Maps of Narrative Practice (Norton Professional Books) [Hardcover]

My supervisor at the agency I worked in was a huge Michael White fan and introduce me to his work. I first read "Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends" by White and Epston. It had a profound influence on my practice as a family therapist. I loved the ideas, especially that they work in a way that empowers people does and not pathologize them. But I found the writing to be overly concerned with deconstructionist philosophy and sometimes too cerebral. Much of the Narrative field followed that lead and wrote in that style. Please. Too much postmodern angst folks.

Fortunately, Michael White has written about Narrative Therapy for the general public and in doing so has also given professionals a brilliant and accessible entry into the world of Narrative Therapy and externalization. I couldn't recommend the work more. It's personal and has very illustrative transcripts of actual sessions that do an excellent job of demonstrating the work and how wonderfully it gives people control over previously debilitating problems.

I've studied with White and found him to be very present, warm, encouraging and with little ego. Finally here is a book that lets both his brilliance as a therapist his healing personality show through the abstractions of his more academic writing.

I suspect Philip didn't actually read Maps of Narrative Practice, just glanced at the index. If he'd read it, he'd have found it to be a clear, precise, moving, warm, and effective tool kit for those therapists who are interested in further developing their skills.
White has been developing these ideas over decades, but this is his first mainstream book, hence the references to his own works. He's not writing just to publish, he's writing to give as clear a map as he can of his own highly successful methods.
I can't think of a book more profound in its potential effects than Maps of Narrative Practice. Broad use of these therapeutic methods and maps will result, I believe, in stronger communities, in greater joy, in people finding meaning and worth where they didn't before recognize its presence, moving from feeling useless to feeling the power to shape their lives in harmony with what they value.
White's ideas build on and incorporate concepts of identity and learning uncovered by Myerhoff, Bruner, Vygotsky, and other greats, but, most important of all, his ideas come from his work with clients. His miraculously open mind allows him to find, and recognize, simply, what works, rather than what ought to work. I would almost say he comes at this with a sort of blue collar innocence, pragmatic, calm, genuinely concerned, confident of the possibility of discovering a scaffold to new ideas for even the most "hopeless" cases.
Rather than being all puffed up about his importance, he's as unassuming as a plumber coming to unclog your toilet, which, let's face it, is a pretty good analogy of what a therapist hopes to accomplish in the realms of psyche.
I don't know White's background. I only know that he tells the truth in plainly eloquent human language.
He provides structures of inquiry based on how we develop concepts and learn to navigate, so the work flows. The outcomes are always surprising, and it's clear that White's pleasure in this work arises from being witness to these flowerings of possibility.
You could say he's devised a method for letting the work do itself. Like a carpenter might say to an apprentice, let the tool do the work. Relax. Pay attention.
Any therapist with the desire to serve as agents to their clients' authorship of their own lives will find White's concepts invaluable.
Hs brief notes, interspersed throughout the book, on how he arrived at his methods, provide a useful template for anyone setting out to learn how to learn.
White's voice is delightful, unique, personal. His fresh and open look at who we are and how we become, if you actually read it, will serve up treasures you'll be glad to incorporate into your own practice.

This is a fantastic book for psychotherapists who want to learn more about narrative therapy. In this rigorous and graceful new book, Michael White has created a definitive text of theory and practice. Beautifully organized and a pleasure to read, it brings theory alive with colorful transcripts of therapy in every chapter and offers examples and instructions for applying narrative practices with the full range of mental health challenges that psychiatrists and therapists may be called upon to address. While it is an excellent, accessible introduction, as an experienced narrative therapist, I draw upon its thoroughness, precision and subtlety to invigorate and improve my work.
White maps out key territories of narrative practice, deftly linking theory with sentence-by-sentence analysis of therapeutic conversations. The book begins with the core narrative concept "externalizing the problem". White says, "When the problem becomes an entity that is separate from the person, and when people are not tied to... negative "certainties" about their lives, new options for taking action to address the predicaments of their lives become available." Relinquishing a shameful "spoiled" identity (for example, as a "crazy" person) to claim an identity as a person who is resisting and trying to overcome a challenging problem (such as "worries" or "negativity") energizes and inspires clients---and the clinicians working with them. Continuing in this "re-authoring" vein, the smallest successes in limiting a problem are elicited, named, fleshed out and historicized, making available a new story of the person's knowledge and skills in coping that can be drawn from and built upon. Further, discovering why a person wishes to resist their problem (such as, "because I want to contribute something to the world") opens up new possibilities for positive developments.
Narrative therapy brings "why?" back to psychotherapy as a means to honor the importance of intentions and values in the creation of our lives, and not just states, traits, drives or biochemistry. While White acknowledges the ways in which naturalistic explanations for people's behaviors may be beautiful (such as "it's only human to long for acknowledgement"), he sees these conclusions as therapeutic "cul-de-sacs". Rather, narrative therapy seeks to "spark a heightened state of mental activity" in which people are "stretching their minds" and "exercising their imaginations" in creating new possibilities for their lives, based on what they personally give meaning to. These practices lead to movement from a problem-saturated identity to a value-based identity that supports actions that move a person closer to living as they prefer. Unprecedented change and growth can result. The metaphor of maps, used throughout the book, aptly captures White's detailed but non-prescriptive approach, in which he offers guidance for fruitful therapeutic inquiry while encouraging practitioners to allow conversations to be "unruly" and nonlinear.
White first began exploring narrative practices in the 1970's by attending to how the families and children with whom he worked experienced their lives through stories. By noticing their earliest, most tentative steps toward well-being and offering questions that made it possible to incorporate these "sparkling moments" into meaningful new stories of self-development, he discovered powerful ways to help people free themselves from their problems and find the health and happiness they desired. Over the next three decades, working with people dealing with problems such as agoraphobia, bereavement, depression, psychosis, and trauma, White further developed and fleshed out how and why these emotionally moving, often playful "re-authoring conversations" work so well. His prolific body of work stands as a foundation of narrative therapy, summarized and systematically presented for the first time in this brilliant new book.

SuEllen Hamkins, M.D. is a narrative therapist and psychiatrist at The Carson Center and has a private practice in Northampton, Massachusetts. She is co-author of The Mother-Daughter Project: How Mothers and Daughters Can Band Together, Beat the Odds, and Thrive through Adolescence (Penguin, 2007).