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Abstract
This paper explores the temporary and intentional centring of the ideas that inform narrative therapy as part of therapeutic practice. Chris describes the usefulness of exposing, in the therapeutic context, the presence and operations of dominant, western, individualising psychological constructs that so often disqualify and pathologise lives. Conversations that remove the truth status of white western psychology can make space for the co-construction of alternative, more relational psychologies. Chris describes conversational therapeutic practices that include scaffolding questions with the political, psychological and philosophical ideas that underpin those lines of enquiry. Her intention is that people leave the therapy not only with re-authored lives and identities but also with preferred psychologies for how they might think about their own and others' lives and identities in the future.
Key words: psychological truth, individualism and relational being, folk psychology, decolonising practice, scaffolding questions
Introduction
I am a woman, daughter, twin sister, mother, grandmother, partner, narrative therapist, dog lover, fisherwoman, and many other things! I have worked on a daily basis with the stories of people's lives since I first encountered Michael White and narrative practices in 1993. Since that time I have engaged in over 10,000 narrative conversations, and it is my profound belief that the problem stories that shape people's realities can be re-authored, and that these new stories can have a transformative impact upon people's lives and identities. I have always been deeply interested in the ideas that underpin narrative practice, and share them often with people in and beyond the counselling room, hence the practices described in this paper.
Exposing a nd developing alternatives to domina nt western psycholog y in the thera peutic context
In recent months I have been exploring a particular set of practices that have been evolving in my practice over the past several years. I have long been interested in the ideas that might be called a folk psychology (White, 2001) or a relational psychology (Gergen, 1994;; 2009a;; 2009b), and an ethic that has always informed my practice has been transparency. Over the years I have incorporated into my practice an overt and transparent sharing of ideas and concepts from the alternative psychologies that underpin narrative work, contrasting these with the more individualising and pathologising constructs of...