Avoiding Colonizer Positions in the Therapy Room: Some Ideas About the Challenges of Dealing with the Dialectic of Misery and Resources in Families

Abstract

Some authors have argued that certain acts of family therapists-despite their best intentions-may represent a form of colonizing the family. When acting as a colonizer, a therapist is understood as becoming overly responsible for the family and focusing too strongly on change. In so doing, the therapist disrespects the family's pace, and neglects their own resources for change. This paper aims to highlight the need for therapists to be hypersensitive both to the resources of families entering therapy as well as to the impact of prevailing ideologies on their own positioning in the session. The kind of sensitivity advocated here is dialectical in the sense that every family is understood as having potentials promoting dynamism, happiness, and well-being as well as potentials contributing to stagnation, unhappiness, and misery. In this article, using illustrations from clinical practice, we present some ideas for resisting the tendency by the therapist to assume a colonizing position as a professional solver of problems for families. Our main aim here is to redirect the therapist toward connecting with the family's suffering, as well as with the resource repertoire it has developed for navigating and negotiating its way through life.

Ambiguity as a Strategy for Negotiating Identity

“…This entails being open to her feelings and values. Professional helpers must learn to tolerate discomfort and to set their own feelings and values aside to create a safe and secure space for the stories of those seeking their help (Danylchuk, 2015;Reichelt & Rønnestad, 1999;Rober & Seltzer, 2010).…”

In the Wake of Violence: Enacting and Witnessing Hope Among People

“…In continually striving to work in ways that are ethical and sustaining, we drew on the practice of reflexivity (Davies et al., ; Hawes, ; Paré et al., ) to investigate how the therapeutic practices we employed positioned Rona and us as professionals. We wanted to avoid “colonizer positions” (Rober & Seltzer, , p. 123). A noncolonizing practice—that is, a practice that does not import ideologies of any kind and impose them on others—is critical within the context of South Africa's sociopolitical history as well as with the current climate of violence within families and communities.…”

“…For example, when Elmarie mentioned the possibility of a note from Rona as a taking‐it‐back practice, her primary intention was to widen a community of acknowledgement and care for Thérèse and Rona. However, the question arises whether this suggestion could be seen as a colonizing practice, a practice by which Elmarie became “overly responsible … focusing too strongly on change” (Rober & Seltzer, , p. 123), closing down possibilities for Rona's agency and not making visible the shaping power of a dominant discourse on Rona's life. Was Rona invited to acknowledge the “rescuing power” of a hierarchical institution too soon?…”

Six Degrees of Influence: A Tool for Supervision

“…Desperate to place client narratives and resources at the heart of their work, they participate in acts of supervision which subjugate their own narratives and resources. The difficulty in this is that therapy is colonized (Rober & Seltzer, 2010) by ideas that the therapist does not personally utilize in managing their own dilemmas. As such it can appear like a cruel game of offering vital clues that only make the game harder, like playing Monopoly with the instructions for Cluedo.…”