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Shaun,
You are right responsive responsibility for me is complex. Here is an example of the difficulty that arises from trying to express meaning concisely in the printed word when individuals and the way we practise are dependent on our individually created meaning and the contexts in which create them. For me, responsive responsibily emerged from my trying to be alongside ('unconditional positive regard' - or similiar) with parents so they can grow towards their good intentions. I found it often left children waiting too long for their parents to grow up and to be as responsive as the children needed for their own growth. It is a risky business and I found I sometimes need to change my focus to act for the sake of the children in ways that can cause dissonance with their parents. The features of respect etc. remain intact but there is a palpable difference in the relationship. In
the research process I realised that although this felt difficult, it is actually what we all do frequently in life - balance competing values (eg positive regard for the parents or 'rights' of the child). One value may be contradicted but another may be even more important in that scenario.
I have had to learn to be more congruent (may be the same thing as responsive responsibility?), but even congruence does not explain the thinking/acting shift I may need to go through. The differences between acting as myself or as professional are not as different as it would seem on the face of it if the motivations behind professional practice are founded on recognisable values. So being authentic is important to me in my professional role, which is why I operate below the radar quite a lot. Recently it became obvious that self-protection is not at the forefront of my motivations - or at least that is what others thought they saw.
This is probably exceptionally tedious for everyone else but the point of it is that we are all different. I was so lucky to have weekly access to people in the Monday group who would allow me to mull it over in public and find it out for myself - an educational opportunity not to be sniffed at. The very process itself was a kind of triangulation for insights I call alongsideness (validation if you prefer!).
‘……………where the intellectual justification seems to me to become so important in revealing the logical shortcomings of objective rationality, and how these can be resolved, as explicitly as possible.’
I am not sure that this will help. I tend to feel that it will be in changing practice/s exploring and playing at discovering the practical relational dynamic that will help develop an inclusional reciprocation in the context – even if the greater or more disconnected context is non inclusional.
My experience has been that in my practice it is in each individual encouragement of dynamic relational inclusionality will help in its multiplicity to enable the emergence of a dynamic that will not accept anything else other than dynamic relational inclusionality.
Both the intellectual and emotional validity is based on practical experience not just of what we say but also what we do as self in neighbourhood and neighbourhood in self. Indeed sustaining inclusional practice is never easy ….but encouraging others to develop their own inclusional practice in the context of an emergent dynamic inclusional relationship will help both you/self and neighbourhood to self sustain and direct .
When this occurs the flow of energies within those loving and respectful relationships is a joyful learning experience ( a discovery) for all , and its lack of propositional objective rationality a bonus. The experience of this is always more challenging and uncertain than intellectualising abstracting and rationalising head and heart (via the written word) out of context.
Robyn I cannot fully comprehend the nature of responsive responsibility without pondering the differences that exists ( if any) between the authenticity of the individual and the professional – in context. My feeling is that it does imply ‘ professional distance/power in some ways’ maybe for the reasons of self protection within a particular context but maybe also at the cost of the authentic self.
Shaun
From: Practitioner-Researcher [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alan Rayner (BU)
Dear Geisha,
Yes, you keep raising very significant issues regarding the difficulty of sustaining 'inclusional practice' in a non-inclusional culture, where the need to protect the implicit vulnerability of 'receptive-responsive reciprocity' from abuse becomes paramount. There is then a very real sense of being forced up against, and hence appearing to contradict, the attitude that contradicts the 'living neighbourhood' of 'self'. This is where the intellectual justification seems to me to become so important in revealing the logical shortcomings of objective rationality, and how these can be resolved, as explicitly as possible. My hope is that as more of us become adept at this, and recognise the intellectual as well as emotional validity of what we are saying, the less we will individually find ourselves cornered by those who are very sure of their rationalistic arguments for no good reason.
Warmest
Alan
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