J. Christopher Muran fhen I finished reading Steven C. Hayes's and .... Gadamer, H.-G. (1975). Truth and method (G. Barden & J. Cummings, Trans.). New York:.
Reply: The Power of/in Language J. Christopher Muran
fhen I finished reading Steven C. Hayes's and Kimberlyn Leary's commentaries, my first thought was, "I'd love to talk with them." I was impressed by how much common ground there was in our respective positions, but I also became very curious about certain comments that suggested difference or that indicated a direction for elaboration. I wanted to talk to them and ask them exactly what they meant by this or that. I wanted to engage them in a spoken dialogue so that I could really grasp their perspectives. As editor of this volume, it would have been especially easy for me to do something like that, but I also realized that was not how the other dialogues in this book were designed to proceed. So 1 restrained myself and decided to deal with the constraints of written dialogue. I think this scenario captures a very important point about language: It illustrates both its limits and its potential. Hayes seems to strike a skeptical, even pessimistic, chord in his take on language. On the one hand, he describes humans as "languaging creatures" and uses language to organize his theory of cognition, identifying three senses of self, which provides a useful conceptual framework. On the other hand, he describes the "repertoire-narrowing impact" of language (p. 277). He discusses the danger of buying into our stories about our clients and ourselves and suggests that attachment to these stories serves as a barrier to "pure consciousness" and "connection," reflecting the influence of the mindfulness tradition on his thinking (p. 276). He thus suggests that cognition and empathy can be (and maybe should be) beyond language. This is where I think we differ, assuming that I have fairly grasped his position. From my perspective, there is no way out of the grip of language, and I don't mean this in a pessimistic sense: I mean this in a paradoxical sense. I adopt a both/and sensibility (Derrida, 1978) and assume a poststructuralist position (Habermas, 1979; Lacan, 1977). I do recognize the pitfalls of language and the dangers of our constructions, especially the risk of reification, and I see the potential of language, the power of it, how it can serve to define and differentiate cognition, and how it can heighten empathy by facilitating "a fusion of horizons" between two different positions.
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In her commentary, in addition to a number of important observations, Leary implicates instead the power in language, which sparked in me some further thought. In my essay, I mention the role of the power imbalance in the relationship between client and therapist and the tension between the asymmetrical and mutual dimensions of the therapeutic relationship. My emphasis on mutual recognition and intersubjective negotiation in the psychotherapeutic process must be understood in the context of the therapist's assigned role of authority, something that both client and therapist are invested in. I also made brief mention of the power implications for different gender, sexual, cultural, and racial identities. Nevertheless, I think it is important to elaborate this position by discussing the power implications in language. The critical theorist Michel Foucault (1972) saw power as an effect of language. Language permits us to define the world and others in our world and is the means by which we produce knowledge, which is a form of exercising power. When we define someone by some cultural category (I use culture in the broadest sense to capture the various gender, sexual, racial, and ethnic identities), we introduce a power inequality: for example, male over female, straight over gay, White over Black, gentile over Jew. Knowledge (as produced by language) is power to define others, and thus power over others. It is important to note that Foucault did not see the emergence of a particular knowledge to be the direct result of intentional machinations by powerful people; power, he argued, does not reside in an individual or group. Instead, he saw its emergence as a result of the practical and social conditions of a given culture. Power resides everywhere and is exercised through language. Foucault also did not see language as a repressive force per se, but rather recognized and emphasized its potential to produce knowledge. Gadamer (1960/1975) himself has been criticized for not fully addressing how inequalities in power can condition dialogue. Another critical theorist, Jtirgen Habermas (1979), who wrote extensively on intersubjective communication, challenged Gadamer on this point. For Habermas, although dialogue does not require an egalitarian relationship, it does require some sort of symmetry and reciprocity. Otherwise, our responses in a given dialogue will be seriously distorted by the concern that what we say may be used against us by a more powerful other. So what does this mean for a therapeutic relationship, where, beyond a mutual dimension of two humans encountering each other, there are potentially multiple dimensions of asymmetry, including the power inequalities between therapist and client, male and female, straight and gay, gentile and Jew, and so on? Can Gadamer's dialogic model be realistically applied to a complex therapeutic encounter where there are many power inequalities? Can a fusion of horizons or a meeting of minds ever be achieved in such encounters? To answer these questions, I think it is important to distinguish between authority assigned by social conditions (as Foucault described) and power integral to the natural course of human relations. With regard to the latter, a number of clinical theorists (e.g., Benjamin, 1995; Safran, 2001) have invoked Hegel's (1807/1969)
