Educational elements a) Content

There was a narrative flavour to responses. Ella finds it important and “useful to do studies of human development, understanding how people develop from children to adulthood”. For Olivia the essence of teaching-content would be “to listen without judgment and to always go back to the example of Christ in how he was with people.” Also, “accepting, listening to the people stories, listening to the meaning behind their stories in the sense of helping people to opening doors onto their story again.” Olivia equally finds it “important for them to understand the language of narrative therapy” through “using examples” and “a lot of case examples” because “it's all very well to learn the language but actually it’s the practice that they need.” Olivia argues: “There is no point in knowing definitions without actually knowing how to put them into practice.”

In the section that follows Ethan, formerly a teacher of narrative practices at a Christian college, shares examples of his experience. He is quoted at length to capture a key pedagogical point and as with all earlier extensive quotes, to honour the indigenous narrative wisdom of respondents.

Ethan advocates teaching, initially, “the postmodern thing … in the very beginning” together with general systems theory as a worldview and with philosophy and philosophical issues in terms of language. Ethan reports using “very much” social constructionism as the philosophical framework which he describes “as being the human world, which actually we

construct, … nested within the cosmos which is God's world which he constructed.” He discusses two different streams within postmodernism that are based upon our philosophy and interpretation of language.

You are familiar with Wittgenstein’s language games? … one whole school of epistemology that actually regards language as a closed system reflected in “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” [where] he talked about [how] we cannot access extra linguistic knowledge … a fundamental problem [for] actually being able to confirm anything that we know. We are locked into our own subjectively, linguistically constructed world. That presumes that language is a closed system, ok? When you look at the nature of Saussurean linguistics and also Wittgenstein’s philosophical investigations, where he talks about the language game, [it] is where language is actually a component in a social act. Which means it is integrated and that language very much operates as an open system that interacts with, and is supported by, a whole host of other processes in terms of gestures, ostentatious references. And the nature of language as a component in the language game presupposes that language is actually an open system. Which means that we are able with confidence to engage with the cosmos.

Wittgenstein in ‘Uncertainty’ says how we test reality is not through objective observations, it’s actually through interaction with the world, and that when our act actually gets the outcome that we expect, that confirms that we are reading the world accurately. So what [he] is saying is that we get certainty through the heuristic27 _{of interaction which is a different basis for reality testing}

than the Cartesian objective observer basis. Once you accept the presumption that language is an open system, then that settles the postmodern radical subjectivism issue. Because it means that you have confidence in the way that you engage with the world. So you say, ok, I use language as a means of actively engaging with God’s world, but God also in a sense languages himself with me. So there is an interaction with God, where revelation is God actually languaging himself into our linguistic world and revealing himself linguistically. So again, you see, there is an integration which can happen on a philosophical level. So, with marriage and family therapy students, if you lay the philosophical groundwork first, I’d say, postmodern philosophy is more Christianity-friendly than modernism is.28

The theological dimension needs to be engaged. All this can be unpacked, says Ethan, “on a theological basis” where “if God is active and engages with his cosmos but is distinct from it, it means that the cosmos is an open system.” However, following general systems theory, “the cosmos is an open system, … its meaning and its nature is based on its interaction with God.”

27 _{Using experience to learn and improve is basic to sound reflective practice.} 28 _{See also Isabella.}

Ethan believes this leads us back to “Karl Rahner’s emphasis that creation was an act of grace and therefore the existence of the cosmos actually presumes the grace of God” which is again “that open systems thing” of the cosmos, of existence that points beyond itself.

We are existing by the grace of God, who upholds the cosmos and gives it its own autonomy and so the grace of God interacts with the cosmos and the grace of God also interacts with us and invades our world. Which means we can live in a socially constructed subjective world, without threatening our confidence in knowing God or his truth, because actually there is this intersubjective engagement between God and us and that theological truth. It's not objective truth, its intersubjective truth.

Therefore in terms of Ethan’s teaching experience he unfolded a philosophically integrated framework first to introduce students to postmodern perspectives. His idea of Christianity as “a grand narrative really is very helpful there because it neatly does the anchoring.” Secondly, Ethan would introduce “the specifics of the theory, in and of itself, then how you practically do the intervention” so that students “get a feel from all those three levels.”

However Ethan believes this challenges students with “a very unsettling paradigm shift,” because we have normalised the “notion of revealed truth being objective truth and biblical truth being objective truth and therefore … non-negotiable and meaning is non-negotiable.” Then we shift away from that “to the notion that actually truth is provisional and is subject to renegotiation, and that there are multiple perspectives that all might be valid and yet different.” Ethan confirms that narrative therapy is very openly postmodern, along with solution-focused therapy, systemic and strategic therapies because they all "involve renegotiation of meaning and multi perspectives."

