Michael White (29 December 1948 – 4 April 2008) was an Australian social worker and

family therapist Family therapy (also referred to as family counseling, family systems therapy, marriage and family therapy, couple and family therapy) is a branch of psychology and clinical social work that works with families and couples in intimate relationsh ...

. He is known as the founder of

narrative therapy Narrative therapy (or Narrative Practice) is a form of psychotherapy that seeks to help patients identify their values and the skills associated with them. It provides the patient with knowledge of their ability to live these values so they can ...

, 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 The University of South Australia (UniSA) is a public research university in the Australian state of South Australia. It is a founding member of the Australian Technology Network of universities, and is the largest university in South Australi ...

in 1979 and worked as a psychiatric social worker at the

Adelaide Children's Hospital The Women's and Children's Hospital is located on King William Road in North Adelaide, Australia. It is one of the major hospitals in Adelaide and is a teaching hospital of the University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia and Fli ...

. 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 Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, 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: * 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.

Work

Influences

While early influences included those of systems theory and cybernetics ( Gregory Bateson), White's main work drew on a wide range of sources, including literary theory (

Jerome Bruner Jerome Seymour Bruner (October 1, 1915 – June 5, 2016) was an American psychologist who made significant contributions to human cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory in educational psychology. Bruner was a senior research fellow at ...

), cultural anthropology ( Clifford Geertz, Barbara Myerhoff,

Victor Turner Victor Witter Turner (28 May 1920 – 18 December 1983) was a British cultural anthropologist best known for his work on symbols, rituals, and rites of passage. His work, along with that of Clifford Geertz and others, is often referred to as ...

), non-structuralist psychology (

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...

Lev Vygotsky Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (russian: Лев Семёнович Выго́тский, p=vɨˈɡotskʲɪj; be, Леў Сямёнавіч Выго́цкі, p=vɨˈɡotskʲɪj; – June 11, 1934) was a Soviet psychologist, known for his work on ps ...

) and French critical /

post-structuralist Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...

philosophy ( Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault).

Theoretical and practice innovations

Key

therapeutic A therapy or medical treatment (often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx) is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis. As a rule, each therapy has indications and contraindications. There are many different ...

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''Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends''; ''Maps of Narrative Practice''; White, M. (2000). ''Reflections on Narrative Practice'' Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre Publications

Publications

* 1989. ''Literate Means to Therapeutic Ends''. With

David Epston David Epston (born 30 August 1944) is a New Zealand therapist, co-director of the Family Therapy Centre in Auckland, New Zealand, Visiting Professor at the John F. Kennedy University, an honorary clinical lecturer in the Department of Social Work ...

. Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. * 1990. ''Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends''. With

. (WW Norton & Company, New York). * 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

. 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.

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 Radio National, known on-air as RN, is an Australia-wide public service broadcasting radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2. History 1937: Predecessors a ...

, broadcast 1 October 2005.

References

External links

Dulwich Centre: Gateway to Narrative Therapy and Community WorkNarrative Practice AdelaideMichael White Archive

Narrative Therapy Bibliography
* Australia news , The Guardian, June 17, 2008br>Social Construction Therapies Network
{{DEFAULTSORT:White, Michael 2008 deaths 1948 births Australian psychologists Constructivism (psychological school) Psychotherapists Family therapists People from Adelaide 20th-century psychologists