ABSTRACT
The therapeutic aim in Open Dialogues is to develop a common verbal language for the experiences that would otherwise remain embodied within the person's psychotic speech and private, inner voices and hallucinatory signs. When the aim is generating dialogue so as to create new words for the experiences lived through the hallucinations, it is important to ensure that the participants have a common history within the dialogue, both the team and the private social network members. In Open Dialogues, the discussion starts with everyone present in the same room with as little preplanning as possible by the team. With regard to the team members' responding comments, it seems to be relevant to formulate the utterances along the same lines as the family members' language. The best advice for taking into account what the patient said and actually responding to it is, perhaps, to pause any other ongoing dialogue and ask more about the theme the patient has opened up.
