Charrette  
Joe Ferguson, PhD | December 4, 2009

     A new friend has introduced me to a wonderful new word, which is charrette. A charrette is an encounter of design professionals in which they intentionally stimulate one another’s creativity. I am hereby appropriating the term for personal counseling and psychotherapy. I imagine that in the ideal charrette there is absolute trust and therefore no threat or any holds barred, as when boys and cats wrestle to refine each other as warriors, or as when the members of an effective executive team challenge one another’s plans in order to perfect them to their mutual benefit. Or as when close friends kick one another upside the head in order to highlight some important danger or opportunity. Or as when your adolescent son turns up unexpectedly to brainstorm with you about how he can explode into the world in a manner that is at once effective and responsible. Dream on. But charrette can sneak up on you.

     There is an aspect of charrette that requires some shared expertise, of course, but it can be surprising how stimulating a benevolent, clever, and provocative outsider can sometimes be. This is the approach that I will take toward you and your life when you come to see me. I can be a special sort of outsider in your life by virtue of our isolation together within the walls of my consulting room and within the soundproof iron curtain of professional confidentiality. Inside this cocoon we can wrestle safely with the substance of your life, without exposure, as though our discourse were taking place entirely inside your own head. To the extent that I win your confidence I can be as provocative as seems helpful as you develop your vision of yourself in the world.  Let’s have a charrette about you and your life. Call me.