Dharma Bum

Wandering Late at Kulin Temple

The single sound of the bell
brings out the whole hall's monks.
Golden glint of the Buddha's face
almost the flash of a lamp.
The Bodhisattva Dragon Tree is silent,
the wind has died away . . .
The robes of the monks cast shadows,
as the moon begins to rise.
No need to chant the Sutras
to make the flowers giggle . . .
As I lean and listen carefully
even the stones respond.
How can the Buddha, King of Emptiness,
boast of setting the whole world free?
Here, when Spring comes,
he hasn't freed even half this pond
from thinking long on love.
- Yuan Mei
I Don't Bow to Buddhas

The Socially Constructed Genogram and Re-membering Conversations

This has been a good year for new books on narrative practice. First was Stephen Madigan's new book Narrative Therapy, and now I have found myself really enjoying the highly recommended Innovations in Narrative Therapy: Connecting Practice, Training, and Research.

There's much to find in this new book but one piece I wanted to highlight was Jim Duvall and Laura Beres approach to the socially constructed genogram.

The Traditional Genogram

The traditional genogram has been used for years to track the representation of a family tree, display detailed data on relationships among individuals, hereditary patterns, and psychological factors that punctuate relationships. Genograms represent a positivist view and can be described as locking people into a family not of their own choosing, or tracking pathology through generations and strengthening problems visually into relationships. According to Duvall & Beres the traditional genogram is a static device meant to diagnose and establish normative conclusions about people and their relationships. An example of a traditional genogram follows:

The Socially Constructed Genogram

What is so great about the socially constructed genogram when coupled with re-membering conversations is that it provides an alternative for understanding the multiplicity of identity, family, relationships, and culture. With the Socially Constructed Genogram people can regain agency when determining who belongs in, what Michael White called, their associations of life. 

According to Duvall & Beres when creating the SCG with someone you are working with people are invited to express their relationships on the SCG as the actually experience them, and through re-membering conversations begin to explore the meaning of those relationships. In this process people are encouraged to expand beyond the normative view of relationships and can include people (living or dead), pets, archetypal heroes, friends who are like family, etc.

Below is an example of an SCG using circles. The person you're working with can be placed in the center circle and then asked to place others in respective circles based on closeness or distance, importance or lack of importance, etc. All of this goes a long way to developing an enlivened backstory.

 

The socially constructed genogram understands that meaning and understanding are generated socially in conversations with others. It also takes into consideration power and broader cultural discourses. Unlike the traditional genogram which can perpetuate the problem story, the SCG is a move toward unpacking and exploring the meaning that can be found in the experiences between people.

Who would you put in your circles?

Via

Red Wheelbarrow

I saw my first private practice client today. I suppose it's a sort of milestone. It has begun..

I have a new job. That makes four. Movement.

Anne asked me a question today that reminded me of this poem. Because, really, there's so much at stake..

The Red Wheelbarrow

William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Guest Post - Angry Asian Buddhist

In response to Asian Pacific American Heritage month one of the writers I follow, Angry Asian Buddhist challenged other bloggers to celebrate this month by publishing an interview with or a guest blog by an Asian American Buddhist. I invited Arun to guest post here on DB:

Thank you, Chris, for inviting me to write a post on your blog.

For most of the time I was aware of it, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month has not been a big deal. It seemed everyone has a special “month” or “day” to celebrate their unique heritage, and then we go back to our lives as usual—if we were even paying attention. But this year was different.

At the beginning of this month, my father started emailing me popular articles about Asian Americans. First was Wesley Yang's New York Post article “Paper Tigers”—a piece accompanied by the provocative subtitle, “What happens to all the Asian-American overachievers when the test-taking ends?” Then my father sent me a link from the San Francisco Chronicle, “The league of extraordinary stereotypes” by Jeff Yang, a discussion of the pop-culture stereotypes of Asians you’ll find if you sift through half a century of comic books. My father didn’t write much in his emails, but when I talked with him on the phone, he continued to bring up the articles to see if I’d read them. He even resent me the link to Wesley Yang’s piece—just in case I couldn’t find it—and then he just sent it to me as a PDF attachment.

