Conversational Resources for Clinical Practice with Families: Social Construction in Action

Social constructionism offers an account of therapeutic process that focuses on conversation and relationships as the space where people jointly create understandings about themselves, their lives, and their problems. Conversational resources are guides that focus practitioners' attention on the ways they interact, relate, and talk to patients and amongst themselves. Focus is also placed on the effects that these conversations create in interaction. This article describes three conversational resources: ` inviting the social into the individual,' ` weaving family dialogue,' and ` knowing oneself in other voices', which help bring about change in the context of a clinical practice with families in mental health. It analyses the transcripts of 33 family therapy sessions (with three families) in a psychiatric day-hospital. This focuses on how resources are worked out in conversation and describes practical therapeutic resources for professionals who are interested in working within a critical and transformative frame with families in mental health care.