Fourfold vision in practice: Data, theory, intuition and the art of therapy Hugh Palmer hugh.palmer@sky.com http://hughpalmer.co.uk
William Blake (28 November 1757 12 August 1827) Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 4 July 1980)
Context Bateson was a scientist, he was precise and loathed muddled thinking. Bateson also advocated being human with patients (he actively treated patients between 1948 and 1963) and part of what he attempted to do was help them find valuable patterns in their lives. We will explore how we might learn more from Bateson about working with others, using the metaphor of power as a vehicle.
Haley s view Haley, in a personal letter to Lipset, suggested that Bateson would stay up all night with alcoholics, to get them through He felt that being human with people was good for them (Lipset, 1980 p. 215).
Laing s view R.D. Laing, who observed Bateson in 1962, considered that, like some of the best therapists, Bateson didn't regard himself as a therapist, suggesting that...if I was the patient in the session, I certainly wouldn t have felt there was anything to be frightened of...he never indicated that he thought in terms of actually actively adopting strategic, practical means to use to pry people out of the entanglement they were in... (Lipset, 1980, p.220)
Fry s view According to Fry, Bateson was like an anthropologist with families; more of an observer than clinician or therapist, but would...switch between that role and a sort of friendly mother s brother...raising tantalising and significant issues...they were very intuitive... (In Lipset, 219-20)
Both/and positions Bateson demonstrated intuition in his interactions, and he emphasised the importance of being human with patients. He also took a scientific observer position, and appeared to easily shift between these different positions.
Humanistic and/or scientific? Noel Charlton (2008) believed that Bateson considered that psychology was evolving in two directions: Humanist working with clients as one human being with another, intuitively responding from personal emotional resources to act spontaneously out of his own integrity. Circularistic consciously scientific, articulate about methods and results, aiming for predictability and logical coherence. Bateson saw a way forward as a compromise; a working together of both types of practice; between intuition and examination/description, each informing the other.
Humanist, scientist - and more? Humanist, scientist, artist and theoretician are all needed to form the cybernetic unity of healing (Charlton 2008, p. 94)
Now I a fourfold vision see, And a fourfold vision is given to me; Tis fourfold in my supreme delight, And threefold in soft Beulah's night, And twofold Always. May God us keep From Single vision & Newton's sleep. William Blake: Letter to Thomas Butt, 22 November 1802
Why Fourfold Vision? William Blake was a considerable influence upon Gregory Bateson, who as a child grew up in a household that had many of Blake s paintings within it. Bateson frequently mentions Blake in his writing, and in a sense he too was visionary similarly to Blake in his perception of a unified universe.
What does Blake s Fourfold Vision mean? Single Vision: Newton s sleep - linear thinking. Knowledge. Rational. Material. Twofold Vision: Appreciating our connection with nature and the environment. Relationships. Threefold Vision: Unconscious processes, memory and intuition. Fourfold Vision: The delight of experiencing single, twofold and threefold vision, with constant twofold visioning in daily life.
Single Vision The Scientist Focus on data. Good observation skills. Linear descriptions: What is the issue? Who is involved? When does it happen? Where does it happen? Consideration of non-systemic explanations
Twofold Vision The Theorist Blake intended that twofold vision is seeing not only with the eye, but through it; seeing contexts, associations, emotional meanings, and connections. Circular causality. Relational aspects and patterns. Systemic theorising. First order cybernetics. Second order cybernetics (theory)
Threefold Vision - The Humanist Being human. Connecting with personal experiences and intuitions, embodied aspects of practice. Empathy. Self of the therapist. Disclosure and transparency. Second order cybernetics (lived).
Fourfold Vision - The Artist The aesthetic delight of working with and between single, twofold and threefold experience. Self of therapist and client(s) located and theorised in wider and wider contexts. Higher levels of abstraction. Mystery. Sparkling moments.
