From Not-Knowing to Both-Knowing: An Exploration of a Both-Knowing Approach on Counsellor Presence

As an emerging collaborative constructionist counsellor, it became clear to me early on in my studies that I would strive to adopt Michael White’s (2005) “decentred and influential” positioning as part of my practice. In my personal and professional spheres, I hold on tightly to the value of curiosity and the belief that people are experts in their own lives, thus it has become central to my practice to privilege client expertise and not assume I have the answers to the client’s problem – an integral component of a “decentred and influential” positioning (D’Arcy & Holmes, 2019; Ilic, 2017; White, 2005). This component, often referred to as a “not-knowing” approach was first coined by Anderson and Goolishian (1992), and fitting with the post-structuralist belief that knowledge is subjective, it posits that counsellors should communicate ‘abundant generous curiosity’ towards their client and not try to fit their client into their own “knowing” i.e. theories and knowledge (Ilic, 2017). Instead, those practitioners who adopt a ‘not-knowing’ approach, and a decentred and influential positioning invite clients to reflect on their own stories, values and knowledge. This may create an opportunity for the client to feel that they have the agency, skills and resources to be able to live their preferred life (D’Arcy & Holmes, 2019; White, 2005). It is important for me to highlight that the concepts I have been referring to are foundational principles of narrative therapy, a model largely developed by Michael White in the 1970s and 80s (Morgan, 2000). A narrative approach strongly influences my framework of practice and the values I work within.

Throughout this year, I have been attending clinical placement weekly, where I have been developing and reflecting on my emerging counselling framework of practice. Despite my values fitting with, and wanting to adopt a decentred and influential positioning, the “not-knowing” approach has caused a surprising amount of confusion and distraction for me. Early on in my clinic experience, I found that because I was trying too hard to hold onto a “not-knowing” approach, that my inner voice was becoming overwhelmed and I struggled to remain present in the conversation with my client. This happened particularly when something a client said triggered my knowledge, thoughts, theories, and experience, and I felt invited to make assumptions or share my thoughts. Through reflexive practice, via supervision, team debriefs, and journaling, I feel that the overwhelm and distraction I experience come from my desire to hold onto transparency and collaboration – which are other values that are integral to my way of being and practice. Holding onto a “not-knowing” approach in these instances, felt as if I was stifling my transparency with my client by not sharing my thoughts, and that I was not being truly collaborative, by not acknowledging my knowledge in a two-way conversation that is counselling (Reupert, 2006). On the other hand, I felt that if I didn’t adopt a not-knowing approach I was not privileging the client’s expertise and my value of curiosity.

It was in a post-session debrief that I was introduced to a concept called “both-knowing”; an approach described to me by my supervisor where I could simultaneously hold onto my values of curiosity, transparency, collaboration and client expertise, by offering my knowledge and thoughts when they come up in a tentative, and invitational manner, and still provide the client the agency to decide what fits for them and as the expert in their own lives (White, 2005). Upon hearing about this approach, I was eager to adopt it into my framework, and attempt to practice it with clients in my clinical placement.

I have been relieved to find that practicing a both-knowing approach so far in my clinic experience, has allowed me to avoid being overwhelmed and distracted by my inner thoughts and remain present and engaged with my clients. This revelation in my developing framework of practice, as well as from reading the relevant literature has me wondering what it is about practicing both-knowing that makes counsellor presence more possible for me, thus inspiring the research question for this paper: “What both-knowing makes possible for counsellor presence?”

