, which had been in community centers and schools, and really beginning to try to make sense of some of my encounters with colleagues and clients. And so to make a long story short, I finished the training. I stayed connected with the group. And the training was done by a group who did some innovative work in the 1950s and 60s. They had a research project where they were working with what they called networks or larger systems. So that included members of the families. It included professional membership, neighbors, soccer coaches, hospital chaplains, whomever was involved with the so called patient. And these were inpatients. And patience was the language then. But to make a long story short, I just was hooked and I was enthusiastic and I started doing supervision and became a member of the teaching team and that was a long time ago. I became very interested in why all of these clients referred to us that were called treatment failures. We're called that, we're categorized that way, because these were referred by colleagues within the larger state of Texas, other places within the United States, and locally, and they all are referred because no one had been able to help them. And I thought, why would we think, just because we're in a medical school and in the psychiatry department, be able to do anything more successfully than our esteemed colleagues? And all these communities could do. So I started a very long multi year project in which I interviewed clients, my own, other therapists clients, both locally and wherever I happen to be teaching or visiting around the world. And I would ask them about what they would describe as the characteristics. Successful and unsuccessful therapy and therapists are people in authoritarian positions that they would either like to meet again or they would never like to meet again. And so I began calling that and writing about it as advice from the experts. And that was the beginning of the notion of the client is the expert. And I think it was. It was published, I think, maybe in 92. It was an article that Harry Golishin and I wrote together just before he died, called The Client is the Expert, focusing on the importance of client voices and what you can learn from them. This is also connected with the idea of not knowing, which people often ask about, and not knowing is a concept. It really has to do with the way one thinks about knowledge, the way one uses knowledge, where you think it comes from, how it's created. and it really came from practice because in the early days when we were, I was doing family therapy with this teaching team, we would see clients very traditionally with a team behind a one way mirror and then take a break, go behind the mirror, all this secrecy. And so then afterwards we would have a meeting with all the meet people on the team and they would always say, okay Harry and Harleen, what do you really think? Why did this mother say this? Why is this father doing this? What is this about? What do you really think is the diagnosis for this family or this particular child or uncle or whomever it was? And we would say, we don't know. We would say, we don't know. And what we suggest is that if this is still an important question for you or important questions for you, the next time we meet with this family, we want you to say to them, we talked about you after you left and we were curious about several things. And these are some of the things we're curious about. And if these are still important for you, just ask these questions, but own them as your questions. And pay attention to how they respond to your responses to them. So that's where not knowing came from and the idea of the client is the best way. I think that might be a cement truck. the street

Amanda: 7:09

Ah,

Harlene: 7:10

and I'm not sure there's anything I can do about that.

Gareth: 7:13

no worries.

Amanda: 7:14

Gareth, let me ask you something. What do you, make of the not knowing position? What does it mean to you?

Gareth: 7:21

For me, that's always been quite a shift for, from where I started from. So training through medical school, I was very much taught to be in a knowing position that you would have to create great depths of knowledge and master your subject. And you would be taken from a position of novice and knowing very little and schooled through to a point where you were

Amanda: 7:48

Silence.

Gareth: 7:57

could impart your knowledge through education to others. That's, that's a slight caricature. I don't think it's, it was quite as hard line as that. And I think the doctors that are trained me that were perhaps more enlightened in their approach would be far more collaborative in their approach than that and see very much the person that we're trying to help as being a partner in the way we're working. But I, I would say that they were probably more in the minority in my experience of, as I came up through. Medical school in my training and even as I went through into psychiatry where you think perhaps we'd be a bit more balanced in that and I think once I got into the open dialogue training really took me to a whole nother position around it. I've realized, oh, gosh, no, I really don't do that. I thought I did. I thought I was a really sophisticated psychiatrist who was really alongside and was all about co production. And then actually, when I was showing what it was, what it could really be. I thought, oh gosh, no I really haven't understood this yet.

Harlene: 9:00

can relate to what you're saying about not knowing because It's surprisingly, these ideas developed within a psychiatry department in a medical school.

Gareth: 9:09

Yeah,

Harlene: 9:10

A very traditional psychiatry department, where psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapies were the therapies du jour. However, because the powers that be were not really interested in psychology, our family therapist for sure. We were treated with what we called benign neglect. We could get by doing whatever we wanted to do. And we became, our training became very popular. Where we had hospital chaplains, occupational therapists, pediatricians, heart surgeons, plastic surgeons. We had all kinds, physical therapists, all kinds of disciplinary people. coming to the training and it just began to trickle out. However

Gareth: 9:58

I found that term that you use really interesting, the benign neglect one, because that that, that felt resonant to me when we started to train the open dialogue in Haringey, that was a place where we were given permission by a clinical director to just, okay, you get on with that. And I'm not going to interfere and when I've heard Jaako before talk about what they were trying to develop up in Western Lapland, he's saying actually, we were quite far away from the center and any interference from the authorities up in Helsinki. So they were allowed to get on with developing what they needed to there. So this sort of space of benign neglect feels important, actually.

