I first met Poh Lin Lee in late 2019, almost by chance. I was perhaps (though I cannot be certain) the only filmmaker attending the last day of a conference on narrative therapy in Antwerp. Once I had been identified as such, it did not take long for someone to think that I should be introduced to Poh. She was there, both as a narrative practitioner herself, but also more specifically to screen a film about her work with people seeking asylum in Australia during their confinement in mandatory detention on Christmas Island – a project in which she was not just a participant, but also, in some sense, one of the (many) authors.

I was there because I had been introduced to one of the central practices of narrative therapy – “definitional ceremonies” – during a somatic training course I had joined, looking for a way to reinvent my relationship to my own embodiment (including as a filmmaker). I had come away with the conviction that this radically redistributive approach to engaging with others might hold the key to liberating documentary filmmaking (and not just documentary filmmakers) from some of the more stubbornly extractive aspects of their heritage.

“Narrative practice” (as it has come to be known) refuses those boundaries that would assign certain people to positions of fundamental passivity, and seeks to embody the belief that all authorship is co-authorship – that the most natural and appropriate form of story-telling is “multi-storied”, seeking not only to acknowledge but to activate and live forward from multiple possibilities which can only be discovered by embracing a radical diversity of points of view. Formulated in the 1970s and 1980s by two social workers, the Australian Michael White and the New Zealander David Epston, it is explicitly driven by a commitment to justice, both epistemic and social. In this, they were largely influenced not only by constructivist psychology, feminism(s) and postmodern theories of power, but above all by what they learned from their collaborators as they sought to establish concrete forms of equality and orient to the co-production of knowledge and practices – in particular through White’s work alongside Aboriginal colleagues and communities in Australia.

So Poh and I met on a staircase in Antwerp, for about 30 seconds, temporarily suspended as we rushed in opposite directions. Six months later, having watched her film (and discovered in the process that we had both worked with the British producer Samm Haillay), I contacted her to see if she would be interested to engage with me in what would turn out to be the first of Collateral’s Conversations on conversations. Not suspecting then how deeply involved she was in working with artists, I wrote her wanting to know whether the CxC project might make sense to her, and how she could imagine unfolding the work she did with her clients in the context we were imagining. I saw this conversation in part as a test of whether our concept was good to think with – whether it would survive, or even flourish, in the atmosphere of precise reciprocity that narrative practice cultivates. We discussed whether it might make more sense, in the context of a journal such as Collateral, embedded as it is in the teaching and research that revolve around an art school, to start from an instance of her work supporting artistic processes, specifically with filmmakers.

In this initial conversation with Peter, despite us speaking about my work alongside filmmakers and creatives, Mehmet kept coming to my mind. The timing was uncanny, Mehmet and I had recently paused after a three-month series of regular therapeutic conversations, and I wondered what it might be like for Mehmet to be invited to select and join us in a close reading of certain parts of our conversation that had felt significant in some way for him. For me this invitation offered the possibility of an accountability practice by unpacking the process and its effects with Mehmet – challenging professional discourses about who does the unpacking and for what purpose.

And so we found ourselves embarked on a trilogue that had less to do with “art”, conventionally understood, but that spoke directly to another part of the journal’s brief – that of “cross-cultural” close reading.

The result is a remarkable document that opens up the therapeutic process itself – something that is most often kept hidden in our society. That Mehmet agreed to allow the videos of his sessions with Poh to be published, and to join myself and Poh in speaking to and from them, speaks not only to the depth of trust which therapy can achieve when practiced well, but also to the way in which such radical practice, whether it is explicitly “narrative” or not, displaces and resignifies the idea we may have of what is a person, and where the boundary between the “private” and the “public” lies.

In this way, I hope that this three-way dialogue may contribute not only to a better understanding of one very particular form of therapeutic practice and its potential lessons for other disciplines (including creative artists), but also help initiate what Collateral hopes will be a larger, ongoing conversation around the (often damaging) history and politics of “conversation” as one of the key places in European societies where roles are distributed and places assigned.

I’m wondering what it was like for the pair of you to look again at the recordings, and to make these choices about the parts of them that you would share in the context of the idea that we’re going to have this conversation?

I have a lot of other questions, but I think that really would be a wonderful place to start. And I’d be very happy just to listen to you talk about that, and occasionally prompt you!

So, I don’t know who would like to step up?...

Poh, do you want to start?

(laughs) Do you want to start?

No!

Okay, I’ll start. And please jump in as soon as you’re ready.

Yeah, sure.

I guess I wanted to start by saying thank you for the invitation, Peter, to be part of this project. But also Mehmet, thank you for even considering it. I’m aware there are different consequences for each three of us being part of this project. So, I’m so appreciative that you wanted to give this a try. I also don’t quite know what we’re giving a try!

I remember in your first conversation, you said that you’re feeling a bit nervous and excited. And today, I think I’m feeling a bit nervous and excited!

Yeah!

But it was a really nice invitation to look back at our conversations. And Mehmet, if it’s okay for me to say, I think we had 11 conversations over about a three-month period?

Yeah, I guess so.

It was about that. So that’s a lot of recordings to look over.

So, I don’t know about you, Mehmet, but I was surprised that we kind of – we kind of chose similar…

Yeah.

… sections. And I was really wondering about that. Why we chose such similar parts of the conversation. Did you notice that?

Yeah, it’s very interesting, I guess. When I think about the whole sessions, I don’t actually have some particular moments in my mind. But then I start to look, and read the transcripts, or start to watch the videos. As soon as I watched them all, and came to certain parts, they were just shouting, Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! So, I don’t know what was the reason or the logic behind it, but they just stood out, and I felt like I had to pick them.

