TOM DAVID ANDERSEN: FRAGMENTS OF HIS INFLUENCE AND INSPIRATION

Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Oct 2007 by Anderson, Harlene

"Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice."

Martin Luther King

Tom Andersen, the beloved pioneering Norwegian psychiatrist and family therapist, died on May 15, 2007 from injuries when he fell on the rocky Norwegian coast while walking his dog Chico. What words can duly honor and respect a man who touched so many lives?

Tom left many footprints that others will continue to follow: his promotion of social justice and work against oppression, his careful use of words, his distinction of therapy as a philosophy of ethics, his emphasis on the importance of movement as a form of language, and his challenge to orthodox psychiatry.

Known world-wide, from his base as Professor of Social Psychiatry at the Institute of Community Medicine, University of Troms0, Norway, Tom criss-crossed the globe teaching and consulting in over 50 countries. Committed to being present where he was needed and living his values, Tom devoted the latter years of his life to traveling to underdeveloped countries, generously donating his time. A beacon light for the Norwegian Family Therapy Association and the International Family Therapy Association, Tom spearheaded the development of funds and educational programs for therapists in these countries. In his travels he shared his "wisdom" but most importantly, he encouraged others-therapists and clients-and served as a messenger and connector so that others could hear the stories about their work, their struggles, and their successes.

A man of passion, courage, and tenacity, Tom was a gift to the field of family therapy, always challenging, always creative. He was born and raised in Oslo, Norway. After completing medical school he moved to the north of Norway above the Artic Circle. He practiced as a family physician, criss-crossing the rugged terrain by plane, boat, skis, and foot, often in hostile weather, to meet with his patients in their remote homes and clinics. It was during this work that he became acutely aware of the context of human behavior and the strength of the human spirit to face and overcome adversity. This led him to become a psychiatrist though he was not long in the profession before he became openly critical of orthodox psychiatry. He particularly challenged psychiatry's tendency to label and treat people as labels. In the 1970s, Tom discovered family therapy and it offered a response to his alarm: his challenge and creativity intensified. He was always, as his Norwegian colleagues suggest, at the "centre of the edge."

For most, Tom's footprint will be the reflecting team. His idea about the reflecting came in 1981 though it would be a few years before he actualized it. The idea of the reflecting team grew out of Tom's discomfort of talking about people outside their presence which he called "closed talks." The reflecting team was the birth of "open talks" or talking in the other's presence. Tom details the reflecting team concept and practice in his 1991 book The Reflecting Team: Dialogues and Dialogues about Dialogues. In an interview with Per Jensen, Tom reminisced about the birth of the reflecting team.

It was a Thursday, after dinner in March 1985; I haven't made a note of the exact date. I asked Magnus HaId and Eivind Eckhhoff, "Might you be interested in joining us in speaking out loud?" We hadn't talked about this before, but they said yes. So then I went to the door of their [client and therapist] room and knocked and asked would you be interested in listening a bit to what we've been thinking and hoped deep down that they would say no, but then they said yes ... The moment that I stood in the door and said, 'Would you like to listen to us?' the therapist got up in the usual way and; he thought he should go along with us, just as we'd always done before. But I said, 'You belong here.' It was almost like having the feeling we had abandoned him ... It was very unpleasant as well, but it had to be that way. (Torn Andersen, with Per Jensen; Anderson and Jensen, 2007, p. 161)

John Soderlund writes about Tom's discussion of this unpleasantness.

... Andersen switched off the lights in the therapy room and switched them on in the observation room, making the family invisible to the observers and the observers plainly visible to the family for the first time. The observers began to discuss, in full view of the family, what they thought about what they had observed. It struck Tom how naked he felt being observed by an invisible family whose discussions about his discussions he could only guess at. (Soderlund, 2001)

In discussing the impact of the reflecting team on his and his colleague's clinical work, Tom noted that they emphasized themselves less. They stopped talking behind the one-way mirror and talked less and listened more in general, giving space for others to assert themselves more (2007, p. 163).

Though the development of the reflecting team was usually attributed to Tom, he was quick to point out that he did not do it alone. Once in an interview with Sylvia London in Mexico City (personal communication) she asked him, "How would you like people to see you and talk about you?" Tom responded, "First of all, I would not like people to see me or talk about me as someone who is a pretentious person. Please pay attention to the words and the work, do not pay attention to me as a person. Please be careful and do not say 'Tom Andersen developed the reflecting teams'; it was not me. 1 was fortunate enough to find good friends and colleagues with whom I could converse and they became part of the flow of ideas and the context." Tom continued, "I rather be seen as an "invisible" and unheard" person. I am always looking for the larger context. I am interest in influencing people in a broader sense ... My work is political."