self worth

'what [naturally self centred] man needs most is to feel secure in his self-esteem. Man is not just a blind glob of idling protoplasm, but a creature with a name who lives in a world of symbols and dreams and not merely matter. His sense of self-worth is constituted symbolically, his cherished narcissism feeds on symbols [medals, honors, a celebrity moment], on an abstract idea of his own worth, an idea composed of sounds, words and images, in the air, in the mind, on paper [on the screen]. And this means that man's natural yearning for organismic activity, the pleasures of incorporation and expansion, can be fed limitlessly in the domain of symbols and so into immortality. The single organism can expand into dimensions of worlds and times without moving a physical limb; it can take eternity into itself even as it gaspingly dies.'

Ernest Becker, 'The Denial of Death'

Seems to me a useful way of thinking about the limitations of mortality on one hand, and the boundless nature of symbolism, free of space time, on the other. Acknowledging the selfishness of healthy narcissism, and also the creativity of symbolic thought and imagining .

Conversation

I am not sure if I need to write about conversation conversationally or not. In view of our negative capability sub text, it probably does not matter.
I think about conversation and its cognates from two rather different perspectives. And these two perspectives are captured rather well, I think, in the ambiguity of the name of our blog. Conversations can refer to the dialogical interaction between the participants in counselling and, on the other hand, it can refer to an interchange on the topic of counselling.
I am drawn to the word conversation as suggestive of an open non hierarchical mode of exchange where doubt may be ever present.
There is more about conversation that is rather philosophical. Richard Rorty is particularly good on this, and the reference that appeals to me is to be found near to the end of his book, Philosopy and the Mirror of Nature.

Rorty writes, "To see keeping a conversation going as a sufficient aim of philosophy, to see wisdom as consisting in the ability to sustain a conversation, is to see human beings as generators of new descriptions rather than beings one hopes to be able to describe accurately. To see the aim of philosophy as truth.....is to see human beings as objects rather than subjects......"
Now, replace the word philosophy by therapy or psychotherapy or psychoanalysis. How much psychotherapeutic writing is guilty of what Rorty ascribes to traditional philososophy, namely treating human beings as objects?

Introductions

Ron and Ken, psychotherapists, have been meeting and discussing regularly for several years. Initially we wondered about the mind, consciousness and thinking in relation to computing, the internet and cyberspace. The internet, and especially Web 2.o, is developing into 'an ecosystem for communicating, connecting, collaborating and creatively expressing ideas and information in revolutionary new ways.' Duane Nickull of Adobe.

More recently we have thought about online counselling as a focus for communication and connecting, and what word(s) to use that might denote in what form such an experience might unfold. We like Counselling Conversations, two words that together seem to capture something deeply important about a certain sort of process and experience.

So, let us begin with conversation.