Narrative Practice Key Learnings: Scaffolding Conversations

Scaffolding conversations is my favourite concept brought out in White’s (2007) Maps of Narrative Practice.  It is my favourite because it clearly draws on Vygotsky’s theories around the zones of proximal development by bringing multiple individuals with diverse life experiences and skills and allowing a collective of individuals to build up the skillsets of the client (White, 2007; Santcock, 2014).  This fits well with the respect for inherent dignity and worth of persons by allowing for diversity – it is not simply a dyadic counselling session between the practitioner and the client, while creatively creating an environment where the pursuit of social justice allows individuals to gain access to an intervention that promotes social development through the emerging conversations (Canadian Association of Social Workers, 2005; White, 2007).

White (2007) further allows for scaffolding conversations to be strengths-based through the assumptions that are made before scaffolding ever begins.  More specifically, White (2007) takes the position that when people encounter difficulties they are doing what is know or familiar to them in order to address the concern.  These underlying beliefs guide the practitioner to take a position that the client does not act with malice and that the pathway to better social-functioning may rest in the growth or development of ways of understanding the self as a means to handle and challenge adversity (Heinonen & Spearman, 2010; White, 2007).

As with the zones of proximal development from a child development perspective, the client proceeds through the proximal zones of development in a series of steps.  White (2007) notes that practitioners can contribute to the process of scaffolding, and recruit others who can contribute to the growth of the individual.  The individuals selected would incrementally and progressively distance the client from the thoughts/feelings/beliefs that are known and familiar, moving towards new possibilities the client could embark on.

Going from the familiar and known to possibilities is seen by White (2007) as a means to provide a client with their own personal agency.   Thus, the effect of one’s life course is determined by one’s intentions.  This means that the individual is shaped by the growing knowledge of life and skills of living.  This provides the opportunity to develop growth from the learnings that arise from others in the proximal zones of development, while not imposing the insights and ways of knowing others.  Being open to exploring multiple ways of understanding arguably allows for different discourses to emerge that are novel or non-dominant.  As outlined in the respect for the inherent dignity and worth of persons value of the Canadian Association of Social Workers, the process provides opportunities for diversity to emerge (2005).  While White (2007) does not discuss the pathways in which the intervention may operate from a psychological perspective, a consideration from a macro/systems perspective may be challenging social norms where groupthink has alienated individuals who do not fit within the social norms and intersectional attributes prized within the society (Myers, Spencer, & Jordan, 2009; Bishop, 2015; Parada, Barnoff, Moffatt, & Homan, 2011).

As noted by White (2007), individuals who have faced long-standing predicaments may come to practitioners displaying significant frustration over the lack of progress that has emerged from their attempts to address the concerns with familiar responses.  The client may be under the impression that the efforts to resolve the problems have generated more complications for its resolution.  What White (2007) suggests is to explore how the client’s narrative or meaning system has shaped their ability to shape their own lives.  Thus, the presenting concern does not necessarily stem from psychopathology, but the intersectional attributes that influence their circumstances.  White discusses the need to consider Foucault’s concept of “modern power” (you can find a good description of modern power here), and that modern power leads to people shaping themselves to come into harmony with the societal norms of the dominant group.  “Normalizing judgement” thus has a powerful influence (you can get a good description of normalizing judgement here).

When individuals try to reproduce the norms of personhood through modern power and normalizing judgement, they internally know they are not quite as “perfect” or “together” as they resent themselves.  This reminds me of the discrepancies or variances between the “perceived” and “presenting” selves that all individuals experience (Alder, Rodman, & Sévigny, 2015).  White (2007) argues that this experience is the root of personal conclusions of incompetence and inadequacy.  This puts the individual in a feeling of failure through normalizing judgement.  What the practitioner wants to do is subvert or restructure the understanding of self that is being influenced by modern power.

White (2007) views personal agency and responsible action as the product of “normal [human] development.”  The circumstances that allow an individual to live a life where personal agency and responsible action can unfold is also guided by various forms of privilege that will enable the process to unfold without interruption.  Because personal agency and responsible action are results of social exchanges, they are dependent on what the individual knows about themself.  To move the client beyond the limitations of what the individual knows about themself, the practitioner wants to move the client towards what is possible for the self.  The idea of what is possible for the self, and challenging of normalizing judgement and modern power, reminds me once again of an existential perspective outlined by Howe (2009) in that we have the capacity to be whoever we want to be.

