Finland
“How to meet diversity and complexity in a dialogical way?”
Eija-Liisa Rautiainen
Clinical psychologist, PhD
Dialogical thinking and practices have been developed in mental health and social services for decades in Finland and other countries. It remains a challenge: how to meet our clients in their challenging life situations in our challenging work situations with various pressures of lack of resources, difficulties in coordinating different services, problems with collaboration between the services, demand for evidence base etc.
Abstract
Eija-Liisa Rautiainen has a PhD in psychology and is an experienced trainer and supervisor. Throughout her professional career she has been interested in dialogues. To her, dialogue is thinking together in a way that respects each other’s otherness and, at its best, creates something new. Rautiainen has extensive experience as a psychologist working with adults in mental health, and her dissertation was on couples therapy for depression. For the last twenty years she has been a full-time trainer in family and couples therapy and dialogical supervision training.
In my presentation, I will discuss the challenges and the possibilities of working dialogically.
I offer philosophical and practical ideas for practitioners to approach life’s complexity and diversity dialogically. Respecting the otherness, creating enough structure in the processes of collaboration, listening, being moved, and trying to remain sensitive and brave simultaneously, to mention some.