The Power of Language: Postmodern Ideas & Therapy

What does it mean if something is “Postmodern”? Postmodernism is a movement characterized by skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism. Postmodernist thought has emerged largely as a challenge to the idea of ‘objectivity’ and scientific explanations of reality. It argues that we don’t simply perceive reality as it is but rather actively construct it. That construction will depend on a persons habits, structures we have developed as a society, culture, personal experiences, etc.

Postmodernist argue that people’s knowledge of the world develops in a social context, and that much of what we perceive as objective facts or natural categories is in fact socially constructed. Postmodernism therefore disputes the existence of one objective ‘Truth’ that can apply to everybody. It is understood that different individuals and groups may possess their own truths; “truths” but with a lowercase “t”.

For the postmodernists, knowledge is the written and spoken interactions between certain people and groups. Language, in this view, doesn’t merely describe our world but rather shapes and constructs it. For example, to a group of chemist, water is a compound made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom; and for certain purposes, that way of talking about water is a useful way of seeing it, BUT to others, water can be a holy object. We can bring it into worship. We can bathe one in it at a baptismal ceremony. So how does Postmodernism relate to therapy?

“Once someone excepts something to be true, they have limited themselves to possibilities and creativity”.

- Leo Scaletta

Postmodernism & Therapy

Postmodernist ideas such an emphasis on language and subjectivity, has given rise to some wonderful developments in the field of psychotherapy. It can be helpful for a counselor to be curious about our clients version of truth rather than trying to convince them that they are wrong and we are right. This also creates a more egalitarian dynamic between the therapists and client because the therapists is not seen as the “expert”. Instead, both the therapist and client come together to collaborate and create new understandings. These understandings or meanings are “achieved through coordination among persons—negotiations, agreements, comparing views, and so on” (Gergen, 2015, p. 6).

Two of the most influential approaches that have been influenced by postmodernism have been Narrative Therapy and Solution-Focused Therapy. Both of these therapies view language as the means by which we construct and can deconstruct our identities and our sense of the social world. Both approaches question diagnostic labeling and focus on what’s going right, and on clients’ unique subjective experience.