Relationships

We each generate our ‘self-story’, which is our self-identity or how we see ourselves. Our self-story emanates from our communities’ meta-narratives. When we are born, we come into an existing network of relationships and conversations – usually this is a family who initiate our self-story by giving us a name. Family members have stories about […]

Without thinking about it, we create interpretations of what someone we encounter means to us. Are they a colleague, manager, subordinate? Are they an enemy, acquaintance or a friend? How we define a relationship will determine our sense of the role or roles we take on within that relationship. The nature of our relationships is

Social reality is founded in what a community agrees to be real. Whereas physical reality exists independent of a human observer, social reality is built through human language in the form of ideas and categorisation. A country is a social reality. Money is a social reality. The legal system is a social reality. A democratic

We speak of love all the time but what does it mean to love someone? Is it a feeling? An assessment? A declaration? As with all emotions in this work, love is predominantly an interpretation of our sensations in the context of the situation. Thousands of years ago, the Greeks defined a number of types

Through our conversations, we also build up stories about our shared experiences. These stories form the basis of commonly held meaning and future interactions. In communities, over time these stories develop into bigger narratives into which come other people. For instance, families develop ‘meta-narratives’ about the family and its norms and traditions. We born into

Conversations are not just a means of sharing information, more importantly they are the vehicle for the creation of social reality and the coordination of action with others. Whenever we relate to another human being, we have conversations with them. When we come into contact with someone there are public conversations, but we are also

Our interpretations of the world include interpretations of ourselves as human beings. In other words, we build the meaning of who we are into our self-story, which emanates from our experiences particularly as they relate to our core concerns. Our ‘dignity’ refers to assessments of the respect held for our sense of self.  Our sense

In this work, authenticity speaks to the alignment between how we actually live life and our way of being and our self-story. This idea was explored in the notes on ‘Authenticity’ and put forward the premise that we are always authentic in our actions yet this sometimes does not match our self-story. If we can

It is all too easy to think of trust as binary – I either trust you or I do not. However, such an interpretation leaves little room to build better relationships. Furthermore, if we interpret trust as the four assessments of sincerity, competence, reliability and involvement then we can never completely trust anyone anyway. As

 An alternative approach to the Paradigm of Control is the ‘Paradigm of Trust’. Trust is generally seen as the basis of healthy relationships and with good reason. Whereas the Paradigm of Control has the speaker’s interests at heart, those using the Paradigm of Trust seek to take care of all those involved. This does not