The Cocreation of Crazy Patchworks: Becoming Rhizomatic in Systemic Therapy

• Published date: 01 September 2015
• Author: Jasmina Sermijn,Gerrit Loots
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12119
• Date: 01 September 2015

The Cocreation of Crazy Patchworks: Becoming

Rhizomatic in Systemic Therapy

JASMINA SERMIJN*

GERRIT LOOTS*

In the field of systemic therapy, there has been much discussion recently about the narra-

tive self. This concept refers to the idea that the self is narratively constructed in and

through the stories which someone tells about him/herself. The story is thereby not only

viewed as a metaphor for selfhood: Selfhood is not compared to a story, it is a story. But

what kind of story are we talking about here? If the self is a story, what does that story look

like? These questions are explored in this article. Starting from the possibilities and limita-

tions of traditional and postmodern visions on the self as a story, an alternative vision is

illustrated. By considering the self as a rhizomatic story, we not only create a useful view of

the way narrative selfhood is constructed within a therapy context, but we also stimulate

therapists to coconstruct—together with their clients—patchworks of self-stories. By using

story fragments of our own practice, we illustrate the rhizomatic thinking and its possibili-

ties in therapy.

Keywords: Narrative Therapy; Rhizomatic Thinking; Coconstruction of Selfhood

Fam Proc 54:533–544, 2015

Last decades, the “narrative turn” in humanities and social sciences found expression

within the field of counseling and psychotherapy in the form of an emerging narrative

approach. McLeod (1997, 2003) distinguished three quite distinct lines of development in

relation to the evolution of narrative approaches in therapy. The three theoretical orienta-

tions that have been most involved in this development are the psychodynamic, construc-

tivist, and social constructionist approaches. Psychodynamic writers and practitioners

mainly viewed narratives as sources of information about unconscious dynamics and

habitual ways of relating to others. They interpreted narratives as representations of a

person’s inner life and relational patterns, more generally, as representations of real life.

On the other hand, constructivist and social constructionist approaches have considered

narratives as life itself. As Freedman and Combs (1996, pp. 137–138), stated: “the stories

that we act out with each other are not about our lives; in the domain of meaning, they are

our lives.” In contrast to the psychodynamic approach that evolved to practicing psychody-

namic therapy in a narrative-informed fashion, constructivist and social constructionist

approaches recently have led to the development of narrative-oriented or narrative psy-

chotherapy.

Within the field of systemic therapy, the interest in social constructionism (Anderson,

1997, 2012; Anderson, 1998; Gergen, 1989, 1991; Gergen, 1999) and in the narrative turn

*Faculty of Psychology and Pedagogy, Brussels Free University (VUB), Research Group IDNS-VUB, Brussels

Belgium.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jasmina Sermijn, Faculty of Psychology

and Pedagogy, Brussels Free University (VUB), Research group IDNS-VUB, Pleinlaan 1, 1050 Brussels,

Belgium. E-mail: jasmina.sermijn@vub.ac.be.

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Family Process, Vol. 54, No. 3, 2015 ©2015 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12119