Michael White 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 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 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." 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:
While early influences included those of systems theory and cybernetics, White's main work drew on a wide range of sources, including literary theory, cultural anthropology, non-structuralist psychology and French critical / post-structuralist philosophy.
Theoretical and practice innovations
Key therapeutic ideas developed by White include 'externalizing the problem', 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
Publications
1989. Literate Means to Therapeutic Ends. With David Epston. Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications.
1990. Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. With David Epston..
1995. Re-Authoring Lives: Interviews and Essays. Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre Publications.
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.
2011. Narrative Practice: Continuing the conversations.
Michael White's books have also been published in Danish, Spanish, Japanese, Swedish, Italian, German, Chinese, Finnish, French and Portuguese.
