A Different Story: The Rise of Narrative in Psychotherapy

Rating:
Summary: "A Different Story"
Review: A Different Story: The Rise of Narrative in Psychotherapy

"Analysis considered motives; the new therapy is about intentions. The inward search for insight, that was the hallmark of anlysis, has been replaced by an outward search for resources...The new therapy seeks multiple versions of different, often relative, truths and welcomes lines of inquiry."

"A Different Story" is an outstanding book! All the phrases on the jacket are applicable including "beautifully written", "exhilarating", "brave", and "enthralling". It is also a compelling account, as interesting to the general reader as to the professional therapist.

Dr. Beels's personal and professional story at once mirrors and integrates the contributions of Freudian narrative, sociology, social psychology, history, systems theory and anthropology to the overall development of narrative therapies. Tracing his own experience through prep school, medical school and a residency program in his chosen specialty, psychiatry, Beels relates his early disappointment with "analytic" treatment. His third patient experience, however, did not require "free association" and was conducted face-to-face, not from the "peculiar" lying on the couch position. Eventually, Dr. Mendelson confronted him with the similarity between sitting behind a patient on the couch (at the time his prospective career) and his comfortable childhood experience sitting in the corner happily drawing and writing as an only child. The powerful "sitting in the corner" image did not come from the Freudian or Kleinian canon. Instead, it was a "straight quotation from me and my recollections...it was my story."

Continuing his journey out of the corner, Dr. Beels gradually came to understand that even with the best of ideologies and practitioners "psychotherapy as an institution was stuck with its traditional form, the individual interview." You could, he realized, experience treatment at its best and not even let it sneak out the door of the therapist's office. The challenge and countermeasures of family therapy, or social psychiatry, was to explore family interactions in real time leading to the possibility of "changing their intentions toward one another in future interactions."

The alternatives available in the late sixties and early seventies for Beels to explore were accessible and groundbreaking. A new kind of residency program, for example, in an underserved section of the Bronx, was started. This experiment was called the Tremont Crisis Center and was mandated to directly help people within the community in an effort to keep them out of the hospital. It was at Tremont that Beels, as Director of Curriculum, began to find a different way of teaching psychiatry-as history, as a story of social and biographical development outside of "science".

Eschewing his teachers reverence for scientific progress in psychiatry (a hang-over from the early American medicalization of Freudian theory and practice) he helped develop what he calls the third voice. This voice rendered problematic prior theoretical constructions. Critical questioning focused on the succession of theories in psychotherapy as the history of different ways of thinking. Even a credentialed historian was hired to add discipline to this effort.

The second half of "A Different Story" reviews many of the influential theories and practices current during those years. Whether it was his work with schizophrenics and their families, or, his obvious mastery of influential theoreticians like Bateson (double-bind communications), he turns away from single theme constructs. At there best, he argues, they are too simplistic and were often used as part of the blame game. (The schizophrenic hears voices because of the way in which his/her mother communicated with him when a child.) They stood in the way or by-passed the patient's stories. By contrast, his own work and teaching become thoroughly grounded in family interactions, rituals and experiences. To be sure, this approach is enhanced by tools like hypnosis and augmented by disciplines like anthropology that provided ways to interact with families.

Avoiding reductionism, Beels deftly intersperses case histories throughout; they are illustrative and moving. He credits individuals and groups with significant contributions while probably underplaying his own leadership role. He connects his work with his marriage and is not afraid to tell us in what ways he felt (or was) flawed. It is rare that a personal/professional memoir or history is so devoid of narcissism. It is rarer still to read a book that is as mature as its author.

Rating:
Summary: "A Different Story"
Review: A Different Story: The Rise of Narrative in Psychotherapy

"Analysis considered motives; the new therapy is about intentions. The inward search for insight, that was the hallmark of anlysis, has been replaced by an outward search for resources...The new therapy seeks multiple versions of different, often relative, truths and welcomes lines of inquiry."

"A Different Story" is an outstanding book! All the phrases on the jacket are applicable including "beautifully written", "exhilarating", "brave", and "enthralling". It is also a compelling account, as interesting to the general reader as to the professional therapist.

Dr. Beels's personal and professional story at once mirrors and integrates the contributions of Freudian narrative, sociology, social psychology, history, systems theory and anthropology to the overall development of narrative therapies. Tracing his own experience through prep school, medical school and a residency program in his chosen specialty, psychiatry, Beels relates his early disappointment with "analytic" treatment. His third patient experience, however, did not require "free association" and was conducted face-to-face, not from the "peculiar" lying on the couch position. Eventually, Dr. Mendelson confronted him with the similarity between sitting behind a patient on the couch (at the time his prospective career) and his comfortable childhood experience sitting in the corner happily drawing and writing as an only child. The powerful "sitting in the corner" image did not come from the Freudian or Kleinian canon. Instead, it was a "straight quotation from me and my recollections...it was my story."

Continuing his journey out of the corner, Dr. Beels gradually came to understand that even with the best of ideologies and practitioners "psychotherapy as an institution was stuck with its traditional form, the individual interview." You could, he realized, experience treatment at its best and not even let it sneak out the door of the therapist's office. The challenge and countermeasures of family therapy, or social psychiatry, was to explore family interactions in real time leading to the possibility of "changing their intentions toward one another in future interactions."

The alternatives available in the late sixties and early seventies for Beels to explore were accessible and groundbreaking. A new kind of residency program, for example, in an underserved section of the Bronx, was started. This experiment was called the Tremont Crisis Center and was mandated to directly help people within the community in an effort to keep them out of the hospital. It was at Tremont that Beels, as Director of Curriculum, began to find a different way of teaching psychiatry-as history, as a story of social and biographical development outside of "science".

Eschewing his teachers reverence for scientific progress in psychiatry (a hang-over from the early American medicalization of Freudian theory and practice) he helped develop what he calls the third voice. This voice rendered problematic prior theoretical constructions. Critical questioning focused on the succession of theories in psychotherapy as the history of different ways of thinking. Even a credentialed historian was hired to add discipline to this effort.

The second half of "A Different Story" reviews many of the influential theories and practices current during those years. Whether it was his work with schizophrenics and their families, or, his obvious mastery of influential theoreticians like Bateson (double-bind communications), he turns away from single theme constructs. At there best, he argues, they are too simplistic and were often used as part of the blame game. (The schizophrenic hears voices because of the way in which his/her mother communicated with him when a child.) They stood in the way or by-passed the patient's stories. By contrast, his own work and teaching become thoroughly grounded in family interactions, rituals and experiences. To be sure, this approach is enhanced by tools like hypnosis and augmented by disciplines like anthropology that provided ways to interact with families.

Avoiding reductionism, Beels deftly intersperses case histories throughout; they are illustrative and moving. He credits individuals and groups with significant contributions while probably underplaying his own leadership role. He connects his work with his marriage and is not afraid to tell us in what ways he felt (or was) flawed. It is rare that a personal/professional memoir or history is so devoid of narcissism. It is rarer still to read a book that is as mature as its author.