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"A guiding value in narrative therapy is that the person is not the problem, but rather the problem itself is the issue."

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Presence, resonance & close listening at forefront

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Presence, resonance & close listening at forefront

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"I rely very much on my experience of the way Michael W. related to the people who sought consultation with him. I'm interested in developing better ways of keeping that way of relating at the forefront of our teaching, mentoring and collaboration.I worry at times these days that we overemphasize "methodologies" and underemphasize some very basic things like "presence" and "resonance" and close listening (with all our sensory facilities, not just our ears)." Gene Combs

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"For me, the narrative backbone is how we position ourselves in relation to the people who consult with us honoring a two-way account of therapy, while at the same time always remembering it's the client's story that is in the center of the conversation."

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"In narrative therapy, all individuals possess inherent resourcefulness. Resourcefulness always exists, even if hidden in the margins, and it is the therapist's job to find a way to access it."

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Maggie Carey recounts a memorable experience in which her friend Michael White, an aviation enthusiast, flew a group to Melbourne in a small plane. She shared this story at the April 2023 Collab Salon, Remembering Michael White 15 years later, as a metaphor for Michael's commitment to supporting others in taking control of their own lives and challenging conventional norms and methods.

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Maggie Carey tells a story about being in the drivers seat, edited from Remembering Michael White 15 years later, April 16, Collab Salon - Video 2 - HD

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Voices from the April 2023 Remembering Michael White 15 years later Collab Salon

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" I hope Narrative Therapy will always be dedicated to understanding, valuing, and privileging the client's perspective and choices toward telling their own unique stories and reclaiming their agency. Remembering how Michael attended carefully with respect to experiences of being marginalized or disenfranchised, the voices in this video say it better than I could alone." Peggy Sax

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"First of all, you have to watch someone with mastery....We have to see it done, rooted in its practice...Some knowledge cannot be communicated, you have to see it to believe it...and that mastery installs itself inside of us....THE FEEL OF IT.”. David Epston

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First You Learn the Scales and Then and Only Then Can you Improvise

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"Can therapists be replaced by AI? Hopefully, some cannot, and surely they will be those who, to use Tim Ingold's terminology, are "wayfinding."  Michael might have referred to that as improvisation; I might refer to it as creative imagining. My concern has always been how to impart this to others by way of teaching or, more generally, pedagogy.

For me, one (certainly not the only) backbone is the matter of how we teach and learn narrative therapy in an era when all psychotherapies will be in a life or death competition with Artificially Intelligence therapies."

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"The sense of adventure that Michael and David stood for from the beginning." Gene Combs

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Reflections on the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem

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Reflections on the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem

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I join Charley in thinking about the idea that the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem, as the backbone of narrative therapy.

When I think about a metaphorical backbone, I think of something that makes a stand possible, and that implies a structure connecting other parts.

The idea that the person is not the problem supports a nonpathologizing position. This stand sets the stage for a collaborative relationship, where all parties respond to the problem together, rather than an expert position where a practitioner is the source of knowledge and direction.

This idea that the person is not the problem; the problem is the problem is our first example of deconstruction. It deconstructs the idea that problems are located in people and offers a beginning example, perhaps even a model, that we can challenge taken-for-granted ideas. That idea is so important in narrative work!

Also, in locating the problem outside of the person, it paves the way to think about what in the larger context supports the problem. The sociocultural and political contexts, which somehow had been left out of therapeutic considerations, become important in how we think about problems.

Since we are not engaging in pathologizing, discourses of confidentiality that called for total secrecy no longer hold sway. Although people can certainly choose privacy, they can also be open to inviting supporting members of their lives to participate in narrative conversations and the work can include insiders and community members.

Backbones keep us standing upright and this nonpathologizing idea helps people claim identities they can be proud of. Since the person is not the problem, problematic identities are not essential or fixed. This opens the possibility of people performing different identities and making different identity claims. Being able to recognize and often times resist limiting discourses in the sociocultural context helps all of us contribute to changing not just ourselves, but the world.

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"As its backbone, narrative therapy is comprised of deeply human and humane conversations that can have profound effects on our clients and shape our own lives and ethics of living. Let us always remember what Michael White' said about Solidarity (quoted in this short recording)."

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"While I initially associated my narrative background with method (externalizing, re-membering, witnessing), it became clearer to me that the backbone was made up more of faith and belief than method. The strength of narrative therapy lies in our belief that rendering restraining stories and discourses visible is sufficient to unlock people’s imaginations regarding how to show up for their lives differently."

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"One of the guiding principles in narrative therapy is that clients are always cooperating and communicating their comfort level with the pace of change."

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" I hope narrative practice stretches and grows as new voices, languages, cultures, and ideas from other models and fields influence it. What doesn’t change is our focus on helping people see and resist the hidden power operations and restraining stories, and that we ourselves resist the temptation to join the chorus of professionals supplying explanations for what is rather than supporting imagination for what could be."

