This special issue, a collaboration between The Qualitative Report and the Narrative Practice Research Network, is a rich and diverse collection of papers linking Narrative Therapy/Community Work and qualitative research. In four sections, authors explore narrative practice research innovations, practitioners doing research and influencing practice via Research as Daily Practice, insider knowledge/insider research towards broader social movement politics, and research in service of broader change. The special issue organizers and contributors hope this collection leads to more conversation and collaboration.

Many researchers have explored the impact or effectiveness of eating disorder (ED) and obesity (OB) prevention in schools. Few, however, have investigated integrated prevention, and despite recommendations to shift the individual focus of prevention to environmental or systemic change, even fewer researchers have considered the broader situation. In this study, we explored how weight-related issues are negotiated in Canadian schools, and what institutional and social practices influence their construction. Situational analysis (SA) was used to develop a broad picture of the complexities of the situation and the differences or tensions extant. Data such as research literature, participant interviews, and educational curricula/policy documents contributed to a comprehensive understanding of the situation. Mapping processes indicated multiple tensions and highlighted the importance of opening up conversations. Findings emphasized the importance of exploring ways to (a) promote acceptance of all bodies and (b) change policies or practices that contribute to the stigmatization of individuals based on body size.

No AccessUnmöglichkeit ergründen: Das »Unmögliche-Fälle«-ProjektDan Wulff, Sally St. George, Dan Dulberger, Monica SesmaDan WulffSearch for more papers by this author, Sally St. GeorgeSearch for more papers by this author, Dan DulbergerSearch for more papers by this author, Monica SesmaSearch for more papers by this authorhttps://doi.org/10.13109/9783666407932.183SectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail About Previous chapter Next chapter FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Download book cover 1. AuflageISBN: 978-3-525-40793-6 eISBN: 978-3-666-40793-2HistoryPublished online:April 2022 PDF download

Abstract Family therapy is a form of psychotherapy that conceptualizes personal/individual problematic behaviors as embedded within a person's relationships rather than locating them within the intrapsychic world. Presenting problems are “symptoms” of systemic distress in a client's life, serving as signals that interpersonal relationships are somehow disjointed or causing harm. Origins of “problems” are less significant than the ways in which troublesome behaviors are interpersonally (systemically) supported and maintained. The family systems metaphor has stimulated challenging examinations of gender inequalities, interpersonal power differentials, and cultural variations of preferred interaction. Postmodern ideas have ushered in discursive/narrative metaphors that have pushed the systems metaphor to include language practices and societal discourses. True to the origins of family therapy in challenging social norms, the field continues to evolve by examining its own premises.

Family therapy is a form of psychotherapy that conceptualizes personal/individual problematic behaviors as embedded within a person's relationships rather than locating them within the intrapsychic world. Presenting problems are “symptoms” of systemic distress in a client's life, serving as signals that interpersonal relationships are somehow disjointed or causing harm. Origins of “problems” are less significant than the ways in which troublesome behaviors are interpersonally (systemically) supported and maintained. The family systems metaphor has stimulated challenging examinations of gender inequalities, interpersonal power differentials, and cultural variations of preferred interaction. Postmodern ideas have ushered in discursive/narrative metaphors that have pushed the systems metaphor to include language practices and societal discourses. True to the origins of family therapy in challenging social norms, the field continues to evolve by examining its own premises.

This article introduces a series of articles that describe a sequence of research projects that we, as therapists, conducted collaboratively as part of our ongoing daily clinical practice at the Calgary Family Therapy Centre. We designed and completed a set of three formal research studies within the parameters of our work as therapists using an approach we call Research As Daily Practice. There is an intuitive appeal to Research As Daily Practice that comes from (a) privileging therapists' ideas, questions, and curiosities; (b) conducting research flexibly within the time parameters of the daily work of therapists; (c) seeing the processes of conducting research as resonant with the processes of therapy; and (d) showing that meaningful research can be conducted without external funding or resources.

