Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T20:13:26.209Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Becoming Dialogical: Psychotherapy or a Way of Life?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2012

Jaakko Seikkula*
Affiliation:
University of Jyväskylä, [email protected]
*
*Address for correspondence: Jaakko Seikkula, PO Box 35, 40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
Get access

Abstract

After birth the first thing we learn is becoming a participant in dialogue. We are born in relations and those relations become our structure. Intersubjectivity is the basis of human experience and dialogue the way we live it. In this paper the dilemma of looking at dialogue as either a way of life or a therapeutic method is described. The background is the open dialogue psychiatric system that was initiated in Finnish Western Lapland. The author was part of the team re-organizing psychiatry and afterwards became involved in many different types of projects in dialogical practices. Lately the focus has shifted from looking at speech to seeing the entire embodied human being in the present moment, especially in multifarious settings. Referring to studies on good outcomes in acute psychosis, the contribution of dialogical practice as a psychological resource will be clarified.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)