Mikhail Bakhtin's Rabelais and His World : In Practice Explorations

ABSTRACT In a preceding theoretical paper, six concepts from Bakhtin's Rabelais and His World are described. They include laughter; the language of the marketplace/billingsgate; the body and the bodily lower stratum; ambivalence; the grotesque; and carnival and the carnivalesque. This paper provides a summary of the six concepts mentioned and reflects on their relevance to practice by providing illustrative vignettes with accompanying reflective commentary. The author suggests that Bakhtin's reading of Rabelais offers insights into dialogical and other approaches, with a focus on how language, laughter and bodily processes influence human interactions and how therapeutic dialogues might be considered carnivalesque.