Michael White (psychotherapist)

Michael White (29 December 1948 – 4 April 2008)^[1] was an Australian social worker and family therapist. He is known as the founder of narrative therapy, and for his significant contribution to psychotherapy and family therapy, which have been a source of techniques adopted by other approaches.

Biography

Michael Kingsley White was born and raised in Adelaide, South Australia. His first professional job was as a probation and welfare worker. He earned an undergraduate social work degree from the University of South Australia in 1979 and worked as a psychiatric social worker at the Adelaide Children's Hospital. He founded the Dulwich Centre in 1983 and began a private practice as a family therapist. He continued to be associated with Dulwich Centre until his death.

White was a practicing social worker and co-director of the Dulwich Centre^[2] in Adelaide, South Australia, and was author of several books of importance in the field of family therapy and narrative therapy.

In January 2008, White set up the Adelaide Narrative Therapy Centre^[3] to provide counselling services and training workshops relevant to work with individuals, couples, families, groups and communities and to provide a context for exploring recent developments relevant to narrative practice."^[4]

Michael White was also particularly known for his work with children and Indigenous Aboriginal communities, as well as with schizophrenia, anorexia/bulimia, men's violence, and trauma.

He received the following awards, honours, invitations:

• International Fellow, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy
• Masters Interview, American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy Conference, San Francisco, 1989.
• Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, John F. Kennedy University, Orinda, California.
• Distinguished Contribution to Family Therapy Theory & Practice Award, American Family Therapy Academy, 1999.^[5]

On 31 March 2008, Michael White suffered a sudden heart failure at a restaurant in San Diego, California. He died five days later, on 5 April 2008.^[6]

Work

Influences

While early influences included those of systems theory and cybernetics (Gregory Bateson),^[7] White's main work drew on a wide range of sources, including literary theory (Jerome Bruner), cultural anthropology (Clifford Geertz, Barbara Myerhoff, Victor Turner), non-structuralist psychology (William James, Lev Vygotsky) and French critical / post-structuralist philosophy (Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault).^[8]

Theoretical and practice innovations

Key therapeutic ideas developed by White include 'externalizing the problem',^[9] commonly summarised as 'the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem'; 're-authoring' the dominant stories of people's lives; and the idea of 'double-listening' to accounts of trauma: not only the accounts of trauma itself, but how people have responded to trauma.

Key practices of narrative therapy and 'maps' of narrative practice include:

• The statement of position map / externalising conversations map
• Re-authoring conversations
• Re-membering conversations
• Definitional ceremonies
• Scaffolding conversations
• The absent but implicit
• Responding to personal failure conversations^[10]

Publications

• 1989. Literate Means to Therapeutic Ends. With David Epston. Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications.
• 1990. Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. With David Epston. (WW Norton & Company, New York).
• 1995. Re-Authoring Lives: Interviews and Essays. Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre Publications. ISBN 0-646-22735-1
• 1995. Narratives of Therapists' Lives. Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre Publications.
• 2000. Reflections on Narrative Practice. Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre Publications.
• 2004. Narrative Practice and Exotic Lives: Resurrecting diversity in everyday life. Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre Publications.
• 1992. Experience, Contradiction, Narrative and Imagination: Selected papers of David Epston & Michael White, 1989-1991. With David Epston. Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre Publications.
• 2006. Narrative Therapy with Children and their Families. With Alice Morgan. Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre Publications.
• 2007. Maps of Narrative Practice. (WW Norton & Company, New York)
• 2011. Narrative Practice: Continuing the conversations. (WW Norton & Company, New York)

Michael White's books have also been published in Danish, Spanish, Japanese, Swedish, Italian, German, Chinese, Finnish, French and Portuguese.

Magazine articles and radio features

• Cowley, G. & K. Springen. (1995). Rewriting life stories. Newsweek, 17 April.
• Wylie, M.S. (1994). Panning for gold. Family Therapy Networker, 18(6), 40-48.
• Special report on narrative therapy, Life Matters, ABC Radio National, broadcast 23 December 1999 (repeated 8 October 2002).
• Writing on the Mind – the power of story telling, All in the Mind, ABC Radio National, broadcast 1 October 2005.

References

External links

• Dulwich Centre: Gateway to Narrative Therapy and Community Work
• Narrative Practice Adelaide
• Michael White Archive
• Narrative Therapy Bibliography
• New York Times obituary, 28 April 2008
• Narrative therapy founder dies, ABC News, 7 Apr 2008
• Social Construction Therapies Network