Family therapy has often been conceptualized as a conversational process whereby therapists and clients generate new meanings. Based on a 3-year study of conversational practices observable in successful family therapy processes of Chilean families with a child/adolescent who is engaged in disruptive behaviors, we looked for clinical examples of Transforming Interpersonal Patterns (TIPs). TIPs are a key aspect of the IPscope, a framework we used to explore the meaning-making processes in family therapy. TIPs constitute a novel approach to explore therapeutic processes by identifying empirically traceable conversational practices involved in generating "new meanings." TIPs are involved in bringing forth and discursively articulating ("talking-into-being") clients' preferred ways of relating and living (i.e., relational preferences or RPs). We analyze conversational data from successful family therapy sessions/treatments, and present an emergent model of five categories of conversational practices making up TIPs, namely: Preparatory TIPs, Identifier TIPs, Tracker TIPs, Transformer TIPs, and Consolidator TIPs. We have called them "realizers" because these conversational practices help families talk-into-being (or "make real") particular relational preferences. We also offer user-friendly descriptors of realizers' subcategories (e.g., Measuring TIPs) which may help practitioners to recognize, learn, and perform these conversational invitations. Theoretical consequences and future lines of research are discussed.

This chapter cautions against the insidious potential of therapy to be a colonizing force that nudges clients in the direction of socially sanctioned ways of being. After presenting illustrations of how this routinely and inadvertently occurs, the authors present examples of "walking the talk" of social justice by inviting families to critique and analyze social discourses from within therapeutic conversations. Questions unpack what are often characterized as people's "personal troubles" in order to see them as relational creations frequently fed by social inequities. Examples include encouraging an exploration of comments by clients about unfairness, as well as collaborative interrogations of taken for granted "shoulds" and other entrenched assumptions about normative ways of being that operate on individuals and families but are not always subject to critical evaluation. The chapter proposes an unmasking of "daily injustices" to open new possibilities for addressing individual and family distress.

We have created a collection of stories from our authors to provide another glimpse into ways that social injustices manifest themselves in daily interactions and events. The stories each have a different focus on transformation and/or social justice. We offer you stories of trying to explain social justice work in clinical practice, a supervisee’s emotional reaction, a student therapist’s own personal transformation through her professional preparation, the heartbreak of seeing and experiencing injustice inflicted by the helping profession, the complications and unfairnesses that occur when multiple helping systemsSystems do not coordinate, what possibilities emerge when there is a softening of the distinction between professionals and clients, and moving from seeing family problems appearing as internal to have external originations. Each story is then followed by a series of questions evoked by the story to help provide a pathway to continue to ponder issues of social justice/injustice in the therapeutic context.

We explain our “equation” of adjusting family therapy clinical practices to include explicit talk of social justice issues (“unfairnesses”) experienced by our clients on a daily basis. We concentrate more on the everyday ways that injustices are enacted and experienced than on the macro-discourses of social injustices. This adjustment to see social injustice as behavioral and specific permits us to see injustice in action in everyday lives and affords us the opportunity to act locally and immediately. We advocate for and demonstrate expanding our usual activities of research and supervision to attend to social justice in order to help with transforming our therapeutic processes. These efforts can grow and be applied outside the therapy room, both by clients and their therapists. This chapter concludes with an articulation of our common purpose as authors in coming together to write this series and a brief introduction of each of the contributors/teams and their innovations.

Editors Norman Denzin and Michael Giardina bring together a collection of leading voices from the Third International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry to explore political, social, and methodological contexts of what constitutes evidence in qualitative research and suggest a diversification of evidential criteria. The book also demonstrates the community-building abilities scholarly journals can have in networking together peers and colleagues from around the world to contemplate, discuss, and debate critical issues such as those raised in this text.

Situational Analysis presents an iteration of Grounded Theory that incorporates the construction of a series of illustrative maps, conceptualizes a situation as inclusive of what usually has been considered context, and explicitly and systematically includes missing or otherwise silenced data. This review comments on how these attributes of situational analysis can also effectively inform the practice of family therapy. The potential of a research book to inform a clinical practice is an exciting development in advancing interdisciplinary studies and its related applications in the world.