Carl Whitaker
In the article The Hindrance of Theory in Clinical Work, Carl Whitaker writes, " I have a theory that theories are destructive." He goes on to explain that theory has a tendency to bring about a professional obectivity that leds to a loss of caring. Whitaker argued that we should give up theories and just live. Instead of talking about talking or thinking about thinking, we should allow ourselves to simply talk and think.
"Part of the problem is the theoretical delusion that science is curative--that enough knowledge, enough information, the right kind of facts will bring about the resolution of life's doubts, the resolution of all distress."
Whitaker's approach to therapy, which is termed experiential/symbolic family therapy, is unique. I dare say that Whitaker would encourage us all to develop a style of therapy that is also uniquely ours, but there is wisedom that we can take from this elder of Family Therapy. He utlized the natural anxiety and the competing forces of connectedness and seperateness to build a context for therapy For Whitaker, the process family psychotherapy should use a deliberate effort to increase anxiety, instead of trying to reduce it. "The therapy team establishes a pattern of caringness, so the family dares to be more anxious instead of escaping into protective, defensive patterns. The therapist models, with some member of the family, an I-thou relationship characterized by caring and flexibility, with the aim of pressuring the family into tolerating more anxiety."
Whitaker saw the intial phase of family therapy as a struggle to see whether the family can depend upon this foriegn person to maintain their stability while they reorganzie their system. Once the therapist has established himself there should be a reversal of roles to force the family to establish its own systematic organizational way of living. To Whikater, "This reversal of roles, which may look like paradoxical intention, is really an active parenting with a reverence for the identity of the individual and the unique identitiy of the this family." Once this reversal takes place and the family is clear that the therapist does know what's best for them (that only they can decide that), then the therapist is then able to join the family as the consultant. As a consultant the therapist can move into and out of the family, modeling health relationship. The modeling may be done using a purely techinical style.
Through this process of modeling the therapists demythologizes himself to the family by modeling his own unpredictability. "This modeling takes the form of uniting with the family at one moment, and seperating from them at another moment. His caring for them is clear both when he's joined and when he's separated; but he also exposes the fact that he cares more for himself than he does for them." Whitaker would share his own slivers of pathology (which we all have), his own remnants of undisciplined and unintegrated self, or stories from his own family of origin. These bits of whitaker would add a distincted flare to therapy and would be aimed at disrupting all the ingrained patterns of the family.
"Good therapy must include the therapist's physiological, psychosomatic, psychotic, and endocrined reactions to a deeply personal interaction system." For Whitaker the substitute for theory is the accumulated and organized residue of experience, plus the freedom to allow the relationship to happen, and to be who you are with authenticity.
"Part of the problem is the theoretical delusion that science is curative--that enough knowledge, enough information, the right kind of facts will bring about the resolution of life's doubts, the resolution of all distress."
Whitaker's approach to therapy, which is termed experiential/symbolic family therapy, is unique. I dare say that Whitaker would encourage us all to develop a style of therapy that is also uniquely ours, but there is wisedom that we can take from this elder of Family Therapy. He utlized the natural anxiety and the competing forces of connectedness and seperateness to build a context for therapy For Whitaker, the process family psychotherapy should use a deliberate effort to increase anxiety, instead of trying to reduce it. "The therapy team establishes a pattern of caringness, so the family dares to be more anxious instead of escaping into protective, defensive patterns. The therapist models, with some member of the family, an I-thou relationship characterized by caring and flexibility, with the aim of pressuring the family into tolerating more anxiety."
Whitaker saw the intial phase of family therapy as a struggle to see whether the family can depend upon this foriegn person to maintain their stability while they reorganzie their system. Once the therapist has established himself there should be a reversal of roles to force the family to establish its own systematic organizational way of living. To Whikater, "This reversal of roles, which may look like paradoxical intention, is really an active parenting with a reverence for the identity of the individual and the unique identitiy of the this family." Once this reversal takes place and the family is clear that the therapist does know what's best for them (that only they can decide that), then the therapist is then able to join the family as the consultant. As a consultant the therapist can move into and out of the family, modeling health relationship. The modeling may be done using a purely techinical style.
Through this process of modeling the therapists demythologizes himself to the family by modeling his own unpredictability. "This modeling takes the form of uniting with the family at one moment, and seperating from them at another moment. His caring for them is clear both when he's joined and when he's separated; but he also exposes the fact that he cares more for himself than he does for them." Whitaker would share his own slivers of pathology (which we all have), his own remnants of undisciplined and unintegrated self, or stories from his own family of origin. These bits of whitaker would add a distincted flare to therapy and would be aimed at disrupting all the ingrained patterns of the family.
"Good therapy must include the therapist's physiological, psychosomatic, psychotic, and endocrined reactions to a deeply personal interaction system." For Whitaker the substitute for theory is the accumulated and organized residue of experience, plus the freedom to allow the relationship to happen, and to be who you are with authenticity.