So maybe they are the milestones or kind of points where the conversation changes, or… takes some important turns in some directions? I don’t know, I’m not actually really sure about it. But yeah…

Yeah, I mean, from a personal perspective, I am always very excited about the beginnings of conversations. And it felt like the section we chose about the beginning of our conversation together kind of set the stage or the context. And the two other sections, as I was looking over them again, the second section that we chose really stands out to me like we were really in the mud, exploring together.

And the third section that we chose for me was, maybe you say a turning point, but also a moment of space away from the total, the total presence, of the Editor. I wouldn’t say it’s like a celebration, but it was kind of, together, it felt like: Phew! You know?

Was that your experience, or – something else?

I also want to add that now, now that I look at the sections, the parts we picked, it is, it feels like it’s the story of the Editor. And there is a trailer, and there is the main part in which the Editor does lots of stuff, and then there is - some kind of a subtle link, like resolving the issue with the Editor parts, and then we look to the afterwards. It’s just like this classical movie cliché, you know! And so I think that story, the story of the Editor, was interesting for both of us. And this is why we looked at it, I guess.

I really love that. I think I would just add that, even with the third section, from my perspective, it’s not a cliché movie thing, like happy ever after. I feel like it’s continuing on its own adventure. But I really like what you say, the story of the Editor.

Actually, what I meant by “cliché” is that, you know, when a movie ends, the director probably puts a scene at the end that gives us the message, There may be a second movie, if we can find the cash for it…. And it is more like this!

This story will continue. It may probably change a little bit, but… There’s the injection of a little hope into the last part, so it was like a cliché in that sense.

Yeah, yeah. What are you thinking, Peter, as you’re listening?

Well - it’s really interesting to hear the way that you see it. I watched them again this morning, and I had this very strong sense that at the end, we get a beginning. But the beginning is like a story that’s - and that’s an effect produced by me seeing these extracts, and only them – it’s like a story that’s going to happen off screen or in the next, you know – in the sequel, like you were suggesting, Mehmet.

Yes.

And this idea of being in the mud in the second section reminds me very much of the first time I watched them. The first time I watched them, I was watching the second section, and for at least three, four, five minutes, I was not sure what or who the Editor even was. So, I spent a lot of time thinking, so this person [Mehmet] is actually a journalist, or he works in the committee of an academic review…! Like, he’s talking about the real problems he has with his real boss, so…

It was very vivid in that sense, but also very disorienting. And I think at one point I thought that the task we would have would be to try and make that accessible or intelligible to a larger audience. Because there is a very strong chance we have something really important happening there, but that could be quite enigmatic. I don’t know if that also fits with things that you were thinking? And I guess, that’s also a way for me to introduce the question: when you were watching again these conversations, were you also thinking of an audience beyond yourselves, which wasn’t perhaps in that sense part of the original conversation?

Actually, I was not. Like, I didn’t have the feeling of talking to an audience or keeping in mind how this would be received by somebody else. I didn’t have this kind of thing in my head. Actually, it was the opposite. One of the important moments in our sessions was when, at some point, I decided that I will try to just be in the moment, and not thinking about how it would be – how even I would receive the conversations, or things I said, afterwards. Just ignoring them and being in the moment. Kind of creating a safe zone where there is no judgment about this space, not even from myself. So I think it was just about the opposite for me, at least for most of our sessions.

Hmm. That’s really interesting. As I was watching these sections back, I was thinking about audience, because I was kind of aware that – or I felt that I had some kind of responsibility to… not to take care of or protect you in any way, Mehmet, but to think about what information is being shared, and to be mindful of that. Because in the sections that we’ve shared here, from my perspective, it’s incredibly intimate. And I wanted to ensure that there weren’t very specific details revealed that might have a consequence later on for you or your life. So I guess I watched it with that position or ethic in mind.

Yeah…. I wanted to share a part where I was able to be in the moment. And I also had in my head some of the things that may cause trouble in the future and I… we both eliminated those parts and got a little picky in that sense, of course. But what I meant was – it is also a joy to see myself in that position or see my story again in this way. Yeah.

I share the joy.

Was there a part in these first 10 minutes that particularly stood out to you when you watched it?

I start the conversation in a controlled way. But then at some point, I just keep talking. And it’s like I lost the kind of control. Not just, um… in a good sense, but… Yeah, I was just talking, talking, and the thing is I was kind of carried away myself. Yeah.

It’s so interesting to hear you talk about your experience of that first conversation. Do you want me to go next, or Peter, did you want to say anything?

Mehmet, could I just ask you, for you was this nervousness, which you mentioned at the time, was it connected to doing this in English? What kind of decision was that for you? Was it easy? Was it difficult? Was it a natural choice? Or was it like a big leap in itself?

I’ve never been outside of Turkey. So I know English, I work in English sometimes. But jumping into a conversation that deep in a foreign language is, of course, a challenge for me. It is still a challenge for me today, as I didn’t speak English for months! So at first, I wanted to make a little trial session with Poh to see if I can manage this and see if it works. So it was definitely a challenge, yeah.

And when you look back at it now, do you feel that there were things that were possible in English that would not have been possible if you’d been doing this in Turkish? Things that shifted or that looked different, felt different?

I can’t pinpoint some specific thing and say that that was different. But… It is like… You are connecting with the person you’re talking to. So, in that sense, the therapist is… At least for our experience, we were connecting to each other, and it is about talking yourself and being understood.

