Paper short abstract:

This paper will explore the experience of witnessing the stories in the therapy room through auto-ethnographical writings.

Paper long abstract:

As an anthropologist who is a practicing transactional analyst psychotherapist, I am aware of the sociopolitical and ethical responsibility of bearing witness by observing, documenting and reflecting on the experiences of others; not only the content but the context in which individuals make sense of autonomy, intimacy and spontaneity. Often these individuals find themselves in-between (Siddique, 2011) between the blurred margins of social reality and the image they like to portray.

For me it is important to capture the first person subjective experience alongside the third person objective reality. The first person conscious experience is a fragmented or a multi-layered conscious act of telling the relational self-story as auto-ethnography. "The act of writing can become a call to witness for both the author anWorld Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciencesd the reader. The witness offers testimony to a truth that is generally unrecognised or suppressed" (Sparkes, 2002:221) Auto-ethnography can help capture moments of openness and integrity about the roles we perform and which include the relational story of both the client and the therapist. I see these as the 'stories that are the truths that won't stand still' (Pelias, 2004).