Amanda: 10:37

I agree. I wrote it down on my little notepad next to me because it resonated with me and I was thinking, Oh, I think I'm envious of some benign neglect because it allows you to be creative and create something new without feeling scrutinized by business as usual. So I did find that. And I also, I also really grappled with learning about not knowing because. I was a child care expert, so what do you mean I don't know when a child comes into the room? And I think in the end I reframed it for myself as retaining curiosity. So it wasn't that I had to let go of all of my knowledge or experience. That was transferable. And I then put too soon at the end of it, Arlene. I put not knowing too soon which allowed me to remain curious. And create a hypothesis in my head and then see whether it was going to come about or not. So I held it, but I held my position of knowledge with more, I think, respect.

Harlene: 11:35

that's why when I give a definition of not knowing usually or as a concept that I say where does what you know come from? Why does it come to mind at that particular moment in that particular piece of work? So again, the contextual piece and what would be your aim or your hope or goal, your agenda in offering it? And if you hold on to it for five minutes, is it still relevant? Not, because clients are often ahead of us, even though we start out, I think, ahead of them. The other thing, along with benign neglect, that helped us do the work that we did, and be very irreverent to traditional psychology and psychiatry, and experiment, was the whole idea of Taking and working with anyone referred to you. So those included what a psychiatrist in the early seventies, I think called garbage pit patients or clients, client throwaway clients that no one else wanted to work with. So as long as you took them, they didn't care what you did. As long as you were not complaining about them or referring them back. We just, it, all, everything I'm saying gets into all other kinds of things which has to do also now with relationships. How to have good relationships with your colleagues and not position yourself as superior to them or knowing or having something that you came across that's really a big secret, but you're not sharing it.

Amanda: 13:02

Yes.

Gareth: 13:03

The spirit of experimentation. And curiosity with which you were approaching the work of trying to figure out what works, what doesn't work, which was something I heard you speak about at the that summer gathering where you're saying that actually that was at the core of what they were trying to do was every single time they'd had a they'd sat down with the family and had a conversation. They would always check in at the end and say, what worked about this? What didn't work? And really wanting to learn each time from each encounter.

Harlene: 13:30

Yeah, I think about it as research as part of everyday practice, or as Tom Anderson used to say, insider research versus outsider research. And this whole notion of reflective, reflexive learning, where practitioners learn from your work, that you take the time to step back and carefully think about. Your work reflect on it. And what did you learn from that particular piece of work and even everything that I do, even like being with the group there this summer was an experiment because I had no idea like today's an experiment. I have no idea what was really expected of me what they wanted me to do. And so I just tried to respond to what was happening respond into it. As John Schotter would say.

Amanda: 14:14

One of the things I noticed you responding into was the deliberate and slowness of your responses. That really stayed with me from our trip and from seeing you talking to Yakko and even from today you didn't... yoU didn't react or you were very measured and I wonder how that is. is. that you? Harleen, is that you at home with you, with the people around you and your family say that you carry that through to the dinner table,

Harlene: 14:47

Some might say that. I think it really has to do with the importance of pauses and silences and the importance of what I call being a careful practitioner. And that you think about what you've heard, even if it's quickly, even if you only have five seconds before you respond, so that you can hopefully have a response that fits in the flow of the conversation. That you're not leading it in another direction. Which also reminds me to slow down right now because I speed up.

Amanda: 15:17

go ahead. What ideas excite you the most about conversations like this?

Harlene: 15:23

I think it's the questions and the challenge of responding to the questions. And always... Wanting to, although I can't do this purposely, respond in a way that might be a little bit differently than maybe someone has read or heard me respond before. So that there's, there always, so that there's something fresh or new, whatever that might be, and I never know what that might be, nor could I backtrack and pinpoint it.

Gareth: 15:50

One of the things I was wanting to ask you about this today, Harlene was the, you are obviously held in a position of greater esteem by the team in Tonio that developed. the open dialogue approach and that your work was very influential upon them. I wonder at what point you became aware that you were being part of that story and where the connection came from? And

