JCNT - May 2025 Release - Full Release - Flipbook - Page 64
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A Literary Means to Pedagogical Ends: A Review of Fortuitous Outcomes
Tom Stone Carlson, Ph.D.1
The story begins…
As unlikely as it may seem, this review of fortuitous outcomes begins with a story
in a bar. I had just finished giving a presentation at the International Narrative
Therapy and Community Work Conference in 2014 in Adelaide, Australia and
decided to join the other presenters for a drink at a local bar. It was a warm
November evening. A welcome break from the long, looming winter awaiting me
in Fargo, North Dakota (where I lived at the time). As I walked into the bar, my
eyes were taken by the funky atmosphere. Bicycles and carpeted green turf
adorned the walls of the open-roofed room. When I returned from my fascination
with the surroundings, I scanned the table where the presenters were gathered.
To my surprise, the only seat that was empty happened to be next to David
Epston. I paused for a moment, quickly deciding whether I could find an excuse to
leave or to seize the opportunity. Fortunately, I found my courage and took my
seat next to David.
I first met David six months previously in Minneapolis at the International
Narrative Therapy Symposium. David was deep in conversation, but greeted me
warmly and offered to buy me a drink. Resisting the temptation to ask him to take
a selfie and post it on Facebook for everyone to see, we struck up a conversation.
David was curious about my work as a professor and how I go about teaching
narrative therapy in my graduate courses in couple and family therapy. I told
David of my love of the philosophies and theories behind narrative ideas, and my
struggle to find ways to teach that helped my students be swept away by theory
as I had been.