Therefore a “philosophical worldview groundwork first and particularly the general systems view of the world,” provides the “foundational basis” for integration with personal theology. The student’s theology will be challenged but not their faith, if the teacher is correct in believing that stretching students theologically “at the same time affirms the faith … You create a theological crisis, but you don't create a faith crisis.”29 _{This perspective “opens up its}

possibilities” for a “much more solid, robust theology … a lot more bullet proof.” Isabella

thinks that a grounded “understanding of … the philosophical basis of narrative therapy is very important” as students “think through the theology of that … and challenge their thinking around humanism or modernism [realising] that every approach to counselling has its philosophical basis.” No philosophy will be an “exact fit” and “any one and all of them have their challenges to Christianity.” Isabella believes most narrative ways must think through the specific challenges of postmodernism or post-structuralism including “scepticism toward metanarratives, considering that we hold to it as Christians.” For Isabella, narrative is a way of being. The narrative therapists who Isabella highly esteems “use only narrative therapy” and therefore she thinks that “it’s very difficult to play with other approaches at the same time.”

Jessica advocates studying “anthropology and sociology” because “that opens the doors for questions” that enable engagement with “different world views, and help us to hold our world view without feeling threatened, defensive, narrow and closed off.” Lucy’s choice of core elements for narrative therapy education was: “The whole package,” but particularly “that the problem is the problem” because “modern psychology has definitely infiltrated the way in which Christians interpret different aspects of self, an authentic self, and what it means to be a Christian.” Sometimes you have to

read out the culture to understand the faith, and if you come from that culture sometimes you’re unsure of whether it’s your culture speaking or whether it’s the faith, because they have been so intertwined for so long. And I think, as modern psychology has done the same with some Christian counselling or just understandings of Scripture, that sometimes that would be a really interesting part to teach.

For Lucy people are “the experts of their own lives” and for that reason “the positioning and working with those power dynamics is the key” that it makes her “very conscious of that” in her own practice. If “presenting to Christian counsellors” Lucy “would probably use examples of the Biblical story.” As educational core elements, Lucas mentioned externalising practices and, as for Lucy, that the “problem is the problem not the person.” Lucas thinks “Christians should live their lives [and] not judge the person upon behaviour we don’t necessarily agree with” and be interested in “the person’s core, who they are, they are a person of God.” Lucas’ experience affirms re-authoring conversations, re-membering conversations and outsider witness practice as “all really honest, truthful ways of working” and therefore “it can fit quite nicely into a Christian context.” He believes that narrative provides

skills and knowledge to allow us to better understand… If we start from … the behaviour it’s not who they are. I think that implies hope and that we want to understand the person for who they are. So for people who want to learn about narrative that’s where I’d start. … The effects questions can be quite powerful because we are not assuming that’s good or bad. … That is where I think we start really to get into that re-authoring, that negative view that we often have about ourselves. I said ourselves because we all experience sadness, the labelling. But I guess it depends on the context. If there are Christian counsellors I guess that will be something that I will really be homing in on. … Narrative therapy is another frame of thinking and I think that goes back to the philosophical view as well as ethically how you’d like to approach working with the person.

b) Principles

Chloe emphasises the principle of individuality is significant for her in that “God created us unique, with skills and gifts and the capacity for great love.” Therefore training is about “teaching into personal processes and communication skills … away from case conceptualization, diagnosis assessment stuff where we're boxing [people].” The approach would be more “let's have a look” but “let's not look at the box.” For her “maybe the labels can be useful to an extent, usually about treatment, research, medication or whatever,” but any knowledge about the person should be separated from “an individual” and “so the training is how do we listen deeply, how do we observe well, how do we understand and help this person to make meaning and have a meaningful life and have more purpose in their life.” She recommends teaching “about how we move away from the labels; how do we deal with this, how do we work with an individual and in a way that honours them and respects them?”

As soon as we assume we have more knowledge than the person about them I think we are in trouble. We will have certain knowledge, or certain knowledge about a particular illness maybe, mental illness or whatever, but to assume then that this person's gonna fit that box is actually doing them a great disservice.

Chloe further emphasised the importance of the therapeutic relationship in addition to skills. I had one guy who saw a psychiatrist for 25 years and he asked me how old I

was because he thought maybe I can see him for the next 25 … I asked him: What was it about your psychiatrist that you learned? He said: ‘He respected me. He’d take my coat when it was cold and help me get it off, my jacket, and hang it up before we came in.’ Now this is a psychiatrist who presumably did a

whole lot of other work but what this guy remembers is his attitude towards him. … Now, that kind of attitude could have been shown from a pastoral care worker, counsellor, people trained or not trained, to a psychiatrist who’s had … many external reviews to get where he’s at.

