Integrating Existential and Narrative Therapy: A Theoretical Base for Eclectic Practice

3. Some Basic Constructivist/Narrative Ideas

28 3 Some Basic Constructivist/ Narrative Ideas CONSTRUCTIONIST PERSPECTIVES Narrative approaches to therapy are rooted in a different philosophical tradition than existential therapies, constructionism. Like existential thought, constructionist thinking is not “of a piece.” Numerous strands in this philosophical tradition are united by a shared commitment to the idea that reality as it is known by humans does not exist apart from their efforts to know it (Hayes and Oppenheim 1997). Constructionist thinking holds that reality is created by human activity , with the shared use of language given great importance in generating reality. Anderson describes the common thread among these diverse positions: “Although the postmodern family includes some diverse traits, the notion of knowledge and language as relational and generative is an important and consistent one that runs throughout it” (2007, 8). Rosen (1996) identifies three major lines of thinking within the broad constructionist tradition: (1) Radical constructivism—as represented in the thinking of authors such as Maturana, Glaserfeld and Watzlawick—takes the position that reality, if it exists, is absolutely unknowable and the reality in which people live is created by people, based upon the biological structure of the brain which consists of complex neurological networks. (2) Social constructionism—associated with thinkers such as Anderson (2007), Berger and Luckman (1966), Freedman and Combs (1996), Gergen (1985), Gergen and Gergen (1988), Gergen Some Basic Constructivist/Narrative Ideas 29 and Kaye (1992); Gergen and McNamee (2000), and Harré (2007; Harré and Gillett 1994)—holds that reality is created between people through the use of language. Social constructionists tend to deny any individual role in the creation of meaning. In fact, the implication of this position, taken to its logical conclusion, is that though persons exist as biological entities, their identities are socially created so that the study of psychology as it has been carried on in the past is a meaningless endeavor (Harré 2007). This implication notwithstanding , social constructionism has had a considerable impact on thinking in the field of psychotherapy, as reflected in the development of narrative therapy (e.g., Freedman and Combs 1996; Freeman, Epston, and Lobovitz 1997; Monk 1997; White 1993; White and Epston 1990). (3) Critical constructivism, like social constructionism, maintains that the reality in which people live is constructed by the efforts of people to understand—to make sense out of living. The distinction between social constructionism and critical constructivism is that the latter maintains that personal mental activity makes an important contribution to the reality that is constructed (Neimeyer and Raskin 2000; Rosen 1996; Sexton 1997). Some authors working in this tradition have emphasized these individual efforts over social contributions (e.g., Kelly, [1955] 1991; Leitner and Faidley 2008; Mahoney 1995, 2000), while to others (e.g., Gonçalves 1995; Guidano 1995a, 1995b; Neimeyer, R. 1995, 2000), both individual and social processes contribute to the construction of reality. Before considering social constructionism, critical constructivism, and narrative thinking in a bit more detail, it may be helpful to note a contrast between constructionists/constructivists and existentialists in the understanding of meaning. In existential thinking, meaning is presentational, that is, it is immediately given to people in their acting in the world. In constructionist/constructivist thinking meaning is representational: meaning exists in the relationship between symbols and some referent and in the relationships among the symbols themselves (Hall 1997b). This difference presents a challenge for integrating existential and constructivist ideas because the constructivist view tends to rely upon the mind/body distinction that is explicitly disavowed in existential thinking. 30 Integrating Existential and Narrative Therapy Social Constructionism Central to thinking in both the social constructionist and the critical constructivist traditions is the idea that reality is constructed by human efforts to understand. Thinkers in these traditions argue that even if there is a “genuine reality out there” it is inherently unknowable and that, therefore, reality as people live in it is created by human efforts, individually and collectively, to understand and know—to make sense out of living. This is what constructionists and constructivists mean when they talk about there being no distinction between the knower and the known. In realist thinking the world exists independent of human attempts to grasp it. It is out there, substantial in its own right, and people must observe it from afar, so to speak, in order to begin to know and understand it. There is always, in realist thinking, a clear separation between the knower and the known...