To give you a picture, my father is an old retiree who considers gardening his daily exercise. American-born and raised, he comes from the generation that brought us the Asian American movement. They helped craft the notion of Asian American identity at a time when doing groundbreaking Asian American research meant going to temple and just asking people about their life history. My father would read me bedtime stories about Chinese American laundries, Japanese American internment and Korean American athletes. Any PBS documentary about the Asian American experience was a “must-watch” event. That was how things were for the first fifteen years.

After I began high school, the focus on our Asian American heritage dwindled. Academic involvement and university ambitions became the main topic of dinner conversation. Once in college, it was all about challenging classes, independent research and my honors thesis. When I went back to the rural homeland to search out our roots, my father saw it as an excessive vacation. As someone who himself never had a college degree, he saw my proper focus to be on work, study and then finding even better work. By the time I had blazed my own career path, even after I started the Angry Asian Buddhist blog, we hardly ever talked about Asian American issues. It all seemed so last century.

A week passed before I finally read the pieces and called my father back. He told me, “They write about things that I had to deal with when I was working. I never talked about this.” For the first time, we talked about the kind discrimination he faced through his (extremely successful) career. I realized that for all the Asian American identity and pride my father had raised me with, he had never felt comfortable sharing this part of his struggles with me. In fact, it took these articles written by younger Asian Americans closer to my age for my father to find the words and expression that captured the sense of alienation, frustration, ridicule and determination that pervaded his working career. These articles came together because this month is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. The simple existence of this stupid holiday set in motion a chain of events that allowed my father to find the perfect words penned by someone else to tell me about his suffering.

That realization is what compelled me to write my invitation for other bloggers to include the voices of Asian American Buddhists—emphasis on “voices.” It’s important that we speak for ourselves, not just have someone else write about us. All too often our experiences are presented through the filter of White writers’ perspectives, glossing over our thoughts, our emotions and our personal struggles. When the voices of Asian Americans are continuously denied, then I start getting the sense that our voices have no worth, that our perspectives have no value and that our stories have no place. It’s the sort of connection with these Asian American writers that brought my father closer to me in a way that completely surprised me. It’s that sort of connection that, I hope, will touch other readers in the Buddhist community—and ultimately bring our community even closer together.

Thank you so much again, Chris, for giving me the opportunity to share these thoughts on your blog.

Statement of Position..

Creative Language

A favorite example of one of Michael White's questions that moved beyond taken-for-granted assumptions was when he asked someone who was crying, not what she was feeling, but rather, "If you could take that tear and open it up, what would be inside?" Answering about a feeling state might have led to her saying she was sad. Every single word we utter is packed full of many traces of other experiences and influences. In order to more ethically engage in a useful and hope-inducing conversation with people, we must remember this and foster an ability to examine those influences and make their own decisions about their preferences, values, and commitments. - Innovations in Narrative Therapy

Coming Out

The New York Times is giving voice to LGBT youth. Check out the interactive story site HERE.

Coming Out: Audio, Photos, Stories of Gay Teens

Bullying and suicides of gay and lesbian teenagers are in the headlines, the military's “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy has been repealed, and the debate over same-sex marriage continues to divide the country. Against this backdrop, many L.G.B.T. youth wonder how accepting society will be...Read More Here

Joseph Kosuth, "Self Defined," 1965, Neon tubing, 3 1/8 x 27 1/4 x 1 in at the Hirshorn Museum, Smithsonian Institution

A Good Man Is Hard to Find..

There's a whole lot to take on in this recent article in the NY Times titled Need Therapy? A Good Man Is Hard to Find. The article tracks college psychology programs inability to attract male applicants and the “feminization” of mental health care.

I suppose it left me with more questions than answers.

Are men better positoned to invite other men into acountability? This is a topic thats comes up often in supervision. Has the influence of the large number women in the field countered the institutionalized oppression of women by the mental health field, and isn't that a positive thing? Is this another article that privileges male voices over female voices? I could go on..