Charlotte advocates for teaching Christian counsellors to “get more tools in their toolbox.” She has chosen “to embrace a much wider set of circumstances, cultural and broader spectrum, in order to study, learn and understand in these other areas” that in return have “increased and expanded [her] Christian understanding.” “It’s never diminished it,” said Charlotte, but “the opposite,” and without becoming conflicted but “enlarged.” Charlotte would therefore recommend exploring “what it is to be spiritual … because [having] faith doesn’t mean you place judgement upon others” and diminish them. It may become “a good thing if they are ready.” Charlotte reports being “very comfortable living in the questions but not everybody wants to do that and that can be quite terrifying.” It is hard to move from

a place where you thought you have all the answers to realise you know nothing, and the more you get to know the more you realise: Oh no! Goodness, I know nothing! Well I know very little. Personality is coming to that too. People who must be right whether it’s a counsellor or a client then there can be quite a resistance to actually opening up that box to other possibilities.

Jack believed “just teaching narrative from the beginning would be better,” but maybe also a student has to “go through the tough yards of getting the questions” and then they’ll find narrative. He noted that “most of the senior narrative therapists would have begun as psychologists or social workers, and they began with their own frameworks” so it is difficult to “find one who began with narrative.” When “they were young there was no narrative” so they become “inventors of it.” Oliver said that teaching, counselling and psychotherapy “is a journey made together,” adding that there is

no other language than English to understand the true meaning of understanding. In English we say, under-stand. For you to understand you have to place yourself underneath. You have to take yourself out of your own frame

Chloe’s example about respect

I remember one guy stood up at a conference. There'd been a big debate about what therapy was or wasn't and this guy, who's an existential therapist (it fits with narrative therapy), got up and said: ‘After all we are just companions in the search, we must remember we are companions in the search for meaning.’ And then he sat down again. Everybody else had been in all these arguments about it and all these other things. And that's all he said and he sat down again. And that's the bit I remember. It was just lovely.

of reference and place yourself underneath. Under-stand. So Christian counsellors, for them to do a good work, they need to under-stand. For them to under-stand, they need to stay underneath, they need to take themselves out of their own rigid rules, their own views of the world which in most cases are limited. And try to under-stand the person’s point of view, even before they dare to criticise or challenge, they need to understand.

He suggests that “perhaps the first thing [counsellors] learn is not to learn technique but to learn how to sit with their own uncertainty” which takes time. His ideal training would begin with “teacher and the student, one on one” as that will ensure “that teaching happens with a greater degree of accuracy.” Only after that “students can go out and practice with each other or with another person.” Oliver believes that “a teacher should be a teacher in every aspect of learning” as well as that “there is no such a thing as rules which can be applied to everyone.”

Lucas enjoyed his Dulwich narrative training, where narrative shaped “the enthusiasm” of his faith. He seeks to be “ethically transparent” appreciating the “respect, the fairness” of narrative approaches, with its “respect that [others] have knowledge and their own experiences that we don’t.” He also focuses on teaching the “micro-skills of counselling” that according to his experience have been reinforced from his narrative training. Lucas reports also using the “white board,”30 _{“using the language of the person, not my colonising thoughts”}

and “being de-centred in language.”

Educational elements Content

 Human development (Ella)

 Understanding the language of a narrative therapy (Olivia)  Examples and case studies (Olivia)

 Postmodernism (Ethan, Isabella)  General systems theory (Ethan)  Philosophy of language (Ethan)  Social constructionism (Ethan)

 Integration on three levels: Philosophical, theological, practical intervention (Ethan)  Philosophical basis of narrative therapy and narrative practices (Isabella, Lucy, Lucas)  Humanism (Isabella)

 Modernism (Isabella)

 Theological integration (Isabella)  Post-structuralism (Isabella)

 Anthropology (Jessica)  Sociology (Jessica)

 Aspects of inculturation and scientification in Christianity (Lucy)  Examples of Biblical stories (Lucy)

Principles

 Teaching adapted to student’s individual needs (Chloe)

 Teaching respect, counsellors as “companions in the search for meaning,” avoiding labels (Chloe)  Importance of the therapeutic relationship (Chloe)

 Empowering the other (Mia)

 Embrace diversity in teaching and learning (Charlotte)

 Choice of teaching narrative ideas in the curriculum: at the beginning of the course or at its historically sequential place within other therapeutic knowledge (Jack)

 Listening without judgment, accepting and being interested in the story; listening to the meaning behind the stories; going back to the example of Christ; helping people to open the doors of their stories (Olivia)  Under-stand – place the counsellor underneath the person (Oliver)

 Both teaching and counselling: a journey made together (Oliver)  Counsellors: learn how to sit with one’s own uncertainty (Oliver)  Start education with one-on-one learning with a teacher (Oliver)  No rule applies to everyone (Oliver)

 Bring together faith enthusiasm and narrative in training (Lucas)

 Ethical transparency, respect, fairness, teaching micro-skills of counselling, de-centred in language (Lucas) Table I8. Educational elements