Questioning is not a process that consists of showing that one is the expert and that because of this condition we think and know things much better than what people are capable of. Questioning acquires its charm when it reveals that we are capable of seeing things from a different crucible and that we use this perspective to help people discover other ways to solve any difficulty, generating possibilities and ensuring that these can finally be inhabited.
Here are two elements that can promote the best conditions for questioning:
1. Question constructively
It means looking for what we can build on, making sure we offer what serves to move things forward and not to mortify people and give them a bad time. Sometimes, doing things like asking “How did you think of saying that to your husband?”, “That idea will never work as long as you keep doing things like that!”, “Is that the best you can do?”, generate contexts that further reinforces the conditions of the problem.
A different perspective could instead open up new possibilities:
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Now I can understand why you think this is the right way to increase your husband’s trust, but I think we overlooked some important elements. Let me present another perspective and let’s see what conclusions it leads us to: Do these conversations allow the two of you to get closer and seek a solution to the problem, or is it only fueling the distance and bad mood between the two of you?
2. Provide positive feedback
It is impossible not to enter Feedback. Each response shapes the conversation and involves a feedback movement, so that at every moment we share what we consider may be useful to provoke a change and inhabit a new possibility, fracturing the reality of the problem. We know that there is a and that it is fair and generative to guide the conversation on what people have been doing well (the famous exceptions) to expand these possibilities and attribute control to people, focusing on resources (yes, despite everything).
Despite the dimension of the problem in your relationship, I have been really very surprised by the willingness you still have to receive your husband with so much affection and let him appreciate what I imagine – because I am also a father and I love getting to know him. home and for the same thing to happen to me – must be the ideal family setting for a person who comes home from work: seeing their children happy, playing, waiting with a big smile for dad; and also to you, to his wife – you tell me that you are not used to this – with a big hug and some words of affection, attention that he has been demanding these days. Have you realized that this transforms the problem and the relationship? What you have been doing is truly admirable. “You have come to therapy already doing some things to improve your relationship, and you are doing very well.”
Questioning does not mean asking questions to discover the weaker side of a person and their relationships, nor does it mean finding the perfect opportunity to start a sermon. The questioning must discover those possibilities that the person has not yet discovered (to discover is to see for the first time), what narrative therapy has known very well to call “the absent but implicit.”