ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the constellation of language, meaning, and the metaphor of narrative in the context of family therapy theory. It discusses the complexity of the relationship of language to the realness of lived experience, along with the opportunities for meeting realness in the space between unconscious and conscious experience. The exploration so far of language, realness, and the unconscious has been part of an argument for expanding thinking about narrative and the process of meaning-making. Along the way, the complexity of the relationship of language to realness has been canvassed, as well as the task of approaching the realness of lived experience, the opportunities provided in the space between conscious and unconscious experience, and the relational context of language itself. The historical reluctance of family therapy to theorize unconscious experience lies partly in its early opposition to psychoanalysis, as well as the behavioural focus of its early practice approaches.