I participated in graduation ceremonies on Saturday and it was pointed out a couple of times how few men were graduating from all the psychology programs. How should we make sense of this? I am not so sure. Any ideas? Please leave them in the comments.

  Today it struck me. How lucky I am, to get to do this work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

image Via

Narrative & Pizza Featuring Charley Lang

This Friday from 6pm to 8pm is another Narrative & Pizza event hosted by John Winslade at CSU San Bernardino. This month's speaker will be Charley Lang from the Narrative Couples Center in Los Angeles. Charley will be speaking on addressing gay and lesbian issues in schools.The presentation will feature excerpts from an award-winning film, an interactive exercise, handouts and a narrative interview.

The regular Narrative & Pizza event is for students, faculty, alumni, supervisors, school counselors, social workers, psychologists, family therapists, and anyone curious about the application of the narrative perspective in practice domains. All are welcome.

The address is: College of Education Building, California State University San Bernardino, Room CE 120 (The Institute for Research, Evaluation and Training) in the Seminar Room.

More about Charley:

Charley Lang, LMFT is Director of the Postmodern Traineeship at the California Family Counseling Center and Director of the BA Psychology Program at Antioch University Los Angeles where he also has a private practice and enjoys capturing inspiring alternative stories in the form of documentary film (narrativecouplescenter.com).

The Postmodern Executive - Experiment Without Failure

I have a new Postmodern Executive post up over at the OC Metro. Please take a look..

As someone who spent a large portion of my professional career starting and growing a successful business, I am often asked for advice by aspiring entrepreneurs. In the past I was always ready with a standard set of recommendations that I would dispense, but over time my thinking about how best to support new business builders has begun to change. I have noticed over the years that the overriding theme that seems to get in the way of budding entrepreneurs is the powerful idea of personal failure and all the discourse that swirls around failure..Read More HERE

Narrative & The Sacred

I've been spending a lot of time lately in conversation with others about how to effectively think about and listen to the spiritual dimension of people's lives. From my very first sessions as a trainee spirituality was a dominant element in many of the conversations. It became very clear early on that I was going to need to discover ways to ask appropriate questions about beliefs, practices, and communities. I also became very curious how to explore the sustaining and healing qualities of people's spiritual and religous experience while also examining how these practices may also be doing harm. A delicate balance for sure.

Fortunately some folk are beginning to write about narrative practice and spirituality, like this recent book on Narrative Practice and Christian belief. There is also talk of a potential consult group at the Narrative Project of OC around narrative practice and religion/spirituality. I hope it happens.

But the real reason for this post was to direct you to my friend and fellow narrative therapist Kelly McCann's new blog, Scenes From a Semi-Mormon Life where she gets transparent around her own spiritual journey. The writing is funny, smart and brave. I know Kelly spent a lot of consideration around the risk she might be taking by being so publicly transparent with her own spiritual exploration so go take a look, leave a nice comment or two, and be sure to bookmark it for daily reading.

Wrong! But It's OK.

"maybe I'm wrong" - Kathryn Schulz

My friend Dove directed me to the attached TEDTalk by Kathryn Schulz which struck a chord because the gift of being wrong is something i've been thinking about lately. Schulz does a nice job detailing all the discourse that comes with being "wrong" in any given situation and how we are trained to avoid it at all costs. Schulz also details the strategies we use to discredit those on the other side of our rightness, leading to problematic relationships.

It also got me thinking about a couple of quotes I've come across:

"Would you rather be right, or happy?"

Or

"Never underestimate yourself. Remember that your perception of things can often be blessedly incorrect. If you ever feel you can’t be confident about something, rest in the righteous truth that you might just be wrong as fuck."

Enjoy:

 

Bending with the irises..

Leonard Cohen remembers his Zen Master:

“I never really understood
what he said
but every now and then
I find myself
barking with the dog
or bending with the irises
or helping out
in other little ways.”

—Cohen, L. (2006). Book of Longing. McClelland & Stewart, p. 16. Via