Harlene: 16:11

It's, I would say it's really most poignantly been more recently, although I have been invited to conferences with Jaakko and Tom Anderson and John Schotter and that crew around open dialogue previously. And I'm always a little surprised when I've been invited. And always a little curious about, what do they really want me to do? But I find myself always trying to compare and contrast. And learn from being with who I consider these esteemed colleagues, certainly including Yalko. You may or may not know that I created An international program called the Certificate International Program and Certificate in Collaborative Dialogic practices. And what I have found is that open dialogue people have. accessing those programs or the sponsors of those programs to sponsor Open Dialogue training. And the feedback that I get from my colleagues who have those programs, and is that they often hear that perhaps people should Some training in collaborative dialogic practices before open dialogue That's introduced in psychotherapy, certainly in family therapy, is that it becomes like a skill, a method, or a technique that one. uses. Think in terms of the Milan teams in circular THen, with Tom Anderson's concept of the reflecting team, where I was having a conversation with him one time, and I said, Do you know, I think the same thing is happening. with this that's been happening with the Milan team's work. But people think they have to have a team, like it's a fixed thing with fixed membership. And I really became aware of this when I was talking one time with one of the former colleagues of the original team, of the original membership of the Reflecting Team. And he happened to move to southern Norway and was one of maybe five or six people in an organization. It was not familiar with reflections or anything related to the conceptual framework in which that piece of work is, or that those actions are incorporated. And he told me this story of one day, he was talking with a woman, and he said, all of a sudden, I decided I was going to reflect. And he said, so I just turned in my swivel chair, and I looked out the window. Of course, in Norway, you know, beautiful landscapes have all these windows. And I looked out the window and I said to the woman, I'm going to talk with the troll sitting under that bridge over there. And you may listen while I talk to the troll. So he just began talking out loud, sharing what I began calling being public, sharing inner thoughts, because this is something else I learned from clients about what they were always curious about with their therapist. They always wanted to know, what is my therapist really thinking? Where did that question come from? Why does she keep asking the same question seemingly in five different ways? Why doesn't she or he just tell me what they want to know and I can give them the right say has all of these side connection stories. So he just began talking with the troll under the bridge, basically having a conversation out loud with himself and then he turned to the woman and he says what do you think? And they began talking, and this was the beginning of his thinking, Okay, I don't have to feel so lonely and isolated, because I can have an imaginary team. And also, at the Institute where I work we would think in terms of teams not having fixed membership. You might come to visit and we would always invite them to join into clinical work. And by this time, we were doing most of it in the room with the clients. Without mirrors is a long story the visitors would often say, What do your clients think about the way you're working? This isn't what we expected. And we would say, We don't know. Ask the client. It doesn't matter how I respond to your question. What matters is The client's experience.

Amanda: 20:21

you're, no, you're making me think about something that I've tried to think about and you're validating it in some way for me, Harleen, which is the difference between the philosophy and the methodology, that if you grab the philosophy, Even just the Not just because that sounds like it's reducing it, the justice in the client being the one who holds the knowledge, actually not doing to anybody, but just being alongside. Then the methodology can be used in a far more flexible way. And once you start to think of it in a rigid methodology way, then you lose its potential for application over a myriad of different places and circumstances. You can just, I do speak to trolls, to be honest, British trolls all the time.

Harlene: 21:11

I'll have to look for some next time I'm

Amanda: 21:12

Sure. They're very small in this country. But I think that's helpful because we have so many teams. We have such a large trust. They're in all different places. If they can grasp some of the philosophy, which is the antithesis of the medical model, which is, we know and we will advise. If you can get over that and sit with the uncertainty of maybe we don't know so much, because it's not going very well, all of this knowing. Then you can adapt. I think the open dialogue and the reflecting team and the curiosity and the stance or whether you're working alongside somebody or not, I think there's flexibility and movement in it.

Harlene: 21:53

I think so too, and I talk about it as a group of abstract assumptions inform my work, and they inform what I call a philosophical stance, a way of being and becoming, that I hope to have.

Gareth: 22:07

I'm interested what you were saying there about the philosophical stance that you were trying to adopt Holly. I wonder if you could tell us some more about that.

Harlene: 22:14

pEople would often ask me what are the skills of collaborative practice, or what I called it, or we called it collaborative language systems, or what are, or systemic therapy, or strategic therapy, whatever we were calling it at the time. I would say, I don't think in terms of skills and techniques. I don't think in terms of, excuse me. I don't think in terms of things that you learn ahead of time and then you pull out of your therapist's toolbox and implement like across the board, like a screwdriver fits this kind of slot. I Begin to say that if you can adopt a different way of thinking about yourself, the people you work with, what you do together, and how you do it. In other words, if you can adopt a different... Sort of an epistemological position or a different mindset, then you will act and talk differently. And that's also where, including from putting my words to former clients words that I call advise me experts, I came up with ideas like embracing uncertainty. So rather than thinking of tolerating uncertainty, it's embracing uncertainty. Because uncertainty is part of life. We are mutually inquiring. That I want to mutually... And if you believe in those concepts, if it makes sense to you, then you will begin acting and talking differently with your clients and with your colleagues.

Gareth: 23:39

yeah that, that resonates really strongly with me. I agree very much with that because I'm often. Asked to come and talk to different groups and try and explore the ends. There's the ask. So what is this open dialogue stuff? And I'll start trying to try to pick it apart for them and say some of it's about some skills that you can learn. And some of it's about system change and the way that you're organizing your services and so on. But actually the biggest thing about it is a shift in philosophical stance. Of the way that you think about the work, the way that you are aligned emotionally to the work, and it flows from that that that's the most important change.

Harlene: 24:15

I think so. And I think also important is how you talk with others, your colleagues about it, particularly those that you hope will gain something from the conversation that will be useful to them.

