Tom Andersen's Dog

By the way, this is not Tom Anderson's dog... just my dog.

I remember hearing the late Tom Andersen (Norwegian psychiatrist, family therapist pioneer) say the following words at the beginning of his presentations.

Get a dog

Let the dog teach you
How to gently
Stroke it

What rich words! Tom would go on to discuss his own thinking in regards to this saying. He talked about a professional work where our very interactions with the people we are working with inform us as to what our own actions might be. We perhaps gain little from our previous instruction – at least when it comes to the understanding we need for our engagement with the people before us. We certainly don’t learn because we have become experts on human behaviour, not even because we have been informed about social justice and human rights. Even the best intentioned of our learnings can interrupt the beauty and power of our joint work with those human lives, bodies and relationships we are in interaction with. According to Tom we learn what to do as we are looking and listening from the midst of our own interactions with those we are in conversation with. We always learn from the middle, and certainly not from a place prior.

The people Tom was in conversation with -- they taught him. And, those we are interacting with must also always teach us.

But Tom’s words say so much more. They talk not just about work, they talk about life.

After I would hear Tom’s words about getting a dog, I would find myself wishing that he would stop right there, that he would say no more!

For -- in something akin to the spirit of a Nietzsche aphorism, or perhaps in accordance with the sensualism of a Walt Whitman poem -- in these few words Tom speaks... and we all listen.

And Tom repeats to us...

Get a dog

Let the dog teach you
How to gently
Stroke it