Martha made these tweets into a storify as well. You can see it here: Stories Rarely Told: Listening, suppression and narrative burden. It contains more tweets than what I’ve included below. I simply wanted to be sure to share most of them here. Martha Crawford often does these amazing tweet collections. I’ve posted a couple on this blog before. They’re worth reading as well. See: Reactivity, empathy, perpetrator and victims and The psychotherapeutic community needs to tolerate diversity, dissonance, divergence
Active listening is not always silent. But it is attuned to the realities that our roles and needs in dialogue are not equal.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
Active listening acknowledges that one participant’s experience or imput is secondary at least for the time being, but sometimes forever. — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
This is especially true when listening to a member of a group whose narratives have marginalized, suppressed, disenfranchised.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
If you see your own story mirrored accurately everywhere – and someone is telling you a story that differs from the dominant narrative… — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
…. In order to actively listen, you must remain conscious of this discrepancy.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
Stories more rarely told need to be listened to more carefully than stories often told — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
When someone offers you their hidden pearls – don’t behave like swine.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
Narrative burden is a real thing. And those with harder stories to tell, those with stories which challenge the “norm” …. — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
… Are summoning a special kind of courage when they share ANYTHING about their experience.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
Those who carry a narrative burden are telling a story on top of a wound of disenfranchisement. — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
There are many painful tales, of mourning, of loss, of illness of suffering that are still enfranchised, culturally sanctioned stories.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
And as painful as they may be, sharing enfranchised stories is not the same as telling a disenfranchised narrative. — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
Culturally sanctioned grief has collective rituals acceptance encircling it, making it a different experience than disenfranchised grief.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
To continue to use grief as an example – there are rituals created for usual, expectable losses: “I’m so sorry for your loss” for example. — Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
But those rituals – designed to support losses within the common dominant narrative – are re-injuring to those with narrative burdens.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
Someone whose abusive parent dies may experience something intense and life-altering – but it may be rage. Or relief.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
“I’m so sorry for your loss” and the common cultural rituals re-injure, harm, compound pain.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
So – that was just one example – but there are THOUSANDS of stories that you can’t listen to or acknowledge using the common vernacular.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
Active listening to those with narrative burdens requires acknowledging that WE DO NOT ALL LIVE LIVES that are equally enfranchised.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
And you must be conscious, in the face of a disenfranchised narrative, that the “listening rituals” designed for the dominant narrative…
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
… Can enrage, reinjure, wound, alienate, shut down and suppress the very story that you were hoping to hear.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
@DukeOfVinings @jaypsyd How often do we hear SUPPRESSED stories? We don’t. They are SUPPRESSED.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
@DukeOfVinings @jaypsyd and we all participate in this suppression somewhere in some form. I speak of myself most certainly as well.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
Active listening requires acknowledging that WE DO NOT ALL LIVE LIVES that are equally enfranchised.
— Martha Crawford LCSW (@shrinkthinks) October 28, 2014
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