So lovely to see you again! Thanks for sharing some of the stories of the co-work you and the families you meet with perform.

Many things resonated for me but two in particular were:

1) The practice of ‘interrupted them and suggested an externalisation’ – naming this practice this way will be very helpful for me when I think about how I will intervene when two family members are engaged in blaming relational practices. This is definitely a practice I am always looking to get better at and each time I hear or see how another person handles this I get a closer sense of how I want to carry this out. This will be very helpful for me in regard to work I share with a teenager boy and his grandparents who have all been affected by ‘drama’ and ‘violence’;

2) The idea of ‘toxicity of social recognition’ was another very useful naming for me. So often I meet with people (and I could probably include myself at times) who have found themselves relying on ‘social recognition’ as their main source of holding value for themselves or their ways or their actions. Thinking about externalising ‘social recognition’ in this way and considering both the helpful and harmful effects of it will be very useful in my work. It has me thinking about Michael White’s Addressing Personal failure map and about times when people give themselves a break from seeking social recognition and what they might prioritise or place value on instead in those times.

Thanks again for these wonderful namings!
Warm wishes
troy