Searching for a better story: harnessing modern and postmodern positions in family therapy

Abstract

In this paper it is argued that modern and postmodern positions on reality and knowledge should not create a theoretical division in family therapy and that rather, by harnessing the two together, each may restrain the other. This combination creates the potential for drawing widely from the whole field of family therapy as well as challenging the separation of mainstream family therapy models from psychoanalysis. The concept of better story is used to replace both the polarized modern position of an objective discoverable truth and the polarized postmodern position of all stories having equal validity. It is suggested that better stories, which evolve in the meeting of family and therapist, may include those which are more congruent, object‐adequate, encompassing, holding, shared, emotional, conscious, just, provisional and hopeful.

Family therapy and soiling

“…Externalizing the poo seems to involve a judgement about a better story which the therapist predominantly constructs. This differs from other approaches where the story emerges more organically and less predictably from the conversation between family members and the therapist (Pocock, 1995). These may be therapeutic strengths, but they distinguish this approach from post-Milan systemic approaches.…”

Science and Family Therapy

“…Along with a number of authors (Gurman, 1983;Pocock, 1995;Speed, 1991), my concern is with the connected assertion (made by, for example, Anderson and Goolishan, 1992;Hoffman, 1992;Madigan, 1992;Paré, 1995;White, 1993) that the underlying postmodern epistemology of such approaches should replace science. Postmodernism typically involves four logically independent themes: (1) knowledge is socially constructed rather than resulting from direct observation of the world; (2) it is not meaningful to arbitrate between different constructions; (3) knowledge is inextricably linked to the practices of power within a society; (4) knowledge is structured in the form of literary narrative.…”

“…'Postmodernism' does not preclude arbitrating between constructions (Efran and Clarfield, 1992;Madigan, 1992;Pocock, 1995;Speed, 1991) but it favours interpreting individual experience, rather than erecting universal categories of knowledge. Our lives are viewed as 'texts' which lend themselves to multiple interpretations, all of which have equal status, all interpreters have equal status and meaning is not related to the intentions of the 'author'.…”

“…Most texts admit more readily to some interpretations than others and the quality of an interpretation can be measured against the degree to which it fits the text (Pocock, 1995). For example, satirical and tragic readings of Don Giovanni are compatible with the text, but it would take a considerable flight of the imagination to interpret it as a detective story.…”

“…Scientists apply a number of tests to their ideas, some of which are logical and others a matter of aesthetics. Good theories, like good literary interpretations, have to fit with what you already know, achieve 'object adequacy' (Speed, 1991), or constitute a 'better story' (Pocock, 1995). Two theories having equal object adequacy have to be tested empirically against each other, which is best done by identifying predictions made by one theory that are not made by the other and carrying out research to find out which most accurately predicts novel events (Popper, 1963).…”