Amanda: 24:26

This way of thinking means that you also need to let go of your illusion of power. anD I think, it is an illusion. Obviously, it's a construct in and of itself. And yet... And yet it seems to be such a fundamental kind of foundation of what people perceive their sense of self to be that I'm, that is, I think, one of my biggest challenges in trying to embed a different philosophical stance, because I think when you spent your whole life with that as your perception of self, I don't know. I think it's very frightening for people to think about letting go of it.

Harlene: 25:03

When I tell new learners, I say, We are in positions of power and authority. We not be. But you have a lot of options on how you choose to position yourself with that position. In that larger context. And they say, what about clients who come expecting you to be an expert, and want you to tell them what to do? I say I try from the very beginning when I meet with clients, to not position myself as an expert, and to position them as the expert. By the way I begin to talk with them, become interested in them, curious about them. So it's, there's just so many things I could say about this. But it's, yeah, you can't get rid of that. And I also say that we have trained people. Our disciplinary discourses are so public. They're in the media, whether it's a movie, whether it's a book, whether it's a magazine, a newspaper article, some TV show with some star therapist. People expect us to be experts.

Gareth: 26:03

Yeah, It's interesting because talking to some of the team up in Tornio when we were up on that visit, they were saying actually one of the, they feel like one of the new challenges they're up against is the expectations of people coming towards their services now is that actually they often come with expecting a diagnosis, a particular medication to be prescribed. an expert opinion on something. anD that's actually, it can be quite hard. To help the people as they come towards a different approach, managing their expectations of what they're going to be getting.

Harlene: 26:36

And I think you see that more and more with clients coming with ideas about what their problem is. They've got a label, a category, a diagnosis for it. And I don't know about in the UK, but our television. system here. It's just overloaded with drug pharmaceutical companies advertisements. So they tell people, and that you'll have a smile and a fabulous relationship if you just take this medication. And so people, of course, buy into that. Yes.

Fiona: 27:06

yeah.

Harlene: 27:06

I would agree with that in terms of I often talk about it as We have reputations that we don't know about because people have placed a reputation on us, whether it's by our surname, the color of our skin, the name of the organization which we're attached with. What our title is. They have these ideas about us before they even meet us.

Amanda: 27:30

I love some of your terminology, Harleen. You just encapture something, reputations that we don't even know about. Wow. I shudder to think.

Gareth: 27:39

aNd that goes all ways, doesn't it? It said that they, when we think about we as professionals and the people who come into our spaces for help, they, they come with their reputations. That they don't even know that they're carrying.

Amanda: 27:53

Especially the treatment failures.

Harlene: 27:56

Yes, and how susceptible we are as just members of our larger cultures of adopting some of those labels or categorizations or boxes that we place people in.

Gareth: 28:08

I'm sorry to interrupt that, but Harley, but I um, I find wanting to ask you about Harry. Cause you you, you mentioned him a couple of times and I've heard you mention him before in other places as well. And he seems like he was an important figure in your life and your development and developments of your thinking.

Harlene: 28:24

Oh, he was, and I describe him in this chapter as intellectual, curious, irreverent, passionate. And he was a very important person in my development because I've often wondered, did he attract other people who are nosy or curious? Or did he bring that out? And I've decided that he brings that out. He invites that to come forth in people. But he would do all kinds of surprising things. I remember one time and one of the things that was fortunate is that when I first started studying family therapy, and I went to the first session, they said, if you're not seeing families... You cannot participate in this training. And I went back to the pediatric department where my then supervisor was, a psychologist, and I said, Bob, this is what's just happened. So please see a family with me. And we talked and we just decided that the next referral that came in, we would declare it as our family. And he would sign up for the course and come with me. And by luck of the draw, we had Harry Galishin as our supervisor. And one time, I was in supervision, myself without Bob, in Harry's office. And we were, I had joined him in seeing a client, a line, and it was a young couple with a baby. And the baby was very curious and just crawling. I say a baby, an infant. Crawling, crawling around the floor. Maybe, I don't know how, maybe two years old. And he opened a bookshelf door and out rolls this bottle of scotch. And I can't remember what Harry said, but he was just nonplussed. I thought, Oh, Harleen, you've got to relax a little and not be so concerned about the look of your office. And he used to always say, Okay, as a therapist you do not want to have a big daddy or big mama chair. You want to have all your chairs similar. And that's the way all the therapy rooms were. He was head of the psychology department within the psychiatry department. And that's the way his spaces were. And they had personal artifacts in it. You could have a picture of his family or his wife or his daughters. So he was a very warm person and he could be intimidating if you didn't know him because he could be very challenging. He really wanted you to think, he wanted you to read And he started a reading seminar at his home on a Tuesday evenings. And there were six of us who attended, and we would read anything. It might be an article by Stephen Jay Gould, that I found in the back of a magazine, in the magazine on the back of an airplane seat. that I thought was interesting and had something interesting to say. Or it could be a book of fiction that someone else read that they found something in it that made them think about therapy or clients or life. He was really flexible in many ways. He was, he had his home that he and his wife lived in was on Galveston Bay. He had a dock. And so it was very popular to, for people to gather over on his dock and have a drink at the end of the day. So that became a real ritual. And his wife would make popcorn so we would sit around. And then all kinds of things would happen. All kinds of decisions could be made. And this was one time we were gathered around his kitchen table because it was raining outside. And we were having popcorn and glasses of wine. And his wife began talking about this artist who had this studio in this historic area of Galveston called The Strand. It was... In the 1900s, it was like the historical district of Texas, of the United States, really. And she was saying, and he's moving to Houston, and he's closing his gallery. And I said what is he going to do with it? She said, he said he's going to lease it. And I said, okay, this is a crazy idea. This was when we were having some challenges but my colleagues became curious and interested. Oh, really? Because we had been saying maybe what we need to do... She called him. He said sure, you can come now if you can. I said why not? So we go over to this space, and it's two flights of stairs up, which are all one very long stairs. And we enter into this long hallway with 20 foot ceilings that's been papered, so to speak, with egg cartons as a way to diffuse the sound. And then the doors to his studio open, and it's covered in mylar paper, this silver paper. All the walls were covered in that. And then we went in one room and it was covered with wallpaper of all these Greek statues and these very bosomy women with their breasts just hanging out. And I thought, oh my gosh, this would be a great therapy room and it's next to a small room where we could have a one way mirror, which we were still using at that time. And I thought, what are we going to do about those breasts? And so Harry said why don't we just leave them there and let's see if anybody notices them. Whether they're our clients or our trainees, no one ever made a comment. So we left them. I think they maybe were still there when we moved out of that space to another space. But spontaneity is part of this work and kind of part of who our original collegial group was and certainly inspired by Harry.