I have a little theory that, if you are talking with someone that is very familiar to you, someone that is very like you, it is easier to connect with them, with that person, and it feels like you’re meant to be understanding each other, because you are like each other. But when you are doing it – when you are connecting, when you are mutually understanding each other, with someone that is very different from you, and who even speaks a different language, even comes from a different, a completely different culture, there is this feeling of uniqueness about the connection and about the mutual understanding of each other. This is something very valuable for me. I really enjoyed it.

And it is like feeling you are living in the world, and you are being a human being, you are going… you are surpassing your boundaries or … And these kinds of feelings would not be possible, if I would do it in Turkish.

Can I ask if you had previous experiences of therapeutic kind of conversations in Turkish?

Yeah, I had one, two experiences, and they both didn’t really work for me…. And it’s not to say that is was because they were in Turkish, but… Yeah, I have some experience at least to compare and see, or realise, this feeling of uniqueness that I was talking about.

And I’m wondering if that uniqueness is something that it takes more time to get in another language… It takes time to get to that sense of mutual understanding, but there’s a value in the time that it takes. It’s about taking time!

It is more…. I don’t actually think it is about the time you go through, it is more like you are opening some parts of your life to someone… These are the parts that you feel are not being understood or perceived by other people. These are the challenging parts of your life for someone to be understanding. So, achieving this kind of understanding with each other is what makes it challenging. And what makes it feel unique, and important. It adds up to that.

How was it for you, Poh, actually?

Yeah, there’s so much that you said there, and I really… I’m just reflecting on what you’re saying about that uniqueness and being understood by someone that comes from a different language and context and country and experience. I really appreciate what you say about that.

It feels quite precious. I’m thinking that, from a personal perspective, I live in a country [France] where it’s not my mother tongue and I can understand, but I find it very hard to articulate myself. And it’s given me even more appreciation that you were willing to go into these conversations and find ways to articulate your experience in English. And… Sorry, there’s so much I could say (laughter), but I think… The connection, the times when I really appreciated the connection, even though we were online and in different countries, I felt so close and so connected to what you were sharing that even watching the videos again transports me immediately back into those moments, not only with you, but with the Editor!

Yeah, actually!

I started to develop my own relationship (laughter) with the Editor, and with other characters that came along during the conversations.

Yeah.

I also come away kind of transformed or changed from those multiple relationships that formed over our conversations. But I think working in English and across two different languages helps me to not make assumptions. I literally don’t know a lot of the time, and that helps me to ask more questions, rather than if you say one word and I just go, Oh, yeah, I know what you mean. So I think having that difference in language helps us to kind of also go into different realms. Like you would talk in images, or in poetics, that for me kind of transgressed a single language and it connected in a much more embodied and experiential way. I don’t know if I’m making sense, but in response to what you’re sharing, that’s what I felt.

You’ve reminded me very much of something you say at one point where you ask Mehmet, what could I be, – I’m paraphrasing – what could I be noticing that would help you go more slowly? And I’m just wondering whether this was a sense that one of the things that brings us into conversations like the one you had is, because we tend to go too quickly and make too many assumptions…

And one of the main assumptions we make is that other people understand us, you know, so that when we speak, our intentions are clear. And if they’re not clear, we’ll get a very clear signal of that, which we can then easily clear up.

And by going along on that basis for long periods of time, we actually accumulate a whole history of misunderstandings with other people, but also with ourselves. I don’t know if that makes any sense.

Yeah, and I think it also means that you kind of… from that you diverge, and the two people are storytelling but the storytelling is kind of moving further and further apart, if that makes sense. So the [idea] is that going slow just allows us to stay alongside with the storytelling. Otherwise, we will diverge. And then at some point be like, But I’m here! – But I’m here! And it can completely rupture, it can disconnect the relationship. I’m not saying we can’t come back. But at some point, it has implications, I think, for the conversation and the relationship.

So, at the beginning, going slow was important to stay close together. But also, like you were saying, Peter, we often go so fast in conversations. And if we go fast, we have less opportunity to move from an everyday conversation to a much more purposeful, intentional conversation.

Some people would call that therapeutic. I think we can have intentional, purposeful conversations more frequently and spread that into different areas of life. But it was also really important to disrupt the notion that, we just go at this pace, because that’s how we always do it.

Yeah, yeah. And I think I’d definitely like to come back to that point you’ve just raised about whether we are creating a kind of conversation that exists in a special space and doesn’t affect the rest of our lives. Or actually, we’re doing something which then we want, not just personally, but more generally, to take back into our lives and change the way we live, which I guess is one of the hopes that leads to what we call therapy.

But it’s not just that. I mean, it’s a bigger hope than that.

Here I could maybe talk about some of my reflections from the first conversation…

Yeah, that would be lovely.

…because I prepared, so! Because you asked the question about any parts that really stood out. And I wanted to point out two parts that really stand out for me in this 10-minute conversation.

The first is when, Mehmet, you’re talking about these expectations of therapeutic work, and also this idea of “to get better”. I just wanted to say that I think it’s a really strong, powerful idea, and I also was under the influence of it in the first conversation. And I was so appreciative when you named it, because once you named it, I also could take steps to resist it from my side.

So, I was like, ooh, this idea “to get better”, what would getting better look like? What would people expect from this? And then, okay, how can I also resist that notion “to get better” and stay with you in the moment, in the conversation. (To Mehmet:) Is that interesting to hear?

