Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series Foreword
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Re-Searching Psychotherapy as a Social Practice
- 2 Theorizing Persons in Structures of Social Practice
- 3 A Study – Its Design and Conduct
- 4 Clients' Ordinary Lives Plus Sessions
- 5 Therapy in Clients' Social Practice across Places
- 6 Changes in Clients' Practice across Places
- 7 Changing Problems across Places
- 8 The Conduct of Everyday Life and the Life Trajectory
- 9 The Children's Changing Conducts of Everyday Life and Life Trajectories
- 10 The Parents' Changing Conducts of Everyday Life and Life Trajectories
- 11 The Changing Conduct of Everyday Family Life and Family Trajectory
- 12 Research in Social Practice
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index
- Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive, and Computational Perspectives
10 - The Parents' Changing Conducts of Everyday Life and Life Trajectories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series Foreword
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Re-Searching Psychotherapy as a Social Practice
- 2 Theorizing Persons in Structures of Social Practice
- 3 A Study – Its Design and Conduct
- 4 Clients' Ordinary Lives Plus Sessions
- 5 Therapy in Clients' Social Practice across Places
- 6 Changes in Clients' Practice across Places
- 7 Changing Problems across Places
- 8 The Conduct of Everyday Life and the Life Trajectory
- 9 The Children's Changing Conducts of Everyday Life and Life Trajectories
- 10 The Parents' Changing Conducts of Everyday Life and Life Trajectories
- 11 The Changing Conduct of Everyday Family Life and Family Trajectory
- 12 Research in Social Practice
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index
- Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive, and Computational Perspectives
Summary
Mary
Being Strongly Committed to Leading an Ordinary Life
When we meet this family, Mary is strongly committed to the life she leads and pursues her stances on it emphatically. Compared to her daughters, she leads a much more settled life. It is also very ordinary. But, although it may seem very stable, it is really more ordinary than stable, for three reasons. First, Mary's outspoken stances and commitments leave an impression of stability though she has no firm grip on her life as the family problems indicate. The emphatic articulation of her stances may rather be a reaction against her lack of command over the troubles. Second, the ordinariness of her life is in part an outcome of Mary taking charge of compensating for the problems. Third, though Mary defends it so vigorously, it is not clear whether the life she leads is satisfying to her. All the same, it is very important for her to maintain a stable family life for all members of her family, and she accommodates her conduct of everyday life to serve this end, making it seem very ordinary, articulate, and stable.
Later Mary clearly is dissatisfied with the life she leads and wants it to change. This dissatisfaction arises from calling herself and the others to account on certain aspects of their lives, which gives her pursuit of change a particular dynamics and shape.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Psychotherapy in Everyday Life , pp. 226 - 254Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007