Our Personal and Professional Lives: Learning Positive Connotation and Circular Questioning

Abstract

The work of the Center for the Study of the Family in Milan has had wide influence. We describe its influence on us--the positive connotation of many car journeys, our self-training, and changes in how we view, and function in, our personal and professional lives.

Special Section: On Learning from the Patience

“…Therapy is then a combination of mobilizing the client's resources, in combination with practical moves to reduce the sources of anxiety to manageable levels. Long before the language of reflexiveness became fundamental to family therapy we were inspired by supervision from Peter Bruggen (O'Brien & Bruggen, 1985) to apply our concept of the attachment process, as well as our systemic thinking, to ourselves. It contributed to the process by which we became less driven by our urgency, were able to place our concerns about abuse in the contexts of wider systems, and could have the patience to tolerate the intolerable.…”

The circle of change: An approach to difficult clinical interactions.

“…15, Summer, 1997 seemingly opposing points of view may be united within a meaningful "both-and" construct that embraces both. Open-ended, chronological, circular, and future questions (Cecchin, 1987;O'Brian & Bruggen, 1985;Perm, 1982Perm, , 1985Tomm, 1987aTomm, , b, 1988 The story of Mrs. Q This is a case that illustrates how the consequences of change might preclude change. Mrs. Q is 45 years old and has had right leg pain for the past 9 years.…”

“…Such seemingly opposing points of view may be united within a meaningful “both-and” construct that embraces both. Open-ended, chronological, circular, and future questions (Cecchin, 1987; O’Brian & Bruggen, 1985; Penn, 1982, 1985; Tomm, 1987a, b, 1988) help to delineate the perceptions of health, explanatory models of illness, and consequences of change (see Step VI below), which can introduce information that helps the physician to construct new paradigms of meaning. Both Mrs. O’s and Mrs. H’s physicians accomplished Steps I-V. Mrs. H’s symptoms improved and Mrs. O’s did not.…”