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 And
if context is crucial for Heidegger, so too is it
crucial for the conversation analyst. Because
everyday conversation itself depends on and works
with context in complex and critical ways, the
analysis of conversation requires careful attention
to context. Indeed, speech acts can be treated as
first and foremost operations on context (Levinson,
1983, p. 276). Context is important both in the
form of surrounding discourse (what Lyons, c 1995,
p. 258, calls "co-text"), and in the form of the
broader social settings in which any conversation
is located. Robert Nofsinger points out that:
"utterances
are both context-shaped and context-renewing.
That is, each utterance is interpreted in the
context of the talk that preceded it and forms
part of the context of talk that follows it.
This aspect of context is constructed,
maintained, and modified turn by turn as the
conversation progresses. Context, in this
immediate and narrow sense, is composed not just
of what people know, but of what participants do
to show each other which items of their shared
knowledge should be used in making
interpretations. The conversational actions
produced by participants create an interpretive
resource that is used to align conversational
understanding" (Nofsinger, 1991, pp. 142-143).
And
Goodwin and Duranti remark that it is very often
the case that a "focal event cannot be properly
understood, interpreted appropriately, or described
in a relevant fashion, unless one looks beyond the
event itself to other phenomena (for example
cultural setting, speech situation, shared
background assumptions) within which the event is
embedded" and that often "features of the talk
itself invoke particular background assumptions
relevant to the organization of the subsequent
interaction" (1992, p. 3). At the same time it must
be acknowledged that "the scope of context is not
easy to define... one must consider the social and
psychological world in which the language user
operates at any given time" (Ochs, 1979, p. 1,
cited in Levinson, 1983, p. 23).
Indexicality
has been called "the single most obvious way in
which the relationship between language and context
is reftected in the structures of languages
themselves" (Levinson, 1983, p. 54). Indexicals
point: think of one's index finger, the one used
for pointing. To understand the sense, to get the
point or feel the force, of an tterance that
contains n indexical, one needs to know something
of the context. To judge whether "I am Tom" is true
or false, one has to know the identity of the
speaker. Hanks (1992) has written that "verbal
deixis is a central aspect of the social matrix of
orientation and perception through which speakers
produce context." There is a variety of ways :
grammatical features can tie talk to context:
pronouns ("he," "she"), demonstratives, time and
place adverbs ("here," "there," "now," "then"), as
well as features such as verb tense. Tracing the
indexicals of a conversation allows one to identify
the contexts invoked and what is being done with
them. An utterance has the power to index referents
and thus invoke context. Understanding this is
central to grasping the way talk can change
people.
Conversation
analysis offers a way to describe talk that is
sensitive to context and temporal organization--the
phenomena that 1 suggested earlier are lost by
coding-scheme approaches to therapeutic
interaction. Deployed within a non-dualistic ontol-
i ogy attentive to the "upon which" of being,
conversation analysis is the first step in an
articulation of the ontological work in which
people position themselves and are positioned by
others, are moved, and are changed.
THE
INTERPRETIVE ANALYSIS OF
EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOTHERAPY
Each
of the four papers that follow tells us something
about the therapeutic process as it is exemplified
in Laing's psychotherapy demonstration. Each uses
the techniques of conversation analysis in order to
articulate what is accomplished in the ongoing
dialogue between Laing and Leila. But each goes
further, showing us the ontological work that is
done. Scott Bortle draws from Heidegger's notion of
the ontological power of context; Yael Goldman
explores Laing's own writings on the genesis of
schizophrenia; Jenny Hwang extends the pragmatic
analysis into a consideration of pragmatic paradox;
and Lynn Harper re-contextualizes the demonstration
within the larger setting of the 1985 Laing
conference. Let me briefly summarize the work:
Scott
Bortle, in the first paper, "Building context:
Transpersonal reality in existential
psychotherapy," looks at the way several distinct
contexts are invoked in the course of the
conversation. He describes how the "here-and-now"
of the interaction is as a result progressively
enriched, to build what Laing will later call a
"transpersonal field," with the consequence that
both Laing and Leila have a richer understanding of
who the other is. The contexts of family and
Christianity prove particularly important,.because
it becomes evident in Leila's contribution to the
discourse that her personal history is one in which
these two contexts are laminated together, melded.
