The role of wondering

"Wondering" and "Professional curiosity"

There were some thought provoking discussions during part 1 of Suzanne Zeedyk’s Trevarthan Series webinars about the role of “wondering” as a tool for developing understanding and forming relationships.

Suzanne said “The wondering is the important part, not the answer that we come up with individually.”

Suzanne also suggested that relationships are built through wondering – through this shared endeavour of coming up with a joint answer between people. Being a relational process this goes on and on developing.

In social work we often talk about professional curiosity, which can be a helpful idea to encourage social workers to be critically reflective, to look beneath the surface and consider a range of hypotheses. Personally, the phrase professional curiosity doesn’t leave me feeling particularly inspired.

"Wondering", might not sound as clever, but feels more like what I am doing as a social worker and supervisor. Families and individuals are hugely interesting and complex, and I wonder what it is like to be in this family, I’m wondering what is important to these individuals and wondering what they love and what they find hard.

When supervising practitioners, I am wondering what’s helped them feel so energised after a session, what triggered feelings of anger or wondering what sense they have made of witnessing a child’s behaviour around their parent…

Wondering is a right brain activity. This means it requires a sense of safety in order for us to access this upper part of our brain, which enables reflection and processing. Sometimes as busy and pressured practitioners we need support from another person to engage this more reflective part of us – a debrief with a colleague or supervision can provide this. Parents who are facing challenging circumstances, who have experience of trauma, adversity or poverty are more likely to react from survival responses initiated in the lower brain - the amygdala.

I often help parents and carers to adopt the PACE stance with their children (part of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy). The PACE acronym stands for an approach which involves Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy and gently wondering about the inner world of the child or young person is encouraged. PACE is about building connection and relationship. What parents and carers don’t necessarily know is that I am also using the PACE approach with them, to help the parent or carer have an experience of feeling connected and considered. This can help someone access the right brain thinking and processing that will help them to reflect and learn.

The reason why I love Suzanne’s description of wondering is because it captures what needs to happen for relational, shame sensitive and trauma informed approach in work with families and within organisations.

A final thought from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who writes:

“Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, and yet a little way beyond the outworks of our divining, perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown.” 1

For me this speaks to intuition, noticing your emotional reactions and using opportunities to make sense of this through curious conversations and wonderings. This way, we can learn new things about ourselves and others. We can have knowledge as well as that bit beyond knowledge – our wonderings.

References:

1. Letters to a Young Poet (Letter 8) – Rainer Maria Rilke