Gareth: 33:54

Those two words that really jumped out that story and what we've been talking about so Harleen, is you talk about Irreverence. Feels like a really important word and that other one, that spontaneity,

Amanda: 34:06

I must show you why I became a family therapist. Are you ready, Harleen?

Harlene: 34:10

Okay, I don't know if Gareth is ready, though.

Amanda: 34:13

ready. This is the first book I read.

Harlene: 34:15

Irreverence. Oh, wow.

Gareth: 34:18

irreverence well, so Amanda, just as you, got up, to do a lovely moment of connection out spontaneously. Uh but, captured it for us. I I was just saying that actually for, for for, for irreverence spontaneity, there's, if there's any per. The person that really captures

Amanda: 34:32

I took it to heart. I was like, I realized that the only type of therapist I could ever be was this, I was actually training to be a different type of therapist. And then I heard, who did I hear? Somebody came along and gave a talk at the Tavistock, I think it was John Burnham. And I thought, Oh, I sat there absolutely in awe. And then I wrote one night. An email to John Schotter telling him how, much I loved how he captured the emotions and the clouds and the difficult parts of communication and made them into something that was made sense. And I loved it. And he wrote back to me quite immediately and I just loved that humility in him. And I had the pleasure of going to meet him when he was over in, Britain for his final. I think, Get Together, he had a,

Harlene: 35:25

Oh, that Gail Simon did up

Amanda: 35:27

Gael did, yeah, and it was such a beautiful moment of being able to see him. yeah, such a special man, and I often, I think lots of us probably often think about with ness and about ness.

Harlene: 35:40

He was one of my favorite people. Someone else we were inspired by along the way was Gianfranco Cecchini because we found him to be so open with his irreverence so unbounded, so to speak. Yeah,

Amanda: 35:55

See? My friends, textual friends.

Harlene: 35:59

One time we knew that he and Luigi Bosco were going to be in Texas. presenting in Dallas, Texas, which is about a four to five hour car drive from Galveston. And so we invited them to come to Galveston for a few days and they stayed at Harry's house. And there happened to be a hurricane and everything was closed. The airports were closed. The highways had refrigerators and boats over them. And They were panicked about what they were going to do because they couldn't get to Dallas, which was so far away it wasn't affected by the hurricane. And Harry said, I'll drive us. They just spontaneously said, okay, if Harry says we're going to get this presentation, we're going to get this presentation. And he's going to get us there. So he

Amanda: 36:42

You're making me really feel that just getting together and thinking together. And being together occasionally feels like it's really missing for me. And I'm thinking there's probably lots of reasons, internet and phones and this disconnection that we have. And yet it seems to be an important thing in order to flourish and grow alongside each other and share. And I'm just thinking, I want to do that. I want us to have opportunity to do it again.

Harlene: 37:15

you can do that. You can call it Amanda Salon, Open Dialogue Salon.

Amanda: 37:20

Shall I do it internationally and then you can pop in as well?

Harlene: 37:23

can, if you do it on Zoom, but that

Amanda: 37:25

Then it defeats the, issue, doesn't it? We

Harlene: 37:27

well, it defeats part of the issue, but it opens it up to more people. We have in Houston, we have an Anderson Salon

Amanda: 37:35

Do you?

