Marin CAMFT On-Demand Training

Family therapists in the United States, regardless of their linguistic ancestries, are trained to develop a specialized skill to listen intentionally to various aspects of a person or family’s life for purposes of change. How we come to learn to listen in our practice is highly shaped by the various family therapy models we subscribe to. These models lead us to listen either to patterns, exceptions, attachments, behaviors, emotions, etc.

Family therapists whose practices are guided by philosophies such as postmodernism, poststructuralism, and socioconstructionism tune their ears to client’s language by paying close attention to the meaning that people attribute to their lives and relationships, linguistically.  In this presentation, participants will hear how family therapy is not only shaped by philosophies, theories, and practices, but by the logic of the English language within which these ideas emerged or have been disseminated. Consequently, the English language has influenced the way in which therapists listen and make sense of clients' lives. This is the case even when family therapy is practiced in a non-English language.

This presentation is facilitated from a decolonial perspective in relation to the colonial role that English has gained in grammatically dominating the control of language, therefore knowledge and narratives globally, specifically when attuning therapists to its English logic, muting the logic of non-English languages. This training is situated at the borderlands as a point of departure for articulating possibilities in which English is one among many other linguistic possibilities from where to think and do therapy. Specifically, Spanglish will be situated as a borderlands to engage English speakers into poly-lingual considerations that go beyond English, without requiring to leave the English language behind. The discussion will be supported by experiences of practice and training bilingual and monolingual family therapists.