The Primacy of Discourse in the Study of Gender in Family Therapy

Abstract

Family therapists and scholars increasingly adopt poststructural and postmodern conceptions of social reality, challenging the notion of stable, universal dynamics within family members and families and favoring a view of reality as produced through social interaction. In the study of gender and diversity, many envision differences as social constructed rather than as "residing" in people or groups. There is a growing interest in discourse or people's everyday use of language and how it may reflect and advance interests of dominant groups in a society. Despite this shift from structures to discourse, therapists struggle to locate the dynamics of power in concrete actions and interactions. By leaving undisturbed the social processes through which gendered and other subjectivities and relations of power are produced, therapists may inadvertently become complicit in the very dynamics of power they seek to undermine. In this article, we argue that discourse analysis can help family therapy scholars and practitioners clarify the link between language and power. We present published examples of discourse analytic studies of gender and sexism and examine the relevance of these ideas for family therapy practice and research.

Realizing Relational Preferences Through Transforming Interpersonal Patterns

“…Despite the advent of change process research (Elliott, 2010;Greenberg, 1986;Sutherland et al, 2013), studies focused on how new meanings and realities are co-constructed through actual conversations in family therapy are scarce (Borcsa & Rober, 2016;Sutherland, LaMarre, & Rice, 2017;Tseliou, 2013;Tseliou & Borcsa, 2018). Past studies have explored how therapy relevant realities (e.g., therapeutic alliance; Sutherland & Couture, 2007;Horvath & Muntigl, 2018) are conversationally constructed, but none of these studies have directly tapped into how family members' preferred ways of relating are talkedinto-being (Tseliou, 2013;Tseliou & Borcsa, 2018).…”

Gender‐related Issues in Couple Therapists’ Internal Voices and Interactional Practices

“…For us, then, gender discourse refers to all social practices – verbal or embodied – that in any given moment can invoke and make relevant assumptions about men and women. In couple therapy, it is not only important to recognise the existence of gender‐related discourses, but also to acknowledge their complexity, as they are ‘fluid, joint, variable, and context bound’ (Sutherland, LaMarre & Rice, , p. 6).…”

Discursive Research Methodologies and Couple and Family Therapy Research: Reflections

“…), some of the methods draw upon work conducted outside of family therapy with a long and distinguished scientific history, work that has developed and refined conventions for methods and been disseminated into many disciplines and endeavors (Beels, ). For example, Sutherland and colleagues (Sutherland, LaMarre, & Rice; Sutherland, LaMarre, Rice, Hardt, & Le Couteur) have recently reviewed the considerable body of work on conversational analysis. Other methods have been utilized less and only in a few analyses (Tseliou, ).…”