Harlene: 37:36

yeah, it was started by someone who volunteered Proofread, my first book, he was a student in an MFT program. And then we also had a visitor from the Czech Republic, and the two of them were out one evening and talking about how to keep the conversation going. What were they going to do, and what was Pavel going to do when he went back to the Czech Republic? Who was he going to talk with? And Greg decided, we should just have a salon.

Amanda: 38:06

I like that.

Harlene: 38:07

And they named it, but now we just call it the salon.

Amanda: 38:10

I think we should make the salon. an international flavouring. And we need a salon. We want a salon, Gareth. Can I have one, please? See, such a

Harlene: 38:21

See, it doesn't cost any money, it's just you, Amanda, volunteering your time to organize it.

Amanda: 38:27

I think it goes without saying that in order to flourish and talk and think together, That's, you need to collaborate because open dialogue can't just be at the point of, application. It has to be in your bones. And if it's in your bones, then it's in your being, it's in your family, it's in who you are. And I find it very difficult because we all find ourselves in situations in life where we're not living to those principles. And then I find myself ashamed of myself. For falling off again, and then I need to recalibrate, get back on.

Harlene: 39:02

You can call it an open dialogue salon and I think you'll be surprised at who comes and how many come if you do it online, much, and then if you do it in person, we do ours. A phrase that Harry used to use in his writing, which I have adopted, he would always call it bits and pieces. He would just sit down at his computer and he would title something bits and pieces and he would just type what he was thinking about that at that time or during those days.

Gareth: 39:29

I write a a regular blog within our organization, and that just tends to be whatever's on my mind at the time. and, and I try to make it reasonably free flowing. And then I have a pang of anxiety just before I send it of thinking, well, this is a little unpolished and, not particularly pulled together into. A great piece of prose or a great academic piece think that sort of unpolishedness of just sort of

Amanda: 39:53

Um, and I think there's another layer to that as well, Gareth, because I think you then become your own reflecting team,

Harlene: 40:00

you are reflecting and writing.

Amanda: 40:01

yeah, once it's out of you, you're objective to it. And therefore, I think it shifts your position. In fact, I used to find when I was writing that I never had a clue what I thought until I wrote it down. And I was like, and then sometimes I'd go away, because I always had this insecurity that I wasn't terribly good at academics. And I'd go away, and I'd come back, and I'd read it, and I'd think, Oh, that was quite good. Who wrote that?

Harlene: 40:23

I know, it was amazing when you read something, you think, I wrote

Amanda: 40:27

I wrote, do you know what I mean?

Harlene: 40:28

Harry Galician used to say, I never know what I'm thinking until I say it out loud. and I use this a lot in my teaching, because saying something out loud, you can, there's no way you can duplicate it exactly the way you were saying it in your head to yourself, or the imagined other. You

Amanda: 40:46

you've just summed up this. This is why I want to do this. Because I don't know how we're going to plan these conversations until we say them out loud. They're organic. They wing it,

Harlene: 40:57

that's right. you can have a preamble. What I call a preamble. a disclaimer.

Gareth: 41:03

I was, I Was seeing a bit of research the other day where it was about how. Teenagers, were saying that their preferred mode of communication was through text, through using something like WhatsApp, and they liked it because it retained a sense of control over the conversation. That they could write it, stop, think, is that what I wanted to And then edit it and put it out there. And I, I just that isn't that sad, the worry about putting yourself out there, taking a risk, the spontaneity of a conversation of you don't know, you still put something out there, you, you stumble over it And then you have to sort of all make sense of it together.

Amanda: 41:47

laughing because that's just the opposite of what I did this week. But it is interesting, isn't it, that you have to feel so tightly restricted in how you communicate, and the kids today might do, but they're not just children, adults as well, I think it happens across the board.

Harlene: 42:03

Yeah, when you said teenagers, I was surprised. to hear that there were some teenagers thinking like that because I would think they would say anything they wanted to and wouldn't care what someone else thought. I don't know, but I can't speak, I don't know a lot of teenagers.

Amanda: 42:18

It's funny when we say saying anything we want to, because I was I was with a group in an intervision, intervision, hashtag supervision today, I was trying to say to them that the Reflecting Team is so very useful because they had said they wanted to say this and they wanted to say that. And I said that's the beauty of the Reflecting Team. You don't need to say it directly, but you can turn to your colleague and say, I'm curious. I said, and that way you've dropped it into the room. But what I also love about it is that you do need to be sensitive with the way you frame things and the way you say things. And it does slow you down into... Processing what you're saying in a way that, like you said earlier on, why am I saying this? Why am I offering that thought? What value might it have? What is my thinking behind why I've asked it?

Harlene: 43:06

There's just certain words that catch my attention, words like skill or layers. But anyway I'm thinking of, since we're talking about reflective practices, I'm thinking, and I, you showed uh, Jaquene's Carnac book. You may have seen this one, but I just pulled it off my shelf. Tom invited his colleague, Per Jensen, and me, Tom had decided ahead of time who he wanted. In the book. The authors to invite. I don't, I really don't remember if Per and I invited anyone or not. Anyway It's the latest thing that I have on reflecting processes.