Counsellor presence, while lacking a universal definition, is understood differently across various therapeutic orientations. Psychoanalysts emphasise “evenly hovering attention”, while person-centred therapists stress the importance of being fully present and sensitive to the client moment by moment. Some view presence in a dialogical context, involving self-disclosure and authenticity (Korb, 1988; Rogers, 1957; Tannen & Daniels, 2010). Geller and Greenberg (2002) interviewed therapists from varying orientations and concluded that being fully receptive, congruent, responsive, and intuitive were factors important to counsellor presence. Three domains of counsellor presence were proposed in this study: preparation (factors prior to session to enable presence), process (therapist actions to be present), and finally the in-session experience of presence. The process domain highlights the importance of therapists feeling attuned and trusting of their inner experience and using transparency in communication with their clients to authentically and intuitively respond to the client. Judgement, self-doubt, incongruency, and uncertainty were highlighted as factors that facilitated shutdown and tension in therapists impacting their ability to be present (Geller, 2020). When experiencing presence, therapists reported feeling immersed in the conversation without distraction and being with the client from moment to moment (Geller & Greenberg, 2002).

In exploring the significance of counsellor presence, it's vital to understand why it's important in a counselling context. A study by Geller, Greenberg, and Watson (2010) assessed counsellor presence through post-session ratings by both therapists and clients, along with clients’ perceptions of the therapeutic alliance. The results showed that when therapists and clients both perceived strong counsellor presence, clients reported a more positive therapeutic alliance. This finding aligns with other research suggesting that counsellor presence is key to developing a strong therapeutic relationship, which in turn makes clients feel open and safe (Cooper, 2005). As the therapeutic alliance is a known contributor to therapeutic change, counsellor presence is thus considered an important factor in facilitating client change (Lambert & Cattaini-Thompson, 1996; Geller & Greenberg, 2002).

Rober et al. (2008) expanded on this idea and developed a detailed model of the therapist’s inner dialogue. Family therapists' reflections after counselling role-plays were analysed to reveal four categories of inner dialogue: attending to client process, processing the client's story, attending to the therapist's own experience, and managing the therapeutic process. The categories are often interwoven and thus can create a cacophony of inner voices speaking from differing perspectives, and it’s suggested this complexity can lead to tension and “stuckness” for therapists.

Anderson and Goolishian (1988) suggest that in order to turn this inner dialogue into spoken dialogue, therapists should share their internal thoughts and ideas, on the condition it enables continued conversation. This can create an opportunity for the exploration of new dialogue and ideas. It’s recommended that therapists be in continuous contact with their inner dialogue to offer their thoughts and insight in a collaborative, respectful, and tentative manner, as this can initiate the “not yet said” for new perspectives and meanings to be made. This approach suggests transparency is an integral element in helping therapists to become unstuck from their inner dialogue, and continue effective communication, presence, and engagement with the client.

As mentioned in the introduction, a not-knowing approach is a position a therapist takes where they are abundantly genuinely curious toward their client (Anderson & Goolishian, 1992; Rober, 2005). It lies within a social constructionist epistemology that believes knowledge is subjective and socially constructed through language, particularly aligning with Michael White’s (2005) decentred and influential theory. It suggests that therapists using a not-knowing approach promote client agency, collaboration, freedom, and a power-with relationship with their client (Anderson & Goolishian, 1992).

Critiques of the not-knowing approach posit that it pushes aside and diminishes therapist knowledge, thoughts, and experiences, and thus weakens the collaborative mutuality of the conversation, as well as the therapeutic relationship due to lack of transparency and authenticity (Rober, 2005). In response to these criticisms, Anderson (2005), has specified that a not-knowing approach should not devalue the therapist's knowledge or perspective and that assumptions and sharing knowledge are important, however they emphasise that if a therapist chooses to “go public” with their inner thoughts that they do so in a collaborative, tentative way to allow for client suggestion or rejection.

The research method I have used to collect data for this research is autoethnography. Autoethnography is described as a qualitative research method combining elements of autobiography and ethnography, where researchers use their personal experiences as a lens to explore broader cultural, social, and political phenomena (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). This research method was chosen as it provides rich insights into human experiences and bridges personal narratives with larger societal contexts (Chang, 2008). This is particularly important to me as a collaborative constructionist counsellor, as I believe that the meanings we make and give to our stories are socially constructed, particularly by language. Thus, it is important in this study to highlight that this research is from my perspective and that I acknowledge that other counsellors using a both-knowing approach may have a different perspective to me.

