From Information to Narration in Therapy
Has narrative therapy become an information exchange rather than a site of narrating?
This is the first part in my deep dive of the recent release "The Crisis of Narration" by contemporary philosopher Byung-Chul Han. In this new thesis he explores some important developments, in a world in need of new narrative forms, that should concern therapists that are interested in how folks narrate themselves.
In the first chapter Han begins to go deeper into his argument I detailed in my first piece where he believes that Narration and information are counteracting forces. In the first chapter he goes deeper into this claim and lays out several points how narrative is being pushed to the margins by the tsunami of information we face today. Let’s examine his points.
The cause of the narrative crisis in modernity is the deluge of information
I’m sure at this point we are all familiar with the Instagram or TikTok therapist and the growing popularity of super short form content found on these platforms. Here you will experience the rapid diagnosing and pathologizing of people and problems. To operate on these platforms, you are often required to traffic in information and certainty only.
In the opening chapter Han argues that this deluge of information is the cause of the narrative crisis. He writes that a storyteller does not inform or explain, that in fact storytelling demands that information be withheld. He writes that explanation and narration are mutually exclusive and that information pushes to the margins those events that cannot be explained but only narrated.
What does this mean for narrative inclined therapists? Often in supervision when we are watching video of a session or doing transcript work, I will tell beginning therapists, “you know that thing you want to tell your client, how do you turn that into a question?” Han warns against gaplessness. Gaplessness is the act of making everything available. Han argues that a storyteller does not inform or explain, that the art of storytelling demands that information be withheld. To remove explanation heightens narrative tension.
As I have wrote previously with J. D’Arrigo we now live in a world of Instant Psychology, Instant Sociology, and Instant Revisionism. Explanation and information rule the day, and Han writes that this combination of explanation and information leads to a gaplessness that de-auratizes and disenchants the world. So, when I am reviewing a transcript with a new therapist and I ask, “you know that thing you want to tell your client, how do you turn that into a question?” I do that to pause the impulse to explain, or inform, or fill the gaps. So that they might just tempt a narration instead.
The narrative community is a community of careful listeners
Han writes that narrating and listening foster each other. He also argues that in this information deluge we are losing the gift to listen carefully because now we are all performers who eavesdrop on each other instead of forgetting ourselves and listening intently. Eavesdropping on each other. Ouch. Han writes that the tsunami of information now permanently stimulates our perceptual apparatus. In other words, we are never bored, and all the information fragments our attention and prevents what he calls contemplative lingering which he believes is essential to narrating and careful listening.
If I were honest with myself, I too have noticed a fragmenting of my attention. Fortunately, I do have a regular meditation practice that allows my perceptual apparatus to enter contemplation. It’s been my saving grace. I have also noticed an increasing inability to tolerate boredom by many folks who seek our help. I’m discovering in my own life the paradoxical nature of boredom. That on the other side of something that seems intolerable is a lot of creativity and self-reflection. In Han’s other book I read, The Burnout Society, he examines modern society's emphasis on constant activity and productivity and offers up boredom as an antidote. I do plan to explore the benefits of boredom in a future piece down the road.
But back to listening. For therapists watching I have a couple of thoughts to be mindful about.
First, in her paper The Politics of Curiosity former Radical Therapist podcast guest Eva-Maria Swidler argues that the first thing to go in the increasing speed brought on by modern capitalism is curiosity. That we are all under assault by what she describes as time poverty or perceived time poverty. Whether it be a 15 second Instagram reel or 280 characters on twitter, any communication that we are trying to do in well-meaning efforts like activism or transformation and change increasingly are being squeezed into meaningless spurts with no impact or function. Han writes that information does not survive the moment it is registered.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist but if I wanted to limit any kind of effective argument or your ability to articulate a case for change. Rather than taking your speech away I would just constrain your ability to think it through, to say it, and limit who gets to see it. Turning any opposition or critique into meaningless hot takes that the algorithm does away with.
So how do we not contribute to the information overload? Well, Eva-Maria Swidler suggests if we are going to build a joyful militancy to counter a world of disappearing attention, aimlessness, idle distraction, the three instants. We need to recognize that curiosity is an emotional, moral, and political state in desperate need of cultivation and tender loving care. And that it is under threat.
Second, Han’s idea of contemplative lingering had me thinking of Michael White’s idea of hovering. Going back to the transcript work and supervision at CFI. Something I will often encourage for trainees is that when a narration emerges how can you ask five questions about that thing. This is to slow down the work, hover or linger, and enter a stance of curiosity, attentiveness, and careful listening.
Transcripts are also helpful as a listening tool because we get to see the stories our clients are telling us and the questions, we ask in response to their narrating. What we often see is that our questions contain nothing from what our clients just told us and make visible what we are missing in our listening, and how we may be taking a lead role in the work. Getting out in front with interpretations and agendas.
The information regime works not through repression but through seduction
Here is where Han channels Foucault. Han argues that alongside neoliberalism information is becoming a new form of being and a new form of domination. Han writes that the information regime does not operate through imperatives or prohibitions and does not silence us, rather it constantly asks us to communicate our opinions, needs and preferences, to tell our lives, to post, share and like messages. By doing all this posting, liking, and sharing our freedom is not repressed but completely exploited. What we don’t notice is that communication is controlled by external forces and directed by algorithms. All this happens so fast we miss it.
Think about it. Power has come full circle. We have moved from traditional power to modern power, to biopower, back to a digitized form of traditional power. The platforms are the new land owned by the land barons and we are their subjects. We are continuously creating value for these for these Barons unwittingly.
So what does this all mean? What is at risk? Han writes that what will perish is the experience of presence. I think it’s also important to point out to narrative therapists that narrative therapy is no longer a “postmodern therapy” we are no longer in a postmodern condition. We are now in the age of immediacy (more on that later) and acceleration and we need new narrative forms for this new world, this new way of being.
So, these are some of the challenges those who are seeking our help, and therapists trying to work narratively, are facing.
This last idea leads me into my next piece which will tackle the poverty of experience. The second chapter in the Crisis of Narration. If you would like a written version of these pieces on The Crisis of Narration, I now have a substack under my name Chris Hoff please go there and subscribe for free and of course you can watch these on my YouTube channel. Please share.
And then get off all the platforms seek out boredom and recapture your presence, freedom, curiosity!