Michael White (psychotherapist)

Michael White (born December 29, 1948 in Adelaide , † April 4 or 5, 2008 in San Diego , California) was an Australian social worker and psychotherapist . He was considered a pioneer of the narrative approach in systemic therapy .

Michael White

Life

After initial experience in child protection and probation work, Michael White began working with groups and families in 1973 in the context of substance use and schizophrenia. His work was shaped by his strong community orientation. In 1980 he switched to the private practice and developed a family therapy training concept without having had any psychotherapy training himself. In 1983 he founded - together with Cheryl White - the Dulwich Center in Adelaide, a center for narrative therapy, which they both ran together. White was in academic exchange with his New Zealand colleague David Epston - with him he shared an interest in cultural anthropology , critical philosophy and the philosophy of language . Epston and White have authored several books together.

The term narrative played a central role in White's theoretical conception . Narratives - based on constructivism - are seen as narrative structures that enable individuals and systems to organize experience and perception of reality on the one hand, and action and interaction on the other. Influenced by the solution-oriented approach of Goolishians , de Shazers and Insoo Kim Bergs and the hypnotherapeutic approaches of Stephen Gilligan , but also by Gregory Bateson and Michel Foucault , the Australian therapist developed his own approach, questioned the classic distribution of roles in therapy and pleaded for co-authorship of Therapist and client. He countered the restrictive power of social expectations and hierarchical structures with the liberating effect of the narrative and encouraged his clients to tell new stories about life and solutions. "To enable a universally accepted definition of the problem" and "to externalize problems" are the most important mottos of narrative therapy.

White has lectured frequently at congresses and has also repeatedly taught in North America and Europe. In April 2008, Michael White held a three-day seminar in San Diego . He suffered a serious heart attack while eating and died three days later. He was 59 years old.

Fonts

• Literate Means to Therapeutic Ends. Together with David Epston. Adelaide: Dulwich Center Publications, 1989
• Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. Together with David Epston. New York: WW Norton, 1990. ISBN 0-393-70098-4
• Experience, contradiction, narrative and imagination. Selected papers of David Epston & Michael White, 1989-1991. Adelaide: Dulwich Publ., 1992
• Re-Authoring Lives: Interviews and Essays Adelaide: Dulwich Center Publications, 1995. ISBN 0-646-22735-1
• Narratives of Therapists' Lives Adelaide: Dulwich Center Publications, 1997
• Reflections on Narrative Practice Adelaide: Dulwich Center Publications, 2000
• Narrative Practice and Exotic Lives: Resurrecting diversity in everyday life Adelaide: Dulwich Center Publications, 2004. ISBN 0-9577929-9-9
• Maps of Narrative Practice. New York: WW Norton, 2007

German-language publications

• The taming of monsters. Together with David Epston. Heidelberg: Carl Auer 1992, 2006 (5th edition). ISBN 978-3-89670-528-0
• Therapy as deconstruction. In: Schweizer / Retzer / Fischer (ed.): Systemic Therapy and Postmodernism. Frankfurt / Main 1992, 39-63

Web links

• Literature by and about Michael White in the catalog of the German National Library
• Dulwich Center

Individual evidence

1. ^ Stumm, Pritz: Personal Lexicon of Psychotherapy , Vienna, New York 2005, 508 f.
2. ↑ Obituary by Rudi Kronbichler  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.