Fiona: 43:42

beautiful and there's a beautiful shot of the northern lights on the front there

Harlene: 43:46

I know. I've invited myself to Tromso in December. I said this winter to see the Northern Lights

Amanda: 43:52

They're just magical. Have you seen them, Gareth?

Gareth: 43:55

haven't. I haven't. I would love to. WE absolutely love a book recommendation on this podcast. So that's fantastic. My latest edited book, Dialogic practice. Relationships and conversations that make a difference.

Amanda: 44:08

across Context and cultures.

Harlene: 44:11

so this is not a book about therapy. There's not a chapter in here about therapy. It's about using these ideas in schools, in research, in businesses, the next one that we're going to edit together is going to be on using these ideas in one's daily life. And one's private life, so people always say I practice this in the grocery store, I practice this with my child, I practice this with my partner. And I think practicing it with people that are, you're in intimate relationships with is the most difficult, just ask my husband. He's

Amanda: 44:46

actually, where is the

Gareth: 44:47

I I just wondered if you could tell bit about your, your connection with him, the, collaborations work that you've done in the past was he like as a person?

Harlene: 44:54

Well, We first met him came to a conference that we in Houston. this tall, I will say, handsome like man, walking in, and I kept wondering, who is that? And then we met him. And then the next thing you know... We're going to his workshops that he's doing at the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy conferences. And we just just clicked. Harry and Tom and I just clicked, Tom. They good, good, uh, Uh, And then he started inviting us to come. To Norway. And the first time went to Norway, Harry and his wife, my husband and me, the four of us went, were there for a month. And we started out in Oslo, and we just went mostly by car all over the place until up And so many people and were also trying to get used to their language and they were trying to get used to what I call Texas English. And we were, I remember in one, uh, dinner at someone's house in Oslo. And and afterwards we were going back to hotel in a taxi and Harry and his wife were sitting in the front said, Harry, People me about the resource, resource conference. Are we supposed to present at a resource conference and I don't know about it? He said, I was wondering the same thing and I you the same thing. Well, We found out they were pronouncing Resar, the name of a small coastal town in southern Norway. South of Oslo and yes, we were going there. We just didn't know it and we we didn't relate to the name We only related to the person who invited us to come to Their Their meeting open to surprises and you just do what you need to do

Amanda: 46:46

Can we keep her, Gareth, can we keep her, please?

Harlene: 46:50

Okay, We all have reputations we don't know about. I brought that up in relationship to clients who come to see us. They don't come to see Harleen, but they don't come to see Amanda specifically. They come to see who they have decided you are, based on name, for instance, or your skin color, or your geographical location, or what they've heard about therapy, or psychiatrist, or or family therapist, so that we have reputations that precede us.

Gareth: 47:24

one of the things that that, that is probably a a big preoccupation in our system in the NHS at the moment is inequality. The inequalities and access, the great variation that you get depending on. Who you are, where you are, where you're from. We know, for example, in our system over here, that if you're a young black man, you end up in a most restrictive form of mental health care, five times more than a white counterpart. we, we spend a lot of time talking about that. We are deeply troubled by these inequalities and saying we want to do something about them.

Amanda: 48:03

through

Gareth: 48:03

actually it's then the, well, what, what are we going to do differently? and for me, the starting point in trying to answer some of that is, is this is what we're talking about is actually starting to acknowledge and understand some of those reputations that we carry with us. That's if people aren't coming forward to access our services earlier, it's because we've got a reputation with them that's actually maybe we're not not perceived as helpful or the right thing for them at that point.

Amanda: 48:33

Have you seen the landscape of therapy change greatly in all of the years that you've done it?

Harlene: 48:42

I would say not. I would say most therapy and therapeutic services are very traditional, very hierarchically organized, including professional associations. Organized around historically predominant ways of thinking, like CBT. Okay.

Gareth: 49:02

Interesting because, a bit of just where I'm with my background, I guess. I'm often drawn into comment upon, do you think that the dominance of of medical model, uh, mental health care, It has its challenges, the problems it causes and so on. And absolutely, there's a great deal to discuss and debate there but I also think, as I look around at the other all the other professional paradigms. a lot to be asked there about the expertness that posited within them. the, the positioning of, the professionals within it that that's something resonated with what you were saying there? but to me, Harleen is that I've often found as we've started to try and introduce open dialogue ideas here in the UK. That's actually, I often think, well, the psychologist will just come, wants to come flooding towards this. Cause it's a far more psychologically informed way of thinking and working. And often I I I've been surprised that they can be some of the most resistant

Harlene: 49:53

I think anything different can be perceived, from my perspective, as threatening I was just going to say maybe it's human nature to be self protective.

