Welcome to the 2012 Editions

Mark McKergow , Kirsten Dierolf , Anton Stellamans & Carey Glass

Volume 4.1 - May 2012

SFCT hosted a very successful and inspiring trainers conference in October 2011. There were around 70 participants from 15 countries and 4 continents. We are very happy that most of the institutes which offer trainings for SF in organisations were represented and contributed to our discus sions. This issue of InterAction focuses on the results of the trainers’ conference and aims to continue the discussion on these emerging topics.

The opening plenary raised an important issue: how do we help people understand (and therefore do) SF practice? Under the title ‘showing and telling’, a panel of experienced SF trainers discussed the range of approaches from ‘showing’ modes of teaching (practice exercises, tapes of sessions, cases) to ‘telling’ modes (theory, models, cognitive frame works, heuristics, even metaphors) and ways of combining these modes. There were quite different approaches to the topic, from advertising the value of ‘telling of theory / back ground’ to a curious question as to whether such a thing even exists. You will find the various approaches reflected in the short papers on training in this issue.

There are many important issues which link to the question of how or whether we ‘tell’ people and invite them to work cognitively on what it is that they are learning in an SF prac titioners’ or coaching course:

Foremost, the issue links to SF’s credibility: if people ask what SF is, what do we say? In some ways it would make life a lot easier if it was like Appreciative Inquiry, where there is a widely-known ‘4D model’ or NLP, whose practitioners can refer to a huge body of theoretical and practical literature. We have yet to explore more deeply how we can talk about what it is that we do and why we do what we do in a way that is consistent with our approach. In SF we know that “a meaning of a word is defined by its use” – therefore establishing a founding theory once and for all would not be the answer.

SF is a subtle and skilful practice, so a definition or theory is very hard to come by without losing this essential part of SF. On the other hand, if we present SF as a vague, ephemeral, ungraspable affair – by refusing to answer the question, then we risk underselling ourselves to the rest of the world. We say we are interested in what works – and yet, if asked why it works, we have no coherent answer. This looks, to the educated outsider, like snake oil.

There is a dilemma here, which is to be taken very seriously. To define (or even attempt to define) the field too closely would not reflect the subtle art of the practitioner. Not to define it, or simply to point to the practice while refusing to acknowledge a defining frame, is to deny the knowledge and experience of those attempting to understand us. It’s one thing to say ‘I don’t know…’ to a client. It’s quite another thing to say it to a colleague who is trying to understand what we do. The former is a considered position devised for good reason. The latter is a slap in the face – even if it is a coherent position, it’s scarcely an inviting one.

Steve de Shazer used to say that the only way to learn SF therapy was to watch and do hundreds of SF therapy sessions. That may be how HE learned it, but we can surely do better from here. As Ken Gergen pointed out in his EBTA plenary last year, “Open up to other voices or you will be digging your own grave”. We think SF has something special and different to offer – so we need to find a way to show that to others in a more engaging way than “I don’t know…”.

SFCT is committed to developing frameworks to help a wider audience connect with SF ideas and practices. Members are experimenting with practical frameworks like tools and models, as well as more theoretical frameworks to connect with modern Wittgensteinian thinking and enactive/embodied philosophy. We must take care not to take any of these as completely definitive – that would be a step too far. However, for every practitioner who has grappled with SF enough to use it wisely, we fear there may be tens or hundreds who have stumbled across the ideas, dallied briefly with them and then moved on for the lack of some supportive framework, paradigm or connections.

This issue also features another first – a discussion on the paper from the last issue about the differences between working with organisations and individuals by Christine Kuch and Susanne Burgstaller. We also have the usual range of excellent cases, an interview with SF research gatherer Alasdair Macdonald, and reviews of recent research publica- tions, full member reviews from Germany, Finland and the UK, and books. Our classic paper this time is Steve de Shazer’s 1974 work ‘On getting unstuck’ – de Shazer’s first published work. It’s fascinating to read it again all these years later and see similarities and differences from his later writings.

Volume 1.2 August 2012

One topic of debate currently exercising the SF world is the question of how communities of SF practice in organisations, education, therapy and social work are best organised. You might also ask the equally valid question whether SF – a practice and philosophy that values diversity and emergence – should be organised at all.

Current situation of organisations representing SF practice

There are many different forms of organisation: for example, the SOLworld community (which has no membership, no bank account, no governance structure apart from the steering committee which is open to all interested), the SFCT (offi- cially constituted as a non-profit organisation with explicit governance, membership, bank account and publicly available financial statements), EBTA and SFBTA (which are techni- cally only their Boards) which support annual conferences and offer research grants, local associations like UKASFP and business alliances like IASTI.