The result, Bortle proposes, is an ontological
muddle, which Laing both recognizes and is able to
help Leila find a way out of. Bortle notes the
central role that the concept of context plays in
both Heidegger's ontological investigation in
Being and Time, and in conversation
analysis. He draws on Heidegger's argument that
context has an ontological priority--that it is the
"upon which" of being, to show us that it is
through a sensitive response to the lamination of
the contexts that Laing accomplishes therapeutic
change. The "unfaithful daughter" finds that she
could instead be "happily indifferent," a stance
that is legitimate within bothcontexts; a way to be
both a daughter and a Christian. Now she knows who
she is.
In
the second paper, "Speaking with the Gospel," Yael
Goldman picks up where Bortle leaves off, and shows
how the enriched here-and-now of the conversation
enables Laing to achieve a therapeutic "short-cut"
that accomplishes repositioning and ontological
change. The conversation begins with Leila in an
ontological muddle, in confusion over who she is.
Is she paranoid? Is she a Christian? Is she an
unfaithful daughter? Goldman's analysis maps how
Laing helps Leila clarify the basis of this
confusion, and open up an alternative. Goldman
draws our attention to several respects in which
the discourse of this demonstration departs from
what we would typically consider the norm for
therapeutic discourse. In particular, she examines
Laing's citation of a passage from the New
Testament, and argues that this citation functions
as a pragmatic short-cut, enabling Laing to make
quick and efficient use of the laminated contexts
that Bortle has described. It does some of their
interactional work for them, by exploiting and
explicating the interwoven contexts.
Goldman
also makes reference to Laing's writing on "making
madness comprehensible," and suggests that he uses
the bible passage to make the point that separation
from the bonds and knots of family life may be
necessary for ones sanity. At this point in the
demonstration Laing and Leila have already aligned
with one another as skeptical, even radical,
Christians. Now an entire metapsychology is
encapsulated in Laing's citation, in a form
designed for a deeply religious recipient. And its
appropriate reception depends on her recognition of
his religiosity.
In
"A reading of pragmatics and paradox," Jenny Hwang
extends the analysis of the pragmatics of the
demonstration to include an interpretation of the
logical properties of the conversational action,
including what Watzlawick, Beavin and Jackson
(1967) called its "pragmatic paradoxes." Hwang
traces the way Laing challenges Leila's
formulations, countering her pessimism and despair.
Hwang describes Leila's changing attitude and
changing ontological commitments as she becomes
more certain who she is. Laing's citation of the
bible passage can be understood, Hwang proposes, as
a metacommunication, an intervention in the
paradoxical language game that Leila has been
playing, that involves "prescribing the
symptom."
And
in "Therapeutic inversions," Lynn Harper
recontextualizes the interaction between Laing and
Leila, reminding us that the demonstration occurred
at a difficult time in Laing's career and life. She
raises the question of whom the demonstration was
designed to benefit: Leila, Laing himself, the
conference organizers, or the attendees? Her answer
is that there is an inescapable ambiguity here,
even contradiction, and that an equal ambiguity
attends the outcome of the demonstration. When
Leila accompanies Laing onto the stage to face the
audience, is she cured, truly no longer showing
symptoms, or is the demonstration in fact
continuing, Leila still an entertaining spectacle
for the audience? If the world is crazy, as Laing
was fond of saying, it is is [sic]
"stupid," "ugly," and "inexpressibly confused," if
"the conference is a conspiracy," then what is the
benefit to overcoming schizophrenic withdrawal to
become a participant again? This ambiguity, Harper
argues, runs through the entire interaction, as
Laing repeatedly adopts the stance of expert
authority and at the same time disavows and
undercuts it. And the demonstration places Laing,
not just Leila, in the position of the person who
is observed, judged, and evaluated.
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