From what I understand of the process thus far I see it unfolding in a series of steps:

1. Work with the client to separate from aspects of what is known and familiar about their life and identity
2. Initiate conversations that explore what may be possible to know about their life and identity.  What is the client capable of discovering they can do?
3. Transverse the space between what is known and familiar, over to the possibilities of what could be known and done.
4. Find supports in the individual’s social network that sustain them while the individual beings to carry out tasks that actualize the possibilities
5. The practitioner can either scaffold with the client, or obtain assistance from a trusted source in the client’s social network.  Here the goal is to navigate actualization in small, manageable, steps.
6. Review the journey towards the actualization of the possible, and make any needed adjustments.  SMART goals may be useful in this step
7. Have the client identify what is important to them, and how the growth carries out their core values.
8. Begin exploring ways to tie together a congruence between what is important to the person and their personal values

White (2007) discusses is interest in Vygotsky and the contribution that Vygotsky made to how children learn.  What White particularly liked was that the tasks in learning were not impossible or improbable leaps.  The “chains of association” that begin to connect relationships between objects in this theory was seen as an important step towards more complex thinking.  Complex thinking then leads to concepts about life and identity.  This fits well with concepts such as “cultural meaning systems” and how they are constructed for individuals within a dominant culture (Castillo, 1997).  White (2007) argues that from these “life concepts”  people are able to regulate their lives by:

• Influencing actions in purposeful ways
• Developing self-regulation or self-mastery
• Developing skills in social collaboration

White (2007) recognizes that there are various levels of complexity to the chains of association.  What he sees as being important is that the emerging concepts of the individual lead to their ability to intervene and shape their own actions.  This leads to self-mastery and autonomy.  Thus it is the individual who develops their own personal agency based on the degree of complexity of their chains of association.

White (2007) has 5 areas of inquiry for scaffolding conversations:

1. Low-level distancing
   • Support achievement of low-level distance from known/familiar & from the immediacy of one’s experience in their own environment.
   • Questions explore attribution of mean to events of one’s world that are unfamiliar or have gone unnamed.  The practitioner wants to encourage the characterization of these events.
2. Medium-level distancing
   • Support medium-level distance from the known/familiar and from the immediacy of their experience/environment.
   • Encourage the individual to explore the relationship between specific events to allow for bonds to develop between the events.  This develops the chain of association.
   • Fostering comparison and categorization of events in one’s world, and distinctions between differences and similarities are the purpose of this inquiry.
3. Medium-high-level distancing
   • Supporting this level of distancing is done by encouraging people to reflect, evaluate, and draw realizations and learnings from the chains of association.
4. High-level distancing
   • Here the practitioner wants to encourage individuals to formulate concepts about life and identity by abstracting the realizations and learnings from the scaffolding conversation and applying it to their specific circumstances.
5. Very high-level distancing
   • Encourage the individual to develop proposals for proceeding through life in ways that utilize the newly-emerged concepts about life and identity.
   • Allow the client to formulate predictions about the outcomes of the proposed actions, along with planning on how to initiate such actions.

White (2007) speaks of the client who will often say “I don’t know.”  This indicates that the practitioner needs to move to an earlier level of inquiry in the scaffolding conversation.  Other alternatives can include bringing in a trusted other to explore possible answers to the level of inquiry, or looking at how others “may” respond to similar predicaments.  It is important to invite the individual to reflect on these perspectives.  What is important to remember is that the practitioner must not fall into the trap of assuming the client is not trying – it is a sign that the practitioner is not being sufficiently supported through the various scaffolding levels of inquiry.

References

Adler, R. B., Rodman, G. R., & Sévigny Alexandre. (2015). Understanding human communication (3rd Canadian ed.). Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.

Bishop, A. (2015). Becoming an ally: Breaking the cycle of oppression in people (3rd ed). Winnipeg, MB: Fernwood Publishing.

Canadian Association of Social Workers (2005). Code of ethics.  Retrieved from https://www.acsw.ab.ca/document/1328/casw_code_of_ethics.pdf

Castillo, R. J. (1997). Culture & mental illness: a client-centered approach. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Heinonen, T., & Spearman, L. B. (2010). Social work practice: problem solving and beyond (3rd ed.). Toronto, ON: Nelson Education.

Howe, D. (2009). A brief introduction to social work theory. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Myers, D. G., Spencer, S. J., & Jordan, C. H. (2009). Social psychology (4th Canadian ed). Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.

Parada, H., Barnoff, L., Moffatt, K., & Homan, M. S. (2011). Promoting community change: making it happen in the real world (1st Canadian ed.). Toronto, ON: Nelson Education.

Santrock, J. W. (2014). Child development (14th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

White, M. (2007). Maps of narrative practice. New York, NY; W. W. Norton & Company