It also speaks to my social justice values in that it is an empowering tool for researchers, particularly from marginalised communities to share their stories and promote inclusivity in academia by deconstructing dominant societal discourses and making novel contributions to a research field (Adams et al., 2017). While I do not identify as coming from a marginalised group, I hope that by sharing my perspective and experience of counsellor presence when practicing both-knowing, I can facilitate conversations for counsellors from all communities to share and voice their perspectives too. Additionally, using autoethnographic methodology will enable me to deconstruct dominant discourses. For example, I will be in a way deconstructing the idea that post-structuralist counsellors should be taking a not-knowing approach. On the other hand, a limitation of autoethnographic research is that it only allows me to research from my personal experience, therefore my ability to generalise this research to the wider population, particularly to those from other cultural backgrounds is limited.

The method used to collect my autoethnographic data were a series of reflective journals, written over 10 months. Through reflections emerging from my clinical experience while being a part of a reflecting team, supervision, readings, and work setting, the journal entries have progressively documented my learning and practice development journey as an emerging counsellor, as well as documenting themes around my experience of practicing both-knowing and its impact on my presence with the client. This data has been analysed by reading and identifying themes and stories that are relevant to the research question. As a collaborative constructionist counsellor writing this paper through my social constructionist epistemological lens, it was also important to me that my journaling privileges reflexivity and demonstrates consideration of multiple perspectives. As part of my data, I will share vignettes highlighting my experience of using not-knowing and both-knowing approaches, and what it has made possible for my presence with clients in session. Each of these experiences is with different clients including both counselling and supervision clients, and at different stages of the therapeutic relationship, to promote different contextual perspectives of a both-knowing approach on counsellor presence. The vignettes are written using structured vignette analysis to provide deeper reflection and offer layered perspective and analysis to each experience to ensure multiple perspectives are considered (Pitard, 2016).

Autoethnographic research presents several ethical considerations and limitations. Autoethnographers need to ensure privacy especially when their stories involve other individuals. It is important to remember that while autoethnographic research is focused on the self, representations of others will be present in our stories and must be ethically considered to avoid misrepresentation, harm and breaches of confidentiality (Adams et al., 2017). It is of utmost importance for me to respect my clients and others privacy in my reflections, thus I have not included any details that would identify them or them in any way. Consent was also obtained from all clients during their first session to be involved in research purposes for the university and its students. From a methodological perspective, due to the researcher’s involvement in autoethnographic research, biases and skewing of data are more likely (Denzin, 2014). To mitigate this, I have privileged reflexivity in my reflections and made sure to continually reflect on and identify my own biases, while considering multiple perspectives (Bochner & Ellis, 2016). I have also obtained my data from multiple sources, including my clinical experience, my reflecting team, my supervisor, clients, colleagues, and the literature (Ellis et al., 2011). Using a structured vignette analysis also allows me to balance storytelling with analysis, comparison with literature, and theoretical context to reduce data skew (Reed-Danahav, 1997).

The client came to the session to discuss issues surrounding the clashes between their values versus their workplace’s values. The client works in a very similar context to my workplace, thus some of the values and issues they were discussing triggered thoughts of my own experiences in my workplace and similar issues I have faced. I found myself getting distracted by my thoughts and stuck between wanting to hold onto a not-knowing approach, but feeling pulled toward wanting to share something that my work colleagues and I found helpful during a similar situation. I couldn’t seem to shake the thoughts, it felt like two sides of my brain arguing between thinking “what if this might be helpful for the client” and “no, you can’t make assumptions and put yourself in an expert position, stay client led and curious”. This infighting in my head was distracting and I felt like I wasn’t able to properly listen and attend to the client and what they were saying. Research supports that both therapist and client perception of strong counsellor presence is a positive indicator of increased therapeutic alliance and ultimately therapeutic change. I felt concerned that if I wasn’t able to present with the client it would impact our relationship.

