revolution

1. Welcome to the revolution congress Peter Rober IFSW KU Leuven Open network for dialogical practices

2. Worries and criticism about the system • Diagnostic labeling • Too much medication • Emphasis on the brain • …. Open network for dialogical practices

3. Revolution - hesitations Look at history… which revolutions can be considered successes? We want change, But… • The system we have may actually be the best there is and the best there has ever been… • Where do we want to go? Open network for dialogical practices

4. Utopia • Book of Thomas More (1516) • Utopia = an ideal society • Attempts to describe utopias often turn out to be descriptions of dystopias • How can we conceive of the ideal society? Open network for dialogical practices

5. Clip Chomsky-Foucault Open network for dialogical practices

6. Power and resistance (Foucault) • Resist/challenge • Research/try to understand • But don’t expect to find a place outside of the discourse – there is no liberation: Resistance does not lead to liberation, but rather to new power relationships, that must be resisted with practices of freedom. Open network for dialogical practices

7. Oppression by society Society as oppressive Client

8. Oppression by society Therapy-as-liberation view (e.g. narrative therapy) Therapy Client Therapist is liberated (speaks from a position outside of societal discourse) Therapy as liberating or at least as non oppressive

9. Client Outer dialogue The person and the constitutive society Society as constitutive through privileging and suppressing Social discourse Chaos, incoherence, madness, fragmentation, … …nothing… Inner dialogue

10. Therapy Therapist as dialogical partner Client Responsive interaction Outer dialogue reflection Dialogical therapy reflection reflection reflection Society as constitutive through privileging and suppressing Society as constitutive through privileging and suppressing Inner dialogue Chaos, incoherence, madness, fragmentation,… …nothing… Chaos, incoherence, madness, fragmentation,… …nothing…

11. Aporia(Derrida) • Aporia- Ancient Greek: ἀπορία: impasse; puzzlement; doubt; confusion • in Derrida’s work this concept functions to highlight the tension-filled nature of seemingly untroubled concepts like gift, hospitality, love and so on. • For instance: hospitality as being caught between the absolute ethical imperative and the conditional laws of hospitality. Open network for dialogical practices

12. Clip Derrida on the aporia of love Open network for dialogical practices

13. Dialogue (Mikhail Bakhtin) As a prescriptive concept • Some language is dialogical • dialogue as an ethical ideal, as opposite of monologue As a descriptive concept • All language is dialogical • focus on the dialogical nature of all human meaning making • tensionality Open network for dialogical practices

14. Revolution, what revolution? • Not: a revolution resulting in a final utopia • Rather: an unfinalizable revolution, within the tension between what is and what could be. We have to keep on fighting for a better world, while accepting that this is the best world we have and we have to make do. Open network for dialogical practices