Michael White, 1948-2008
Michael White was a social worker and family therapist whodeveloped narrative therapy, an innovative and highly practicaltechnique using storytelling to help patients of all ages deal withchildhood traumas. He then took his methods from Australia aroundthe world.
With a colleague from New Zealand, David Epston, White exploredthe power of shaping personal accounts and memories in facing thelingering effects of childhood inadequacies and other obstacles inpatients' lives. Their technique was explained in their 1990 book,Narrative Means To Therapeutic Ends, and became known asnarrative therapy.
The technique is based in part on having a patient externalise acondition or problem - such as obesity, the loss of a parent or theresentment of a sibling - and come up with stories and metaphors tore-evaluate the situation, usually from a more positiveperspective. For example, the therapy has been used to helpbed-wetting children distance themselves from shame and anxiety, sothey can consider their condition more objectively and notnecessarily as a character flaw.
Some practitioners encourage patients to write stories, letters,essays or poems and to recall actual events in which theyvanquished a concern or responded to a family member with catharticsatisfaction.
A practitioner of narrative therapy, Gene Combs, an associateprofessor of psychiatry and family medicine at Loyola University inChicago, said White had emphasised the need to "elevate the personyou're working with, instead of elevating the therapist" sodiscussions with patients, alone or in family groups, could ensurethat individuals were not viewed as "generic carriers of problems,or only as pathologies and not people".
The goal is to help a patient recognise personal strengths andsupportive relationships that can aid in surmounting a problem,leading to what Dr Combs called the "preferred stories" of successin the patient's life.
Michael Kingsley White, who died of a heart attack at 59, wasborn and grew up in Adelaide, the son of Neil and Joan White. Heworked briefly as a probation and welfare officer before gaining adegree in social work from the University of South Australia in1979.
He then became a psychiatric social worker at AdelaideChildren's Hospital before he and his wife, Cheryl Hollams, whom hehad married in 1972, established their private practice at theDulwich Centre in 1983. White further refined his ideas in a bookpublished last year,Maps Of Narrative Practice, and thisyear established the Adelaide Narrative Therapy Centre.
Although narrative therapy has been used to treat anorexia,school-related anxiety and problems common in children and youngadults, its uses continue to broaden. White applied it toAboriginal communities in NSW and Western Australia, and found thatstorytelling could be a tool in helping people come to terms withdispossession and the forced relocation from their ancestrallands.
He often travelled to present case histories and refinements ofnarrative theory and was on a similar journey in San Diego,California, when he died. White embraced life with vigour,enthusiasm and a sense of wonder and delight. His keen intellectand wicked sense of humour meant he had no time for accolades orglorification, but he loved to share his understanding of the worldand use this to help people.
Michael White is survived by his mother, Joan, and his wife,Cheryl, and their daughter, Penni.
Jeremy Pearce, The New York Times, and Harriet Veitch
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