Meeting each other:


Improvisation and a generous spirit Jim Wilson


I open the waiting room door and I see a young girl with her mother beside her. When I greet them the mother’s eyes look


tired; she has an anxious expression on her face. The girl keeps her head down and only glances up at me. The room is empty apart from the three of us. I am towering above these two slight fi gures. I am always, to a degree, nervous before I meet with clients; I usually take a deep breath – a “here we go“ moment of


anticipation before saying hello. Nothing can be pre-planned. Who should I greet fi rst, the anxious mother, the eyes-down child, the two together? Do I off er my hand in greeting? To echo Minuchin et al. (2014), joining with clients is “a journey that starts in uncertainty“ (p. 3). I also ask myself, “What do


the mother and daughter see when I enter the room? What connections do they make? What impressions do they form from past experiences of meeting a stranger for the fi rst time – a man, another therapist?


Although we need approaches, concepts


and methods to help us think about what we are doing and why, our practice is a human endeavour. Our at empt at making useful connections with our clients is fraught with challenges and uncertainties requiring an at itude that values the improvisational in conversation, and a spirit of generosity woven through the various approaches that shape and legitimise practice. I propose here that improvisation, imbued with a spirit of generosity, is crucial in any purposeful meeting with families in therapy. Without this, we become people-processors and manualised practitioners.


Improvisation and a generous spirit: Some orienting features Each meeting is unique. If I am


preoccupied with mat ers that cloud the moment of meeting, I will not be tuned into the mood or the “atmospheric” of the encounter. T e family therapist meets with each individual present and, at the same time, tries to sense the mood and tone of the group. T e therapist listens to each participant and tries to notice how each listens to another. T e joining process is a group phenomenon; it is the “we and us” in relationship with one another that constitutes the therapeutic milieu. When a musician improvises, she responds to the “invitations” of the other musicians who at one time are supporting the others, at another, taking the lead. T is call and response between musicians is not dictated by the musical score but relies instead on an at itude of exploration and mutual responsivity. Of course,


Context 169, June 2020


experienced musicians have honed their style, know their scales, the keys and so on and use these skills to contribute to the improvisation on the spur of the moment. T e diff erence between an


improvisational musician and the family therapist lies in the diff erence between artistic entertainment for its own sake (a worthy endeavour) and the therapist’s responsibility to ensure a duty of care. Our practice is embedded in ethical values of respect and dignity towards the ones we meet, coupled with a critical awareness of the political contexts that profoundly aff ect our lives and those of the people we meet (Wilson, 2017). T e duty of care also includes a healthy criticism of ideas about being morally superior to those we see in our practice. An orientation towards the people I meet is embedded in systemic humanist values emphasising collaborative, co-creative practices wherever possible (see note at the end of this article). “It is in listening to the student that I


learn to speak with him or her” (Freire, 1998, p. 106). Paulo Freire’s learning from listening to


the student is an improvisational position; one that places responsivity ahead of too much initiative from the teacher. Improvisational dialogue is concerned with “inventing responses without well thought-out plans and without a guarantee of outcomes, discovering the future that their actions creates as it unfolds” (Barret , 2010, p. 153). We can categorise two main forms of dialogue as either analogic or dialectic defi ned here: “Dialectic – imagining moves interaction forward by negation,


questioning, challenging or undercut ing previous ut erances focusing on the gulf that separates actual and ideal . Analogic – imagining, on the other


hand, helps to build an unfolding narrative by building upon prior gestures - a metaphorical enactment that involves searches for linkages, seeing common pat erns within diversity, a search for similarities among diff erences with the assumption of an emerging harmonic wholeness” (Barret , 2010, p. 155). Analogic imagining is more conducive


to improvisational creativity and is a familiar and comfortable mode for the collaborative therapist. However, at times, a counterpoint style of interaction is more useful in a session. T e key point here is judging when a challenge or controversial question will be found worthy of at ention. T is is an improvisational move based on one’s sense of what the context calls for. I notice the girl is holding a small soſt toy


in her hands taken f om the toy box in the waiting room. I know f om the notes that she is 14 but she looks much younger. She is hunched and hidden by a bulky winter jacket (it’s only September and mild outside) so it is diffi cult to see what she looks like behind her camoufl age. T e hands stroke the soſt toy; it’s a tortoise.


I say hello and smile. It now feels more appropriate to speak slowly and quietly but not the quiet of the funeral parlour – more a muted tone towards unacknowledged diffi culties as yet unexpressed. We proceed to the therapy suite and both mother and daughter sit in silence. T ey seem fearful of animation except for the girl holding the tortoise I had asked her to bring with her into the room.


5


Meeting each other: Improvisation and a generous spirit


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