I just had the same feelings, actually. When I was in the middle of the sessions, like I don’t know the sixth, or fifth, session, I realized that my main goal was not to get better, but more a living thing. Me having these conversations and me trying to know myself or expanding my story, blah, blah, it was just kind of stated, and kind of resisted. And it was done, not like in a forcing way, but more a natural thing that happened. So I think it’s more about like stating the issue, There is this and we name it and leave it. A lot of things were like this, I guess. It was just one of the early experiences of resolving issues actually by naming them and giving them the respect they deserve.

You said that you’d had 11 conversations over about… was it six months?

Three months.

Three months, and that was … how long ago was that?

I’ve got it in my diary that we started at the end of December last year and went till March this year.

Yeah.

Okay, right. So there was something of a gap between the ending of that and this moment now when…

Yeah.

A couple of months.

For me, it’s always a question of how these processes end. I mean, how do you decide that now is the time that this should stop, in a way that’s productive? That’s not frustrating? But having seen the process between you, I don’t… I don’t really have a difficulty imagining that. It’s a bit like what you were saying Mehmet at the beginning, it was like a classic film structure. It just seemed to … (Pauses.)

No, go ahead.

It seemed to shape itself within the process?

It was interesting, we didn’t even decide, This is the point to stop. It is just like, we reached a point that was like, as I said, the end of a movie. And we actually can still go a bit further and shoot some other scenes and the aftermath of the story. But I was in a point of my life that I decided to try many new things and to see how it goes, yeah. It was, to be honest, much more of a decision that I took, because…. It was more like going through some readings and materials, and then going to the place that you want to visit, like going to another country: you’ve read about the history and the places that you want to go, blah, blah. And so at some point, after you go to the country and you start this journey, you want to take time to just experience what’s going on and to live in that moment, in that place. And you have your books in your bag, and you can always go back to them. And I will probably go back to them. And this is just more like being in the experience and seeing how this goes. This is more like this.

I think I also... I also, I remember saying, pretty much every conversation or maybe every second conversation, oh we’ve been meeting for two times now. Should we go for another one? To kind of not ever have the sense that it needed to be this ongoing like, one year, two years, indefinite therapy?

I find that such a terrifying idea! (laughter)

The second thing that really stood out to me in those first 10 minutes, that I’ve been thinking a lot about is, after Mehmet spoke about this idea of “to get better”, I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m writing down and it’s quiet for a few moments. And then I am about to ask a question and Mehmet continues. And I’ve been thinking a lot about silence and space and – especially with online conversations, I do write a lot of notes, and they have one purpose, which is to help me stay connected to the conversation, to the very words and expressions that Mehmet’s saying. I also send these immediately to Mehmet afterwards, so he has a copy of what I’ve written. But I’ve also noticed that when I… when I write, it’s not that I don’t – I don’t know Mehmet, tell me what your experience is – but it’s not like you’re sitting there kind of just waiting for the next question. Like it’s an active silence where there’s still a lot of thinking and experiencing going on.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. And I thought that that little space, that little silence, what I noticed was that after that, I saw you speak even more about your knowledge and concerns about the problem that you’re facing. Even though the problem hasn’t been named yet, you were able to articulate even more knowledge about it. And when I watch that, I think, gosh, what would have happened if I hadn’t stayed quiet? What would have happened if I had immediately gone to another question? I might have kind of stamped on that opportunity to hear more from you.

So that really stood out to me in those ten minutes. Those first ten minutes.

Yeah, I want to add something to that… These parts of the times when you stay silent, when I finish my words…. There is this moment that I feel I was talking with myself. And this is also a little bit related with the audience question. When I think about this question, I think I was actively an audience too. I would be active, and the audience at the same time, in most of our conversations. These were moments that I really felt that I talk about stuff, and then I, as an audience, hear me saying this and responding to that! Yeah, this is quite a unique experience also.

I think if I can add on to that, Mehmet, that’s why sometimes through the conversation, I would stop and read my notes back to you. First to see that I’m understanding you. But secondly, so you have the chance to be an audience for your own words and expressions, and from that, have more opportunity to… to add on, or to clarify, or to change.

What are you thinking, Peter?

When I went back to the conversations this morning, that was the thing that really stood out for me, that moment of silence. It’s not just silence, but also your… The fact that you take time to do something that feels a little like turning away, but is actually just another way of being present.

And what I immediately felt was… The idea, the stereotypical idea I have in my head of an everyday conversation, doesn’t include moments like that. But I don’t know if that’s because I’m not attentive to my everyday conversations in that way, or if it’s really different. I don’t think it’s like a … definitional difference, as it were. I think it’s something that maybe is present in everyday conversation, but which those of us who do it are maybe just not aware of….

And yeah, that moment of, partly that moment of: We have the freedom, we have the trust, which means that I can do something which in another context would seem like disconnecting. And you know that I’m still connected. It seems very – it was very nice to see that.

Yeah.

And it’s very interesting then to hear what both of you say about it in terms of how you felt that relationship not just continuing through this moment, as if the moment was an absence, but it’s a different kind of presence, which contributes something which wouldn’t be there otherwise.

If I could just say something there. When I write the notes as well, I don’t know about what you, both of you, think, but if I’m just staring at someone, like really in attention, staring, it feels like there’s an implied expectation to immediately speak or respond or… And I’ve noticed that even more in online sessions. I probably was the little meerkat, you know, in face-to-face therapy conversations! Whereas now it’s really changed my practice doing it online. And I think I can stay connected, but step away for a moment, to allow people to be with themselves.

Actually, in that sense, writing instead of staring at someone is quite a special thing, I guess, because it still gives the message of you being interested in the conversation, as you write it down, and still you take away the burden of keeping eye contact constantly.