Zooming in and out: Guided by intuition, experience, curiosity, empathy. When you zoom in on things you ll discover new details. When you zoom out, you ll see a bigger picture. Both the details and the big picture provide you with new information; your frame of reference literally changes. You change.
IPhone July 2016, Tate Modern Claude Monet: Water-Lilies after 1916
How does this translate to working with clients? The four types of vision are neither sequential nor hierarchical. They weave together, through time and experience to create a rich tapestry that contains a multitude of different threads and patterns. Messy, beautiful and unique.
No right way It is important to stress there is no right or wrong way nor a formula. The concept of Fourfold Vision simply offers a way of thinking about elements of practice as being equally important and interconnected; not simply domains that all need to be attended to in a tick box manner.
Flexibility both/and Importantly, in an era when ticking boxes and evidencing outcomes seems so important to agencies, Fourfold vision offers an opportunity to meet those needs and still work with grace; meeting the needs of the agency AND the family as well as your own self as a therapist.
Connections for me Nora Bateson Tom Andersen David Lynch Arthur Koestler
Symmathesy (Nora Bateson 2016) Fourfold vision offers a route for therapists to participate with clients in learning: Seen as a symmathesy, a person or a family is learning to make sense of its world. Like their bodies, emotional, mental, and interactional processes would all be included in their ways of calibrating their world (not necessarily consciously) all pathology is learning.
Tom Andersen 1992 As I am open and sensitive to what I see, hear, feel, taste, and smell I can also notice answers to those touches from myself, as my body, from inside, lets me know in various ways how it thinks about what the outside touches; what should be concentrated on and what not. This state of being open and sensitive to the touches from the outside life and at the same time being open and sensitive to the answers from the inside life is what I prefer to call intuition.
Tom Andersen 1992 (cont d) At this point in time my intuition seems to be what I rely on the most. In re-walking my professional tracks, my intuition tells me that I shall take part first, and then sit down and think about the taking part; not sit down and think first and thereafter take part. As I am sure that my thinking is with me as I take part, I have felt comfortable following what my intuition has suggested to me
Intuition is the key to everything, in painting, filmmaking, business - everything. I think you could have an intellectual ability, but if you can sharpen your intuition, which they say is emotion and intellect joining together, then a knowingness occurs. David Lynch
Arthur Koestler Without the hard little bits of marble which are called 'facts' or 'data' one cannot compose a mosaic; what matters, however, are not so much the individual bits, but the successive patterns into which you arrange them, then break them up and rearrange them. The Act of Creation (1970).
Bateson, 1972 It is, however, possible that the remedy for ills of conscious purpose lies with the individual. There is what Freud called the royal road to the unconscious. He was referring to dreams, but I think we should lump together dreams and the creativity of art, or the perception of art, and poetry and such things. And I would include with these the best of religion. These are all activities in which the whole individual is involved
Bateson, 1972 (cont d) The artist may have a conscious purpose to sell his picture, even perhaps a conscious purpose to make it. But in the making he must necessarily relax that arrogance in favour of a creative experience in which his conscious mind plays only a small part. We might say that in creative art man must experience himself his total self as a cybernetic model.
Dialogue What links do you make With theory? With your own practice? What are your thoughts about intuition in collaborative, dialogical therapy and practices?
References Andersen, Tom. (1992). Reflections on reflecting with families. In Sheila McNamee & Kenneth Gergen (Eds.), Therapy as social construction (pp. 54-68). London: Sage. Bateson, Gregory. (1972).Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine. Bateson, Nora. (2016). Small arcs of larger circles: Framing through other patterns. Axminster: Triarchy Press Charlton, N. (2008) Understanding Gregory Bateson: Mind, beauty and the sacred Earth. New York: SUNY Press. Koestler, Arthur. (1964). The Act of Creation. Penguin Books, New York Lipsett, D. (1980). Gregory Bateson, the Legacy of a Scientist. Boston: Beacon Press