Open Dialogical Practice in Relationship therapy

Writing our Book of LoveYves Dingens and Leo Bormans

2nd International Conference on Dialogical Practices – 7 – 9 maart 2013

Love

New dialogues

New definitions of Love

Re-new-ed-identity

European chairman Van Rompuy & Leo Bormans

Kofi Annan (Nobel Peace prize)& Leo Bormans

A book with 200 empty pages 2 pages for each season starting 1 year before the relation today + 3 years empty pages

Timeline: Double page Season by SeasonTop of the page: partner A / Bottom: Partner BColour strip: each partner can give colour to felt emotions

Open – end dreams

Imagination

Create hope

Rational Level

Objective data e.g. official date of cohabition, date of marriage, date of birth children, relocation, job change,

objective frame >> grip for involved people in the dialogue (e.g. parents, friends, children,…)

Awareness of the systemic approach

… hearing all voices

Timeline + strip of feelings + data

What do these partners feel, now that they are face to face

with the history of their relation ?

Second Level: emotion driven.add old pictures, remembrances,…

to explore the meaning of Love

Making a new story out of•Highlights•Important moments

What do they actually feel in this moment?

What is IN the picture?

What is IN the picture?

What is IN the picture?

Repositioning of the self in relationshipand

Repositioning the relationship itself.

City of Words, Lithograph by Vito Acconci, image via Wikipedia

A dialogical space arises

Investigation100 PhD’s >> everyone has his own perspective, something the researcher is looking for, when he does an investigation

100 PhD’s>> each with his own interpretation of the results

100 PhD’s:>> their own story must have been involved

Conclusion:>> the Worldbook of Love are 100 interpretations about Love in a multicultural perspective

First element>> the clients

Second element>> the dialogue between the cliënt(s) and the therapist

Third element>> the Worldbook a multiplicity of voices of the World outside

Peter Lenaerts, third element, Systeemtheoretisch Bulletin 2009, n°3

PhD Ellen S. Berscheid University of Minnesota

Romantic Love

Compassionate Love

Companionate Love

Attachment Love

Research documents that no 2 individuals use the word in exactly the same way

The meaning of the word Love not only is likely to differ among individuals…

..but even for a single individual, the word may carry different meanings as it is used in different relationships

Ph D Ellen S. Berscheid University of Minnesota

Even in a single relationship, the meaning of the word ‘Love’ may vary each time the

individual uses it.

Ph D Ellen S. Berscheid University of Minnesota

Romantic Love:passionate Love – erotic Love – being in Love

Companionate Love: friendship Love strong liking

Compassionate Love: caregiving Love - altruistic Love – selfless Love

Attachment Love: depends on a long familiarity – receiving comfort and protection

continuous search for meaning of Love in anongoing dialogue with couple and therapist

and the third element

Writing our Book of Love:

Facilitate continuous dialogue

To deepen dialogical approach

View through the grid of

• Romantic Love• Companionate Love• Compassionate Love• Attachment

Facilitate continuous dialogue

To deepen dialogical approach

Using the 100 narratives about Love as a third element

tounfold the

meaning of the relationship

Texts of the Outer World

Representations validated by a worldwide community

Love is the life force, the soul, the idea.

There is no dialogical relation without love,

just as there is no love in isolation.

Love is dialogic.

(Patterson, D. 1998) Literature and spirit: Essay on Bakhtin and his contemporaries, 142)

Non-verbal dialogue and language skills

Less linguisticly proficient partners

modeling clay, paint, paper-mache, … .

The advantage of working with mondeling clay and other materials is that there can be more bodily felt emotions. The hands, in contact with structures as clay, draperie, cloth, etc… can create even better dialogues about feelings. Going into dialog through shaping clay and offering the form to the partner to reform and bring changes, can open bodily felt dialogues as an continuing meaning-shaping story.

Non-verbal dialogue and language skills

Pictures, drawings and puppets may help to define emotions

Putting puppets in intersubjective placings - adjust the placing as they would do in a verbal dialogue and certain experiences, believes, sitations can be taken in dialogue. People can “talk” with/through the puppets, expres feelings, etc.. Use of picturespartners can find pictures to go in dialogue with each otherabout the meaning of the aspects of love, they can show what is important for them.

CaseA couple, both have 2 children from a former relationship.

Each of the children need extra caregiving because of different problems they are facing.

The parents did receive an autism diagnose for one boy, another one has a serious mental retardation, one daughter with high sensitivity etc..

The woman was incapacitated because of of a chronic fatigue syndrome.

There is a lot of hassle in the house.

Each parent loses itself in loyalty for their own children

it’s difficult to persist rules, they are blaming each other.

Man and wife are not interested in each other anymore.

Intimicy is completely gone.

They barely speak with each other, except to reproach.

He was disappointed about a lack of intimacy and sexuality. When her partner talked about this topic, the women started to cry.

However they want to stay together because, so they say, they feel love for each other.

In therapy, each week again >> negative – negative.

Text of Ph D Zak about oxytocine came into the conversations.

They were interested in it. We talked about what Ph D Zak discovered, the so-called Love-hormone.

They were surprised. We talked together about the positive sense of touch.

The text became a third element in our dialogues.

It did shape enough distance and safety to talk about intimacy, it was not a diagnose about their problem, nor an advice.

They could re-member fine feelings. The fine feeling of touching was becoming a member of their memory again.

The next days they had planned a weekend with only the 2 of them, in Luxembourg.

The devil escaped !

Oxytocine has worked!

One week later, I received this postcard.