I particularly remember in the first one or two sessions, I was, er… I was a little bit nervous about this issue, because when I think or dive into some stuff about my life, I tend to look away or think about the things then. So, it made me more comfortable in that sense, as you were not just the whole time staring at me! So, I didn’t have the burden to just keep eye contact constantly. So, it felt more free. And still you were writing and thinking and giving smaller responses to the things I’ve been talking about. And it just gives the message that you’re still engaged with the issue.

I’m wondering if also part of what that moment, moments like that, carry, is the sense that this is also a documenting? The witnessing you offer isn’t just in the present, but it is also saying, this is something that is going to continue… and will still be - will still, not be “real”, but will still have an importance in the future. That’s why it’s important that it should be noted down. So, it gives a sort of structure which carries beyond the moment, without taking you out of the moment. I don’t know if that makes sense.

Also, I thought it was really fascinating to see how the sense of opening a space for more stories, for opposing thoughts… wasn’t just something that you were talking about, but it was something which seemed to be having real effects in the present of the conversation.

And I think that takes us back to what we were saying a little moment before, when we were talking about the meerkat stare of the therapist. Because the other moment that really struck me is that towards the end, when you feed back to Mehmet and you speak for a little while, and you’re looking at him, but because he’s kind of agreeing with you vocally, the picture cuts to him. So there is a very interesting editing and mise-en-scène going on there, to let us see the audience while you are feeding back. And for me, I was really struck by the way that he was not only looking at you, but smiling at this return you were making to him, not only of [the content of] your conversation, but also of his words. So, for me, I felt at that point as though something had changed very substantially, but it had almost happened without me noticing it. Almost. I mean it hadn’t happened in a dramatic way. But still, something had really shifted, at least in the nature of the space between the two of you.

I don’t know if that…

Can you, can you describe that a little bit more? When you say that something’s shifted and it’s not like it was kind of dramatic, but do you have a sense of what shifted, or….? I’m just curious!

When I look at my notes, what I’ve written down is, What has already changed here? Question mark question mark question mark. So, the easy answer to your question would be, no, I don’t have a sense of that! I just felt that it had happened! And that was what was striking. Yeah … I suppose I felt that there’d been some tangible sense of the relationship between the two of you becoming more direct, more, more… More present over the course of the 10 minutes. So, I felt that…

Yeah, yeah… I think that’s what I want to say, really, because after that, I’m just going to be making things up.

What do you reckon, Mehmet?

I think the smile was just… I think it’s just very correct that I felt like an audience more than an actor in those feedbacking times. And it was quite a new experience for me to see myself as that kind of a person, the one that you describe by feedbacking me, while reading back my words to me. So, it was just a moment of enjoying it and… Also, being a little bit excited about the potentials and… Yeah, I guess that’s it. It’s like being… Seeing something new and something that carries a lot of potential at least, and having this exciting feeling.

Lovely.

If you wanted to introduce the Editor to somebody who had never heard of him, and who had no idea who they were, what would you say?

It’s actually really hard for me because I have the most experience with knowing him. And something that you know really well, and have many experiences of, is hard to explain to someone that doesn’t have any idea about it…

How would I introduce the Editor? What comes to my mind, moving into this part of the conversation, is how many of the concerns, Mehmet, that you were sharing with me – like it’s not just one concern, there were some that were related or interconnected or separate, but they are like a landscape.

It seemed you had really picked up this idea of it being named “the Editor”, so from the moment it was known as “the Editor”, we were able to start a process of really getting to know the Editor and how he operates, not only… not only now, but through history. So, it gave a tangible kind of naming, to talk about a very complex, interrelated experience, from my perspective.

I don’t know whether that sounds helpful or not.

Yeah, it does. Actually, I was doing a little bit of translation work for some newspapers. So, the concept of “editor” actually has a meaning for me… It’s just not like random conceptualising. It is a concept that I have a real-life experience with. And when I… when we talk about the concerns I have and the image of the concerns or the attitudes, the issues, was just like the experience I had with the real editors, you know? Like, demands they make when you’re translating something. You have to make the… you have to translate the things correctly, so as to be respectful for the original author. And you also have to make it readable in the new language you’re translating into. And also, there’s a sort of feeling you begin to get after you work for a while and have some feedback from your editor, the feeling that, “how would editors see this?”

And when you work a little bit in this industry, at some point you don’t even realize that you are carrying that feeling. You just have it at the back of your head, and you are always looking at the sentences in the work you’ve done in the sense that, “How would the Editor see this? How would the Editor see this?” So it’s basically, like, the Editor refers to this idea … To the attitudes I have, sometimes, about many things - sometimes myself, sometimes others, sometimes the whole of life, so… It is just like THE editor, you know, who pays you, and has a little authority over you. So, he says he can criticize you. It’s just his job to be criticizing. The Editor’s job is to be critical about the material, you know!

So it can be understood that having the Editor is like having someone looking critically at the experiences you have, about the feelings you have, or your attitude towards other people. Your social circumstances, and… And yeah, this is a kind of experience I was having for so long, so we decided to name it in that way.

So if I said – I’m just interested in how both of you would hear this – if I said that, we could say this is a “re-externalising” of something that has been “internalized”… Does that sound – is that too reductive?

No, I think it works well in that context, because what makes this is… To some extent it puts something in front of your eyes, so that you can see it. It is also like the experience we’ve been talking about when I was in the shoes of the audience and seeing myself talking about stuff. When this is done, you see how you… what you are doing. Like the example of me smiling when I said some powerful words with respect to myself… I’m quite sure actually I was not smiling when I said those words, but I was smiling when I listened back to them!

