Dialogue is being increasingly recognised as a means to improve relationships in many different contexts  - from conflicts between nations through to couples who would like things to be better for them both.

Without dialogue we cannot learn about why people take the positions they do, nor will they understand the positions we take. When people take opposing positions, without dialogue, there will be conflict.

There are recognised therapeutic approaches that hold dialogue as central to the practice – these would include the successful Open Dialogue Approach used in Finland to work with first onset serious mental health problems and the more recent Dialogue of Acknowledgement approach for couples work, and many family therapists incorporate principles from dialogue in their practice.

Family Dialogue ^© can enhance family relationships, increase respect, strengthen family resilience and can help many families where there are difficulties.

To start to use this approach, I recommend that you work together and follow the guidelines below to improve communication.

To begin, it is important we appreciate that Family Dialogue^© requires that everyone involved does four things:

Suspend our judgement
When we learn to suspend judgement, or “hold our positions more lightly”, we open the door to really listen to other family members’ points of view. It is not that we do away with our judgments and opinions – this would be impossible. We simply create a space between our judgment and our reaction, and thus open a door for listening.

Identify our assumptions
It is probably obvious to most of us that our assumptions play a large role in how we evaluate our environment, the decisions we make and how we behave. Yet, it is just this aspect of our thinking that we consistently overlook when we seek to solve problems, resolve conflicts, or create a sense of belonging and togetherness for family members who are all unique individuals. Our prejudices are ‘pre-judgements’, and sometimes we need to reflect on these ideas we hold. By learning how to identify our assumptions, we can also explore differences with other members of the family, work to build common ground and consensus, and get to the bottom of core misunderstandings and differences.

Listening: Key to Perception
The way we listen has a lot to do with our capacity to learn and build quality relationships with others. When we are able to suspend judgment and listen to different perspectives we expand and deepen our world view. It is the act of listening that allows for integration and synthesis of new insights and possibilities. When we listen deeply we are willing to be influenced by and learn from others. This sometimes means challenging old fashioned views about who gets listened to in families; in Family Dialogue^©, everyone in the family has an equal voice.

Inquiry and Reflection
Inquiry (asking questions) elicits information. In Family Dialogue^©, this means that members of the family will ask other family members questions in order to better understand them. Reflection on the answers and what we hear permits the inspection of information and the perception of relationships. This combination of reflection and inquiry enables us to learn, to think creatively, and to build on past experience (versus simply repeating the same patterns over and over again). By creating pauses to reflect, we learn to work with silence and slow down the rate of conversation. We become able to identify assumptions and reactive patterns and open the door for new ideas and possibilities.

General Tips

Create space to listen to each other, and think about what each person says. Reflect on it, don’t just try to think of a reason why they are wrong! Be curious about why they feel the way they do. Equally you ALL have a right to be heard in the same way; the other members of the family must listen to each other, and really make an effort to appreciate the other person’s point of view.

By doing this, opportunities to learn about each other, and possibilities for new ways of dealing with old problems can emerge.

Give it a go!

I’m happy to provide workshops, talks to groups or to work with individual families to promote Family Dialogue^©