The counselling client in this session was particularly challenging for me to work with as an emerging counsellor due to strong value clashes, specifically around young people and discipline. Due to my experience working as a school counsellor, trauma-aware support is important to me and I hold a strong belief against harsh discipline. While I don’t mind having my perspective challenged, I found I became nervous leading up to seeing this particular client due to their firm manner. It has been difficult in the past to feel present with this client due to being distracted by my thoughts triggered by what they say about young people. I knew that I had to be transparent with this client to not be distracted, and wanted to share my knowledge in hope that it might offer a different perspective for the client, as I felt our sessions were quite stuck in the problem story. I said to the client :”I’m not sure if this fits for you in this situation, but I have heard from others that when a young person might be having a hard time at home, like a divorce, they might act out in school”. By offering this in a tentative and invitational way, I felt it opened up the opportunity for new conversations and allowed for client self-agency. I also felt relieved and that I was able to be with the client now that I could be transparent with them, and not have to worry about not being curious or privileging the client's expertise. It allowed me to feel like I didn’t have two voices arguing in my head. Instead just one flowing and more intuitive voic enabled me to actively attend to the conversation with my client.

In this clinic session, I used a both-knowing approach in a supervision session to support a client struggling with grief and loss. My client felt that maybe there was something wrong with the way they grieved, as they didn’t cry like their co-workers. We had a conversation about dominant ideas of grieving and I shared how I felt that maybe grief and loss responses are subjective and individual to everyone. I asked the client if this is something they felt they thought too or if that wasn’t the case for them. This reframing using a both-knowing approach was able to support the client to renew their perspective on grief and loss in line with their values and move towards thickening ideas of their preferred story. It also helped me in that I was able to hold onto my values of social justice by challenging dominant discourses, as well as transparency, while still valuing client expertise and curiosity. This ability to be able to hold onto my values helped me to feel present with the client and not become distracted by conflicting thoughts.

My experience with counsellor presence, as highlighted in the vignettes, is feeling like I am able to listen and instinctively attend and respond to the client. It is also highlighted that to feel present, I need to be in the moment with the client, immersed in our dialogue, and not be distracted. This is supported by Geller and Greenberg’s (2002) study that suggests being fully receptive, congruent, responsive, and intuitive are vital for counsellor presence. In Vignette One, I write about how I felt that there was an argument between two voices in my head, each telling me to do different things, which had me feeling uncertain of what to do, stuck, and distracted from feeling present with the client. This is also supported by literature that found internal thoughts, and uncertainty is attributed to tension, shutdown and distraction from counsellor presence (Geller, 2005). I also felt that I wasn’t able to be fully congruent with my thoughts, in that I wanted to hold onto a not-knowing approach by being curious, non-assumptive, and client-led; but also wanted to hold onto values of transparency, authenticity, multiple perspectives, and collaboration.

It is clear from the vignettes I shared that when using a both-knowing approach I was able to feel present in session, in that I could attend to my client, instinctively respond, and not be distracted by my own uncertainty (Geller, 2005; Geller & Greenberg, 2002). Holding a both-knowing approach also allowed me to feel like I could be congruent with all my values as a collaborative constructionist counsellor, and be able to authentically, yet respectfully share my internal thoughts, experience and knowledge with my client. Being able to be congruent, authentic, and intuitive with clients, and being transparent about our inner experience are found to be important factors in the literature to support counsellor presence (Geller et al., 2010; Geller, 2005; Geller & Greenberg, 2002).