So, this is one of the ways that you can see… Because I think we as human beings do not have the right set of mind to understand things we are experiencing or going through, including some of the internal things… There are two different sorts of thinking. When we have some experience that affects just very, let’s say, personal things, we have [one] sort of understanding, to comprehend and name it for us. And we have a completely different sort of understanding to see or compare things such as some political issues or outside world things. So, putting yourself or some parts of your own life onto the table actually allows you to use both these two sorts of understanding. So, it expands your understanding.

To me, it resonates with the sense I have that I was brought up in a way where a lot of things going on inside me were compressed…. There was a lot of pressure on me to compress things inside me into one story, one thing. And it wasn’t actually like that, and so you end up with some sort of unviable creature. If it had the head of a man and the body of a horse that would be one of the better solutions, but it’s generally a random combination of limbs and things that don’t actually work together. And creating many stories and more space also means there can be less pressure to be one person, not always the same person, and for me anyway, that seems like a better representation of my experience of being “me”.

But, Poh, I’m just curious, whether you have something to add at this point, because I keep seeing three minutes coming up on the timer… [i.e. till the end of this part of the Zoom recording]?

I think you both have explained it in a very articulate way. But from the poststructural perspective I take in therapeutic work, exactly what you’re saying about externalising what has been internalised, I want to gently unpack it together and consider if that’s still the position or still the belief you want to hold, or whether there’s other possible ways to think and engage with it. So, exactly what you guys have been talking about! (laughter)

But I think I just want to make one comment about it, to introduce this second section. I would like to say that even though we had landed on this metaphor of the Editor, which was really powerful, and really invited the Editor into our conversation, like there was three of us in that room, in that virtual room… I just want to say that as the therapist or as the person asking the questions, I…. I really didn’t know this Editor. Every question was literally me trying to... to understand and to hear how Mehmet experienced the Editor. So, for me, it was – that’s why I say, in the mud: just literally in there, trying to make sense and to stay connected with what this character was and how he operated.

Mehmet, if it’s okay, I’d like to talk about my relationship with the Editor?

Sure.

Because at the end of our first conversation, or in the second part of our first conversation, I don’t know if you remember, but we entered quite an intellectual realm for a little while. And in that intellectual realm was the first time that I – even though he hadn’t been named as the Editor – it was the first time that I came into relationship with this concern and realised how powerful he was in the intellectual realm. And so, my first experience of him was like, wow, in the intellectual realm, I am no match for this Editor.

And it had me – it had me thinking how important it would be to visit other realms of experience where the Editor might be less familiar or less competent (laughter), just to create some space from him for a few moments.

So, what you mentioned about being in the moment, in the second conversation, it felt like that location of time and space disrupted your experience a little, but also how it embodied your experience, and your imagination. That there were other realms that it felt like we had just a little bit more power (laughter) to be in!

Yeah.

So, in this particular conversation, what really stood out to me – and I feel so deeply moved every time I say it, please stay with me – Mehmet, when you said that you’d fought many battles alongside the Editor, and then you said something like, I’m just paraphrasing, but like, He got out of control, like at some point He got out of control, and bullied me. You said more. But just that section. That you had started exploring the world and life together. It was so deeply moving for me, because I had this feeling in what you were sharing that it would have been very disrespectful or even dismissive to cast the Editor as a villain. I had the sense when you were talking that actually he was very precious and had a very precious membership in your life.

And it was at that moment in the conversation when you talked about how there was a multistoried experience of the relationship. And the moment you said that he got out of control, it was amazing how that kind of clarified that at some point, the relationship had changed. And so, it had me thinking that when the relationship changed, what we were looking at was, what’s not okay for you now? You know, like what’s changed that’s not okay? So, it felt like we moved away from this idea of banishing or getting rid of the Editor. That really stood out to me.

Yeah. It was definitely not a scapegoat or something, the Editor. It is more like developing a toxic relationship, you know, with someone. And most of the time, I believe at least, the people are not good or bad, like this. They are more gray. If there’s something that’s not really working, you should focus on this part and not just on blaming the one or making a list of the crimes of the person, but rather understanding the conversation between the two of you. So, in that sense, I’m not sure if that makes sense, but my conversation or my relationship with the Editor was more like… It got out of control and it was not just because he was bad or something, or he was the villain. I also had this feeling of having respect for the experiences [I] had with him, and how I developed as a human being, and the part the Editor played in this. So having a larger perception allows you to stay on the point. And, let’s say the point was just having more space for me or some other people and…

The other things are like more destructive, I guess, like blaming or scapegoating. Some things are more destructive and do not really resolve the issue. If you want to be more in the moment, this is the issue you should be talking about. Not like, this is because of the Editor, this is because of this, and making a list of this, that’s not the point.

And I really appreciate that the conversation could just float like this. To the point like, we actually had the Editor in the room! And we tried to not hurt his feelings (laughter). That way of approaching the composition was really…. Really more respectful and more … more authentic, I guess. Yeah.

Thank you.

Does it make sense or not?

What you’ve said makes me see the whole conversation in a very different way, in a whole new way. What struck me the most when I watched it again was – again – the way it ends. Which in a way is partly an editing effect, because I guess that wasn’t actually the end of the session.

