Beyond the therapeutic state (26-28 june 2014, Drammen, Norway)

Conference Report by Karine Van Tricht: 

The Taos conference took a promising start with the introductory speech by Sheila Mc Namee.  She summoned to all present to be pioneers being creative and innovative when trying to establish a movement where the connectivity with our clients gives us an answer to the psychiatric over medicalization and over diagnosing.

That same night we spoke about ‘WE versus THEM’ and ‘to have a dialogue with the enemy, without calling him the enemy’. Before I realized I was pulled towards a biased discussion where the positive stories of clients and families ended up in oblivion. Personally I fancy more the critical, but subtle polyphony as in the biological existentialism by Nassir Ghaemi (2013).

The next days my fellow researchers and the TAOS workshops gave me inspiration and energy. For instance, I was touched by the devotion and inspiration of Dr. Cornelia Oestereich, a German psychiatrist. During her workshop – “Promoting Change: Impacts of an Unusual Clinial Staff Training Program – SYMPA – Systemic Acute Psychiatry” – she described the development and implementation of a training program in systemic work for complete ward teams in psychiatric hospitals in Germany. In my opinion, her workshop deserved to be scheduled plenary, since it is an outstanding example of good practices that go beyond. 

Rolf Sundet defended during his workshop – “Collaboration and Dialogue: Conceptual Siblings as Helpers for Searching Therapists” -  the feedback orientated dialogic collaborative work. The so-called non-responders, or therapy-resistant clients, the 20 to 30% who miss the boat with evidence based therapies, they deserve customized care! Their therapist needs to be responsive – within the ethical boundaries – and tune to the personalized feedback which circulates within the dialogical space ( Sundet, 2012). Therefore the therapist can rely on the inner dialogue (Rober, 2010) and make use of the instruments for dialogical feedback. (Van Tricht, Sundet & Rober, 2014) This workshop emphasized the importance of qualitative research and therefore had a lot of potential.

Looking forward to the third international conference on Dialogical Practices from 23rd to 25th of September 2015 in Kristiansand (Norway), I’m hoping for a constructive, inspirational and polyphonous dialogue. To end with Kenneth Gergen’s epilogue: “We should be well prepared, as well as for the success of this new, promising, powerful movement as for the disagreement and disqualification that threatens it”.


References
Ghaemi, N. (2013). On Depression: Drugs, Diagnosis and Despair in the Modern World. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Rober, P. (2010). The therapist’s experiencing in family therapy practice. Journal of Family Therapy, 33, 1-23.
Sundet, R. (2012). Therapist perspectives on the use of feedback on process and outcome: Patient-focused research in practice. Canadian Psychology: 53(2), 122-130.
Van Tricht, K., Sundet, R. & Rober, P. (in progress). Feedback Inspired Dialogical Therapy: The Introduction of Dialogical Feedback Measurements.

Author
Karine van Tricht is a psychologist and marital and family therapist connected to Context (Institute for marital and family therapy) of UPC KU Leuven, campus Kortenberg, Leuvensesteenweg 517, 3070 Kortenberg, Belgium, karine.van.tricht@uc-kortenberg.be, www.uzleuven.be/context