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PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHYTHE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICEwww.practical-philosophy.org.uk www.society-for-philosophy-in-practice.org |
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PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHYTHE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICEwww.practical-philosophy.org.uk www.society-for-philosophy-in-practice.org |
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‘Seeing Things in a New Light.’ Reframing in Therapeutic Conversation
Antti Mattila
2001 Helsinki: Helsinki University Press.
pp. 125
ISBN: 952-5017-35-4. (pb) $22
Practical Philosophy (Book Reviews) Spring 2002 Volume 4.2
Reviewed by: Trevor Curnow
If the word itself is of recent origin (the 1960s), the actual practice of reframing precedes it by at least 2000 years, according to Antti Mattila. Stoic techniques for coping with the world and Sophistic techniques for arguing about it are both identified as earlier manifestations of it. But what is it? Mattila reaches the following conclusion (p. 105): ‘To reframe means suggesting in a therapeutic conversation, either verbally or through behavioural assignments, a new description of the client’s situation or some part of it.’ I would suggest that to limit reframing to the therapeutic context as a matter of definition is unnecessarily restrictive, since this means that it is something we cannot do for ourselves. Furthermore, it serves to drive a wedge between it and its ancestors. The Sophists were not in the business of therapy. However, it is the point of reframing, rather than the context in which it takes place, that is important. The point, as Mattila goes on to explain, is to enable people to see things in a new light so that new possibilities for thinking and acting become apparent.
Part of the book is taken up with considering what this means and how it may happen. In the process careful connections are made and distinctions drawn between reframing and other items in the philosophical and therapeutic vocabularies. There turn out to be a surprising number of these, but Mattila is a sure-footed guide through the maze. After this conceptual/theoretical exercise, he moves on to introduce a host of examples of reframing in action and considers both the potential of the process and the possible problems it faces. Amongst these are the recurrent therapeutic dilemma of honesty versus efficacy. It can be a fine line, both epistemologically and morally, between creative re-description and outright lying. On the other hand, a therapist or counsellor can only suggest a new frame; it is for the client to accept or reject it.
Practitioners should find the discussion of how one might become a better reframer useful. The suggestion that a ‘reframing thesaurus’ might be developed to assist in this exercise is an imaginative one, and I look forward to reviewing it in these pages if and when it appears. The fact that reframing in some form or other is evidently practised across a wide range of therapeutic approaches suggests that it would find a wide readership.
This book may attract a similar one. Mattila’s guiding theme is that even if reframing has a long history and many practitioners, it has nevertheless lacked a systematic treatment that has been able to set it upon a proper theoretical footing. He has here produced a useful overview of the subject from a variety of perspectives, based on an extensive knowledge of the relevant literature as well as practical experience. Or, to look at it another way …
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