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A Figurative Response to Tuson

A Figurative Response to Tuson The question is not one of explaining a language-game by means of our experiences, but of noting a language-game (Wittgenstein, 1958, Philosophical Investigations: 167e). Tuson's provocative article asks family therapists to examine critically their reification of figuration into theory and to be wary of basing their discipline on a proliferation of slippery figures. He exposes a family therapy movement which, `blind to its own foundations in a shifting and indeterminate network of figuration', is closed to its own possibilities, like a cult believing only in its own stories and closing off further debate. His article is a timely reminder of the dangers of figurative closure, of taking our theoretical figures too seriously. Nonetheless, I see family therapy more optimistically thanTuson, as a discipline open to a diversity of theoretical paradigms, whether scientific, social constructionist ^ narrative or psychoanalytic. As I read Tuson's thoughtful and penetrating article I felt I was entering a kind of time warp, back to a period when family therapy was ensconced in the epistemological debates of the 1980s. At the same time I appreciated the vitality of his thesis, itself impressive, seductive and figurative. What woke me from my figurative slumber was a statement http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy Wiley

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Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
1999 The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy
ISSN
0814-723X
eISSN
1467-8438
DOI
10.1111/j.0814-723X.1999.00132.x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The question is not one of explaining a language-game by means of our experiences, but of noting a language-game (Wittgenstein, 1958, Philosophical Investigations: 167e). Tuson's provocative article asks family therapists to examine critically their reification of figuration into theory and to be wary of basing their discipline on a proliferation of slippery figures. He exposes a family therapy movement which, `blind to its own foundations in a shifting and indeterminate network of figuration', is closed to its own possibilities, like a cult believing only in its own stories and closing off further debate. His article is a timely reminder of the dangers of figurative closure, of taking our theoretical figures too seriously. Nonetheless, I see family therapy more optimistically thanTuson, as a discipline open to a diversity of theoretical paradigms, whether scientific, social constructionist ^ narrative or psychoanalytic. As I read Tuson's thoughtful and penetrating article I felt I was entering a kind of time warp, back to a period when family therapy was ensconced in the epistemological debates of the 1980s. At the same time I appreciated the vitality of his thesis, itself impressive, seductive and figurative. What woke me from my figurative slumber was a statement

Journal

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family TherapyWiley

Published: Dec 1, 1999

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