Collaboration and politics: Can a therapist work coherently while being informed by both collaborative-dialogic and narrative practices?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The question we address in this article comes from the tension that frequently arises from the contrast between a collaborative and a political stance in therapy: Can a therapist work coherently while being informed by both collaborative-dialogic and narrative practices? We return to the concepts of collaboration and politics, as informed by each of these perspectives, and propose to understand them as being doubly intertwined. This is done by means of conceptualising collaboration as a political stance and politics as collaborative action. From the standpoint of a social constructionist epistemology for therapy, we propose that collaboration and politics be seen as sensitizing concepts, which may be used as conversational options that may create different effects, depending on the relational context of therapy. A clinical case of individual therapy is presented as an example of what these concepts might look like in actual practice.