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Dialogical Practice in Couple and Family Therapy

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Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy
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In recent years interest the concept of dialogue has bloomed in the family therapy field (e.g., Seikkula and Olson 2003; Rober 2005b). Guilfoyle (2003) even identifies a distinct kind of family therapy that he calls dialogical therapy. This approach grew out of the collaborative postmodern family therapy (e.g., Anderson 1997) and social constructionist thinking (e.g., Gergen 1999), and came to bloom mostly in Europe where the postmodernist and social constructionist ideas developed further through revolutionary new practices in the mental health field (e.g., Andersen 1987; Seikkula et al. 1995), as well as through Russian/European philosophical inspirations. Especially, the influence of the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin brought about a new and enriching perspective in the field that especially in Europe became particularly influential.

Dialogue

A lot of philosophers have written about dialogue. Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological critique of dualism, for instance, positions...

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Rober, P. (2018). Dialogical Practice in Couple and Family Therapy. In: Lebow, J., Chambers, A., Breunlin, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_821-1

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