Amanda: 50:05

I was just going to say that I feel sad that being relational also comes under the banner of being different. I Think that, that in itself is a tragedy. And I don't, and I think that maybe a lot of westernized ways of thinking are responsible for that, or can be a contributory factor to that, because we think that we've moved on relationally, we absolutely haven't. So I find that the concept of being human feels new, or a little bit naughty, or it's just it's. It's very sad and I'm, I also feel very I can feel in my body sunk. with the reality that things haven't actually changed very much. And does that mean one, one still feels you have to carry on with the hope and fight.

Harlene: 50:58

Yes, we do have to carry on with the hope, and the fight, and the energy, and Silence.

Amanda: 51:13

one Oppi says something to me that really resonates with me. When I have got despondent, he says, Amanda, you're just planting the seeds. You may never sit under the shade of the tree. And I was like, Oh, that's very wise. And there's just something beautiful about that, that actually you can plant them. We can water them. And who knows, maybe our great grandchildren will sit under the shade of the tree. But there does something feel, something feels like there's change in the air for me at the moment. And maybe that's false optimism, but I do, yeah, something smells different. I don't know.

Gareth: 51:48

Episode 6, Amanda, if people want to go back to listen to it, to Oppi, which I'd a wonderful conversation.

Amanda: 51:54

man.

Gareth: 51:55

So har harlene

Harlene: 51:56

Yes.

Gareth: 51:57

a, a question I had in my, the back of my head. So so, so you've helped support and train many people a lot over the years, um, to, to to, to understand some of the shift that's, um, you, you've been talking about during our conversation here. Have you got any thoughts about what. What are the most helpful things for people starting to make This journey? This, this philosophical reorientation that we've been talking about what's been your observations about what helps along that road?

Harlene: 52:27

Introducing it with what I may call a preamble that has some kind of disclaimer in it. That this is the way that I work. These are ideas that I'm extremely passionate about. They work for me. They help me to be the kind of person that I want to be. Uh, The kind of therapist that I want to be. hope to be. However, that may not work for anyone. And what at least I hope that this series of seminars or this training will offer you is something to begin to compare and contrast your own work with. And that you will begin to be more reflective and thinking more carefully about your own work. And you can choose it. If there's anything that I say that sounds appealing, that you might find useful, by all means, take it. If you want to throw everything in the rubbish bin, that's what you call it there, right? On your way out the door, you're more than welcome to do that. trying, I'm not trying to sell you anything. and I think that that has to be, for me, that's real. And as much as someone might be really impressed by open dialogue or collaborative practices and what it has permitted for us in our lives, it may not work for other people.

Gareth: 53:47

Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda: 54:00

had the pleasure to receive for many years. Thank you. Because I think that I have been going at it, trying to sell it, Harleen, if I am reflecting, because I have been Yeah, I'm disappointed when people have been gagging on my force feeding. And I think that's, that sort of position of humility, I can offer it, eat, don't eat, I can only do my best and support you if you want to, is a really, probably a far more useful way.

Harlene: 54:30

I'll just say it's easier on me.

Amanda: 54:32

I think it's probably easier on the receiver as well.

Harlene: 54:35

And to keep in mind that someone learning something new is going to be very enthusiastic about it. And I will say you don't want to go off and try to be evangelical. You don't want to try to do something different with your most challenging situation or case, professional or personal relationship. You're going to Try something new. Try it with one of your clients that you feel the work is going somewhat successfully.

Gareth: 54:59

Yeah.

Harlene: 55:00

be upfront and honest with them. I've been to a seminar, and they were talking about something that I would like to try. And I'm going to ask you, if you'll give me your permission, to try it with you.

Gareth: 55:12

think that's really great advice, actually, because I can remember back to we first went to train as a little group, some colleagues rushing back and going for their most complicated case and it was really interesting to see see that they then found it didn't flow. It wasn't the right time and they weren't in the right point in their journey with it and it all floundered and don't give yourself the the biggest challenge you could do. Let's try and find something that's where you're going to ease yourself into

Harlene: 55:43

Yeah, something that's reasonable for you and the people you're working with.

Amanda: 55:48

And, and some of those conversations are difficult They're not all, they're not all easy. But they are authentic.

Harlene: 55:57

Absolutely. How to have difficult conversations.. Again, keeping in mind what is your expectation going into a difficult conversation. Well, If you think of anything later, as you're thinking yourselves or talking with each other or in your dreams or nightmares, If you would like to ask me just send an

Amanda: 56:19

you. have to thank you for spending time with us today and putting time out of your day.

Harlene: 56:26

Oh, my pleasure. Absolutely. I've been looking forward to it.

Gareth: 56:30

Can I just say a big thank you to you, Harleen, for, for, for taking the time because I I know that you are a very busy person, much in demand, uh, for, for your, your, your words of wisdom and to spend so long to us to create. This resource for other people to start thinking their way through these ideas. It really a huge, uh, privilege and an honor to have opportunity. So thank you.

Harlene: 56:57

Well, Thank you, and it's a privilege and honor for me, likewise, to be invited by you and to have met you in person, delightful

Amanda: 57:04

Thank you, Harleen. It's so lovely to get a feel and feel that I know you closer. I really feel very privileged. Thank you.

Narrator: 57:13

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