But… I mean I definitely felt not like he was this sort of demon, that there was an aspect of the demonic or the cursed about him, but more like a story of betrayal: someone who had had your confidence, and then had done things which were not… Which he wasn’t supposed to do. Which were not part of the contract, as it were, which were incompatible with that comradely relationship. And then at the end, when you said twice, it’s the end of the story, I felt that the problem was not just that this was one story that was crowding out the others, but that this was the guy who ends the stories and closes them off, and says, This can’t develop anymore. And so I found when I watched it again – every time I watched this conversation – that I find it very sort of … yeah, the end has this sort of very bleak tonality for me, as something that needed to be recognized and had to be said. And now when I listen to you talk about it, I think there’s another way of thinking about that, in a sense which is more along the lines of, in order to start a new story, we have to end this one. Now I hear the final words, not just in terms of the Editor trying to end some story and close it off, so that you’re left on your own with this pain. But more in the sense like… You have to end that story. And that’s difficult, because this guy isn’t all bad. So, you can’t just throw him out the window. There’s a process of, even when something is giving you a lot of pain, putting an end to it that is also a process of mourning for other aspects of that.

But that’s something that has to become true for there to be other stories.

I don’t know how much I’m imagining this, and how… but that’s certainly how it spoke to me, listening to you.

If I can respond, Peter, as you’re talking – the reason why when Mehmet talks about fighting many battles together – the reason why that stood out to me was, as Mehmet was saying, once the Editor was in the conversation with us and kind of knew that he wasn’t being cast as the villain… From my perspective, it felt like he stepped aside slightly. He stepped aside slightly to allow Mehmet to then really talk about the effects. Together we could deeply witness what the effect was of this changing relationship. But I don’t know that the Editor would have stepped aside had we not spent some time actually being in conversation with him. What do you reckon, Mehmet?

Yeah, also, as you said, it also allowed the Editor to be more open to the conversation, and not isolating himself. This is actually really important too, I guess.

But it was a dense, a very dense conversation. There was a lot going on there! (Laughter)

I guess sometimes you need to go into the mud in order to make sense of it… I have a question for Poh, which comes a bit from outside of, but it’s very related to, that conversation. One of the articles that you shared with me talks about the role of the therapist in narrative practice as being a bit like an editor rather than an author.¹ So I wondered how this Editor figure resonated with you – if you had thought about your work in that way?

That’s a really interesting question. And I think… The editor that I was thinking about might be more involved with creative practice and process than the kind of commercial editor that Mehmet’s speaking about. So, when I say “editor”, it’s more like someone who is standing alongside… who is there to help co-construct the story. And so I’m very clear that, in my role as editor, I have some responsibilities. One of those is to ask questions – curious questions, that I don’t know the answer to. To not make assumptions. To make sure that I’m using Mehmet’s language and not imposing my own language.

And I know at times, Mehmet, I got excited and totally imposed my words or ideas! So, it’s an imperfect practice! But I guess, yeah, that when I talk about an “editor”, from my perspective, there’s some very, very different types of guidelines that I go by. And that makes me think more about creativity than commercial viability.

I also wanted to add, I don’t know if this is going off track, but you know this question about whether we’d have all the three conversations in the final piece, or not. I think if it was just the first conversation and the last or both of those it needs to be in relation to this middle conversation, I think it really provides the context of … The hard work, which then means that, in that third conversation, it’s not about O yeah, we’re celebrating this moment!, but more like Wow! in relation to… the presence of the Editor. We can more fully appreciate the moment of difference. If that makes sense?

Completely.

But I think also what I’ve already got from this conversation is that… I thought I’d got this idea of listening for other stories from my own practices and from things that I’ve read about narrative practice. But I realize when we talk now about the second conversation that this listening for other stories is almost an infinite endeavour, and that it’s a very fine thing to listen for – I mean “fine” in the sense of subtle, but also possibly “fine” in other senses! – to listen for the other stories within a story that can seem to be just sort of going down into a place of pain and negativity. But it’s a very real activity. And those other dimensions and other stories and other meanings are actually there, if you can listen for them.

Yes. Stories within stories! (laughter)

Do we want to keep the same order. Or do you want to… ?

Well, I can volunteer to go first, for once, if you like.

That’d be fun. I’d be up for that.

Yes, it might be fun. Okay. So, the moment that struck me is, of course, the moment where you say, Poh, you know what I’m going to ask you. I thought that was wonderful! And then you laughed. Partly because I just felt at that point, it sort of crystallized the sense of an entire relationship outside what I’d seen up to that point which had been forming between you since the beginning of the process, and of a very – not of becoming predictable or even knowing each other from the inside, but of a sort of trust between you.

And this brings us back into that area where we don’t have to say everything, in a sense, which we were talking about earlier when we talked about the language thing. And suddenly the sense that you are…. You’re beginning to attune, over time, not just moment by moment, but over time, to larger kinds of processes and ways of thinking and feeling. So, I was very struck by that. And again, it wasn’t a verbal moment. It was a pointer towards something that wasn’t being said, rather than something that was said.

You want to go first, Poh?

No, no, you go.

Okay. Yes, it was like, it’s really true like when Poh said that we were really just trying to understand and expand and see the potentials of the story. And at some points, there were chapters about the Editor and the new characters that we tried to understand and have a conversation with. And these were moments when we kind of had the feeling that….

Poh said… what was it? The phrase you used?

You know what I’m going to ask you.

Yes… I knew she was going to ask it, because this is something… We saw something very interesting about this story that we were both enthusiastic about, I guess. So, it is like watching a movie together, that you are really engaged with, with someone. And a scene comes that you know she will be excited about, and you are excited about this. And this is something new or interesting and blah, blah. And the moment you see it, you know that this may probably go into a conversation, and this excites her too. And it is much more like this.