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master-slave dialectic to better understand the intersubjective process. Hegel described the self as requiring the other to become aware of its consciousness or existence. He also described an unavoidable conflict between the selfs wish for absolute independence and the selfs need for recognition by the other. Accordingly, a precarious tension exists, one that we at least initially try to resolve by mastering the other or by submitting to the other. Either position of extremes, master or slave, involves some form of negation, some form of objectification: The former involves objectifying the other and risks isolation; the latter involves being objectified by the other and risks absolute dependency. There is an ongoing struggle to determine who defines the other and who accommodates whom. Ultimately, to recognize its subjectivity, a self must recognize another as a separate subject, and likewise the other must recognize the self as a separate subject. There must be mutual recognition. This is the realization of the intersubjective position alternatively described by Martin Buber (1923/1958) as the 1-Thou mode of relating. Jessica Benjamin (1995) suggested that Donald Winnicott's (1965) thinking on object use can be thought of as a version of the Hegelian master-slave dialectic, whereby it is only through seeing the other survive one's destructive attempts (or attempts at negation) that one can see the other as a separate subject. Stuart Pizer (1998) developed this perspective further with his notion of intersubjective negotiation. For him, therapists in their interventions and clients in their responses are recurrently saying to each other, "No, you can't make this of me. But you can make that of me" (p. 218). Thus, there are ongoing power plays between client and therapist, accommodations and refusals to accommodate, that convey to the client that the world is negotiable and comprised of others with separate subjectivities. Returning to Foucault's (1972) treatise, these power plays must also be understood as occurring in the context of therapists' already assigned authority. As Irwin Hoffman (1998) highlighted, therapists' personal responsivity stands in dialectic relation to their assigned authority: that is, one can be understood only in the context of the other. For me to admit to a mistake, for example, is much different than for one of my clients to do so. These power plays are also modified by other assignments by social conditions. For me to admit a mistake as a White male is much different than if I were otherwise. Of course, this is also shaped by the gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and other power-imbued identities of my clients. My basic premise is that language is essential to these power plays. I think I have painted a complex picture of intersubjectivity and the prospect of achieving a meeting of the minds in the therapeutic relationship—of coming to a position where one recognizes another as a separate subject and likewise feels recognized as such. All the possible power differentials represent potential pitfalls. This complexity might evoke dread, but as Jurgen Habermas (1979) maintained, once there is conversation, there is hope. However complex our positioning, however distorted our communication, each expression holds some possibility of dialogue and further understanding. What's more, the psychotherapeutic situation can
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encourage its participants to the extent that there is a shared recognition that the therapeutic relationship can be used (as a laboratory of sorts) to unpack these complexities and provide opportunity for greater awareness for both client and therapist. This is the promise of language.
References Benjamin, J. (1995). Like subjects, love objects. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Buber, M., (1958). I and thou (2nd ed., R. G. Smith, Trans.). New York: Charles Scribner. (Original work published 1923) Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and difference (A. Bass, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Foucault, M. (1972). The archeology of knowledge. London: Tavistock. Gadamer, H.-G. (1975). Truth and method (G. Barden & J. Cummings, Trans.). New York: Seabury Press. (Original work published 1960) Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the evolution of society (T. McCarthy, Trans.). London: Heinemann. Hegel, G. W. F. (1969). Phenomenology of spirit. New York: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1807) Hoffman, I. Z. (1998). Ritual and spontaneity in the psychoanalytic process: A dialecticalconstructivist view. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press. Lacan, J. (1977). Ecrits: A selection (A. Sheridon, Trans.). New York: Norton. Pizer, S. A. (1998). Building bridges: The negotiation paradox in psychoanalysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press. SafranJ. D. (2001). Subjects and objects. InJ. C. Muran (Ed.), Self-relations in the psychotherapy process (pp. 159-164). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The maturational process and the facilitating environment. New York: International Universities.
