Meet TalkingWise

I was raised in Australia and New Zealand by a newly arrived Norwegian mother and an Australian father. What stands out about my upbringing is that we moved a lot because of my father's work. It meant my mother was often quite isolated. One of the main things I observed and felt affected by during the constant change was what happened or didn't happen in conversations. As a young child, I observed the conversations in my family, at school and everywhere I went. 

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​A pivotal experience was the effect over time of how my mother was silenced by my father’s conversational style and use of conversational control. I observed her attempts to connect, withdrawal, defeated body language, and inability to have a voice. I watched her deteriorate into a shadowy figure who remained in the background. Even as a young child, I wondered why humans seemed so clever at building structures and creating multi-layered processes such as education but were so inept at conversations where everyone felt heard and included.

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​The conversational justifications and gymnastics used by colonising countries, teachers, leaders, and politicians to defend inequality and inequity also captured my attention in my early adult years. It propelled me into my first degree in teaching and a second degree in social work.

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As a social worker, I specialised as a counselling practitioner working in trauma, as a couple's counsellor, and with people experiencing abuse and violence. It became apparent how a conversational pattern that was unequal, unfair and abusive was overlooked, particularly in family violence and between couples experiencing difficulty. I researched and wrote a PhD on the dynamics and legacy of coercive control. This research has informed my work and the ability to help other practitioners focus more concisely on the non-physical dynamics between people that lead to oppression. Critical to those dynamics are the conversational patterns and tactics. 

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I now teach TalkingWise clients how to identify, respond to and transform unfair conversational tactics and learn when and how it is possible to create Conversational Equality and thus relational equality. I teach how Conversational Control underlies all forms of abuse, although it may not extend to abuse. 

I think that any robust framework of knowledge and skills that reduces confusion and self-doubt and allows us to take well-informed action is life-changing. I have developed such a framework and I teach people how to apply it to current or past relationships. I also teach how Conversational Control is a core strategy of Coercive Control. A Coercive Controller will routinely control the conversations to make sure that their partner either caters or submits. It is just not possible to create conversational or relational equality in this case.