I also found that a both-knowing approach allowed me to feel at ease in my mind, and instead of having two opposing voices arguing in my head about what to say, that I had just one flowing and more intuitive voice. This is also supported by literature that suggests as counsellors we have an internal dialogue that has as simultaneously attending to client process, listening to the client’s story, attending to our own thoughts, and managing the therapeutic process (Reupert, 2006; Rober et al., 2008). This myriad of voices in a counsellors inner dialogue can often lead to tension and “stuckness”, which is what I was finding before I started to use a both-knowing approach. Anderson and Goolishian (1988) recommended that to get out of this “stuckness” counsellors should privilege transparency and share their internal thoughts as it allows for continuous contact with inner dialogue, so as to not create incongruency. I feel that is what both-knowing is: tentatively and respectfully sharing your thoughts, knowledge, and inner experience. Anderson and Goolishian (1988) also pose that by being transparent with our inner experience it also enables counsellors to be present and engaged with the client, which is also supported by Geller and Greenberg’s (2002) study.

A major limitation to this research that is prevalent in both methodology and the literature review is lack of generalisability and thus potential bias. Due to my personal involvement in the autoethnographical data, there is the potential to skew data toward my own biases. In order to mitigate this, I have endeavoured to privilege multiple perspectives, acknowledge my own biases, and balance my perspective with literature and other sources (Denzin, 2014; Bochner & Ellis, 2016). Additionally, the studies included in the literature review often sourced their data from participants who are young, female, and Caucasian, thus adding another layer of poor generalisability to this research, particularly because I belong within those demographics too. Future research should include experiences of presence when using both-knowing from counsellors of other cultures, genders, and age groups, in order to create more generalisability and validity, and to privilege multiple perspectives. Future research should also look at clients’ experiences of counsellor presence when a both-knowing approach is used, as clients’ perception of counsellor presence is just as important for the therapeutic relationship (Cooper, 2005; Lambert & Cattaini-Thompson, 1996).

The purpose of this research was to understand what using a both-knowing approach makes possible for counsellor presence. Like I have outlined in the paper, due to this being autoethnographic research, what I have come to understood about both-knowing in relation to counsellor presence is still inherently from my perspective, and that even through reflexivity and acknowledging multiple perspectives, that as a social constructionist, I can’t expect my own subjective experience to apply to anyone else. However, I have found that both-knowing has allowed for me to hold onto my practice values and beliefs, and still feel deeply present with my client. This stance in turn could help facilitate change for the client in line with their goals, as counsellor presence is a crucial element of creating a strong therapeutic alliance (Lambert & Cattaini-Thompson, 1996). Anderson has acknowledged that a not-knowing approach supports sharing your own knowledge and thoughts as a counsellor, as long as it is done so tentatively and respectfully (2005). I, like other critiques of the not-knowing approach, had the impression that to be curious and client-led, that I was not able to share my own thoughts, and had to hold back any assumptions, in fear of coming across as the expert or being power over rather than power with. This had me feeling like I could not be congruent with my other practice values of collaboration, transparency and multiple perspectives, which ultimately led to me being distracted and stopped me from feeling present with my client. Upon further reflection, I feel that perhaps it is the language used around “not” knowing, that has me assuming I can’t be allowed to know anything at all when engaging in dialogue with my client. Perhaps by replacing the word “not”, with “both”, it has flicked a switch in my mind to be able to acknowledge that both the client and I have our own knowledge. I hope my experience may offer a way through new language for other emerging collaborative constructionist counsellors who are struggling to remain present in a not-knowing approach, to be able to practice in line with their values. I also hope counsellors and helping professionals who practice from other epistemologies but share the same values as I do may read this paper and integrate both-knowing into their own practice to improve presence with their clients.

A recent graduate from the Masters of Counselling program at QUT, Isabella values kindness, understanding, honesty, and curiosity in her counselling practice. Isabella has worked in the helping professions for the last six years, working particularly in the trauma space. She focuses strongly on the therapeutic relationship between herself and her clients and believes that her clients are the experts in their own lives. Isabella works from a values-based and client-centered approach, utilising a mixture of narrative, creative, and somatic therapies. Isabella enjoys supporting and empowering clients from all walks of life to overcome challenges they may be facing.

From Not-knowing to Both-Knowing: An Exploration of a Both-Knowing Approach on Counsellor Presence