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"Externalizing as a practice that deconstructs problems and allows us to choose how to relate to them and to the discourses that bring them forth and sustain them." Gene Combs

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"The narrative worldview's way of questioning taken-for-granted beliefs and practices, which multiplies the possibilities for people's choices in creating their lives and relationships." Gene Combs

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Touchstones for monitoring white settler colonialist acculturation

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Touchstones for monitoring white settler colonialist acculturation

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"In addition to Michael and David, I rely on my early experience of the Just Therapy team, especially Kiwi Tamasese and Wally Campbell as touchstones for monitoring my white settler colonialist acculturation. I take further inspiration these days from the Prison-Industrial Complex Abolitionists (like Mariame Kaba, Dean Spade, & Ruth Wilson Gilmore)." Gene Combs

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At our April 2023 Collab Salon (Remembering Michael 15 Years later), Akansha asked, Where would Michael want us to go from here? Several of Michael's close friends and colleagues spoke about how passionate he was about justice and how he would have been disturbed by current injustices. He would have been pleased to see the international connections being made in the field, remained hopeful and sought ways to move things in a more ethical direction.

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"Narrative therapy recognizes the political nature of therapy. Ignoring power systems, both in society and within the therapeutic relationship, is also a political act."

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From where I see it now, my “narrative backbone” is nested within the foundation of my training as a phenomenologist combined with “narrative practices,” and continues to inform my teaching. The “backbone” is the artful design of pulling together the “best” examples of writings, viewings, and activities that led me to adopt Narrative practices myself and scaffolding them as meaningful course curriculum. The reveal of “apprentice” artistry/craftmanship tends to take on a life of its own through the confluence of curriculum and diverse/complex lived life experiences of the student/apprentice.  The reveal is rarely predictable but always a joy to witness. What it requires of me is a good dose of humility, trust, respect, and confidence in the organic process before me.

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Two -way nature of relationships and the impact of small gestures

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Two -way nature of relationships and the impact of small gestures

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Jill Freedman shares a letter Michael White wrote to her daughter Lily when she was 8 months old - a testimony to Michael's acknowledgment of relationships' two-way nature and the impact of small gestures. Edited from April 16, 2023 Collab Salon, Remembering Michael White 15 Years Later.

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Jill Freedman shares a letter Michael wrote to her daughter Lily when she was 8 months old. She appreciates Michael's acknowledgment of relationships' two-way nature and the impact of small gestures. Edited from April 16, 2023 Collab Salon, Remembering Michael White 15 Years Later.

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Deep resonance with aspects of my own cultural traditions, beliefs and upbringing

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Healing conversations as definitional ceremonies

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Healing conversations as definitional ceremonies

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"Many years ago (1980’s), I was drawn to what is now called “Narrative Therapy” when I encountered Michael White. I was drawn to his respectful, compassionate, genuine curiosity about the storied lives of the people who consulted with him. I was drawn to “narrative work” because many aspects of it resonate deeply with aspects of my own cultural traditions, beliefs, and upbringing. I guess I could say those are part of my “backbone."

Healing conversations as a “definitional ceremony" resonant with the indigenous practices of “talking circle,” with story-telling and listening in particular ways, guided by protocols to promote principles of respect, responsibility, reciprocity, reverence, holism, and inter-connectedness. Moving around the circle, returning to the center and moving back out, to reflect and bring forth richer descriptions and meanings. " Marcy Rivas

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We gather together for a time to speak, listen. 

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"I was born into a storytelling approach to life, with stories of how we were created, who our people and kin are, how we can re-create ourselves through the stories we tell, calling on the strength of our ancestors and community, so we might create our life's story as one of meaning, purpose, right living and well-being. Red Cedar is in my backbone.

Stories are all we have. Stories weave the fabric of our lives. Ancestral stories, community stories, stories of ourselves, stories of the as yet unknown." Marcy Rivas

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A tender therapy with humanity and heart

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A tender therapy with humanity and heart

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"I hope narrative work will always accent humanity and be a tender therapy with heart and a strong sense of being in this crazy life together. Let's continue to draw inspiration from this stanza from Mary Oliver's 'Summer Day' poem."

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A tender therapy with humanity and heart

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Karen Young, M.S.W.,R.S.W., Windz Centre, Ontario, Canada

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"This is an interesting question and one that I have many answers to. One answer is that my narrative backbone is made up of questions. Instead of offering certainties, diagnoses, advice, or even applause, narrative therapists offer our questions for consideration. I was initially drawn to narrative practice because of this curious, collaborative, and ‘co-exploring’ positioning of the therapist. I can remember Michael White saying something like: “When I feel a statement coming on, I try to turn it into a question”. Of course, it is not just any kind of question that we are interested in as narrative practitioners, but questions that (borrowing language from Michael White and David Epston) invite people outside of the routine thought that unsettle the taken-for-granted and are “different.” These questions reflect a refusal to see problems in ways that locate them inside of person’s identities. Our questions then invite people into externalizing conversations. Other questions resist hearing people’s expressions of psychological pain as ‘failure to get over’ or pathology. These questions ask about what matters to people and how they are able to recognize and stay connected to what is important. I have always experienced these and other narrative questions as beautiful."