Yeah. And I just want to add that it’s… That just reflects that we were doing this conversation together. It wasn’t this idea that I was doing a conversation for you, or on you, or this kind of idea. But it’s a moment where we’re in this together, with this conversation.

Shall I say what stood out? Again, it’s really moving! It’s hard to choose just one. But I think for me, of a couple of things that stood out, one was: In this conversation, there was the opportunity to invite Mehmet’s girlfriend in as a witness, as an audience member to the conversation.²

There’s also this moment when Mehmet was talking about showing something that comes from inside, and then we kind of expanded that. When it’s not coming from inside, you spoke about trying to fabricate an image or a shape to show people, trying to find the fabric and the shape for each environment and talking about how much energy that takes. And then you talked about the versions of me that were uncomfortable; and you went further to say, the faraway version of me. And there’s something about that phrase, the faraway version of me, that, as Peter was saying, resonates very strongly with the other conversation we’re talking about. To me, it spoke volumes to the effect, the effect of these concerns you are facing. And the moment you said faraway version of me, I felt like I could really kind of step into the experience with you. So, it was a moment where you were talking about something that was different, about feeling different and feeling better. But also at the same time, it allowed the space to further acknowledge the effects of the problems or the concerns. And that really kind of reminded me of how our conversations just weaved back and forth, intentionally, back and forth. Yes. So that kind of stood out for me.

I want to add to that, actually this is a big point for me. Since I was 14, I make it look like I am crystal clear about certain issues. But to be honest, I was not that much understanding these things. But then I started to talk about it, and in the moment when I started to talk about it, I used these words, and actually I was still learning from them. And this also made my mind more clear about things, about how I put some words on it, and how I really feel in these kinds of moments. When I re-watched it, I also felt like this is very strong.

This is explaining that there is a side of it that makes you think that I am really understanding the whole aspects of it and I am really content with it. But, to be honest, it was not like this. And when I start to talk, as I said, I also learned from the things that I was saying. So, this is…. This is actually really interesting.

So, it wasn’t scripted?

No. (laughter) Also, I wouldn’t say that I was that much clear about the issue too, beforehand. So, I learned. I made it more clear in my mind.

I guess that from a narrative therapy perspective, those are the moments when you have the sense that it hasn’t been shared or articulated before in that way, and so it’s kind of like that… that is actually being a part of and witnessing meaning-making in the moment. From my perspective. So those are the moments that let me know that (laughter), we must be doing something right together!

That leads to a very good point to spring into the thing I’d like us to finish with. I’m thinking about unscripted and spontaneous and… And maybe the best way to introduce it is just to say something that I feel, which is sort of confirmed by having watched these conversations, which is that, if you like, we live in a culture in which stories get very commodified.

We’ve often referred to films while we’ve been talking, but the story often gets separated from the storytelling as a sort of interactive process. And I think that one of the functions of certain kinds of conversations is to keep stories alive, to keep things changing and moving and developing so that they don’t get fossilised or stuck.

So that’s the way of introducing this question: I’m really curious about what you feel, both of you, that you’ve learned from the conversations you’ve had together about the possibilities of conversation, and how that changes the way you see conversations in the rest of your life. Whether now you find yourselves wanting a different kind of conversation?

Mehmet, will you go first?

Of course. It is really connected with the potentials that I’ve been talking about.

It is… Seeing myself in a new kind of a relation, and being a new…. Or experiencing a new role, was quite important for me, I would say. And… The potentials I was talking about, was like understanding this new role, or this new attitudes of me, or new version of me. And using it, or having it as a kind of a tool. Or as a power that I can be more open about myself. I can discuss some of the things that I was uncomfortable with with other people, because it is more like… When you face something that you don’t know, or you don’t know how to behave in certain ways, it becomes very… very hard for you to get engaged with, or to reach a point that you want to go on. I mean, in social circumstances. Most of the time, when you have some experience and some practice of being or having a certain attitude, and you have enough experience of it, you can reach the point that you want to go by… Expanding it, improving it or putting more time into it. So, in that sense, these conversations were like…

I was a student of myself, I guess. I was learning about myself… Who can I be or how can I extend my personality to the points, the aspects, that I want to move further? So actually the last video session is… There is a hidden trick behind it, and I guess Poh even didn’t know about it!

I was just talking with my girlfriend before the session. I met with my girlfriend and talked about this kind of stuff for like two hours or something. And then I came back home, had the session with Poh, and then I went back to her! And in that sense, this is a perfect example. I immediately tried to experience the new moves I learned in the session. So, it was a practice area where I really felt safe, and I really engaged with the conversation. Then, I started to copy it and to use it as a new tool that allowed me to be more open. That allowed me to be, as I said, more myself. This is the most valuable part of it, I guess.

I guess it’s like talking to your trainer during halftime. Poh, could I ask you…

Gosh, Mehmet!

Through our conversations, Mehmet, between you and I, I’ve become a lot more aware that in everyday conversation I am participating, I’m being part of… I could be replicating at times, and definitely replicating at times, dominant discourses and political positions. So, I am trying to be more connected to the idea that conversation, regardless of whether it’s therapeutic or everyday, is political. And that it either continues to keep those discourses alive and breathing, or I can be like a little bit aware and a little bit resistant to those.

And that seems really very important in our current global context. So, yes, knowing that conversation, whether it’s with my children over the bath, or something else, that it’s actually got a political life to it, feels very precious and important to me. And that’s something that’s become very apparent through our conversations, Mehmet.