On Vulnerability: Personal Reflections on Knowing, Knowingness, and Meaning Making in Psychotherapy

The author takes a metaperspective on theorizing and meaning making in psychotherapy in order to understand how professionals might use theory defensively to guard against feelings of vulnerability. She explores how we can use theorizing either to close down or open up meaning and how the capacity to connect to personal vulnerability can mitigate against a tendency to overdepend on theory or hold too closely to one's personal meanings and interpretations. The relationship between theorizing, psychosocial discourses, the production of meaning, and the therapeutic encounter are considered using the critique of postmodernism. A case example and personal experience are used to illustrate the material.