Important questions

Here are a few hopefully useful questions that we have been asking ourselves: how should we move forward now that the leadership given so naturally by Steve and Insoo has gone? What will enable useful progress? How will we harvest and support the value of the diversity that exists in the different communities of practice? Of course, SFCT cannot and would not wish to answer these alone and develop a future perfect or miracle picture by ourselves for the whole community of SF practice in organisations, therapy, education and social work – but talking together could make that happen. However, we did put our heads together and came up with some ideas around what could be usefully done with the energy and enthusi- asm that is around.

SF research library

Currently there is no repository of available knowledge on SF to make available SF writings, foundational literature for researchers and to act as an archive of writings, audio or video material. Alasdair McDonald collects relevant papers and studies and summarises them on his website, SFBTA provides access to Steve and Insoo’s commercial videos and Kirsten Dierolf has made available a full bibliography of their writings. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if any doctoral student or researcher had one place to turn to for access to SF material? Research is one of the main ways in which an approach can move from the stage of “a rumour” to full credibility as a philosophically and empirically well-founded (and organised) practice. A “repository” does not necessarily mean that there is a need for one archive with gate-keepers, with the danger of it burning down or losing all its servers and thereby its material. A first step could be a collection of what exists, some hub / database / library catalogue that would list where you can go to access relevant literature, CDs and DVDs around SF practice.

Legal representation with regards to trademarking of SF There seems to be a common understanding and acceptance of the idea that the words “Solution Focus” or “Solution Oriented” and the tools of our trade like the miracle question or scaling belong to no one person or organisation. However, there are cases in which people attempt to trademark these words for their own businesses – we are currently aware of three such cases. SFCT has contacted some of them, phoned the relevant authorities to determine the legitimacy of such claims and a peaceful resolution has been found or is being developed. At the moment we can do this because we know lawyers who are willing to donate their time and professional expertise pro bono and we haven’t yet had to take anyone to court to prevent them from trademarking words that we think belong to everybody. Having an overall organisation with the ability to fund this could be helpful should this issue arise. Also, if there were an official organisation of “all things SF” it would be much harder for anyone to claim that they came up with the idea and much easier for the trademark registration authorities to reject any such claims.

A legitimate contact for other organisations

The fact that SFCT is a democratic officially constituted organisation has enabled us to establish valuable contacts with people in similar and different fields. We have been able to contact and exchange ideas with people at universities, in philosophy, in complexity research etc. Also other approaches take us more seriously and InterAction continues to provoke interest from other fields. SFCT acts as one contact point for SF practice in organisations – we can imagine that a similar structure would be useful for many other fields as well. For example, currently when legislators want information about the validity and evidence base of SF therapy, there is no real place to turn to. We imagine that having an organisation to represent SF therapists internationally could be very helpful and facilitate the accreditation of SF therapy in many countries. It could collect experience from countries in which SF is an accredited approach, make argumentation accessible to interested law-makers, collect funds for international advocacy etc.

A platform for exchange for SF practitioners There are currently many platforms for exchange for SF practitioners: the SOLUTIONS-L listserve, the SOLworld ning-group, the SFCT Facebook and Linkedin groups, the SFT-list, the EBTA ning group, local lists like neloko in Germany, SF in Canada Linkedin group, UKASFP discus- sion group, private discussion groups like Coert Vissser’s

Linked-in group and IASTI, which is apparently planning a platform for its members’ graduates. Having one central place for exchange for SF practitioners in all applications or one place per application that could cross-reference would be a fantastic resource for all. It would also be helpful if whoever is thinking of developing another plat- form thought about whether it offers something new and usefully different, something that does not exist already in other places. Of course, there will always be useful addi- tions and new ideas and we welcome these!

Moving forward

There are many ways in which we could start to move forward on these possibly useful ideas. What will be crucial is keeping a balance between retaining what works and doing differently what does not work. Of course, what we currently have “works” at some level, and we have to avoid the trap of repairing what isn’t broken. However, when we look at the potential that SF practice has for making the world a better place and the desire for more recognition of many SF practi- tioners, improvement is possible. It might not be “broken” – but neither, for example, is the situation of our coaching clients. Their lives are working well AND they could be better and we help them do it.

Something like an international federation of officially constituted SF communities of practice could be one way in which what is working in the different organisations is retained while the potential to move forward toward the above-mentioned goals is realised. Getting together and developing further what “could be better” – maybe around the above mentioned parameters: official legal representa- tion, support of research, repository of information, contact point for accreditation officials, etc. would be one possible step. SFCT is willing to support and collaborate with all 8 InterAction VOLUME 4 NUMBER 2 organisations which want to further SF practice in any field and we would love to be able to discuss possible ways of moving this forward.