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today, and I know that the problem is something that you9ve come here to talk
about, would it be okay if I was to get to know you in another way altogether? (I9ll
relate this to working with a child with a family present) Could I ask you what9s
wonderful about Billy? What is it that I would come to know that is wonderful
about him if I was to get to know him as well as you do? The reason I9m asking
this is because people don9t come to therapy without having had life experience.
As parents, you will have worked through all sorts of things in your lives,
individually and as a family, and you will have wisdom and qualities and abilities
to bring to what we9re dealing with today. And if I know what those are, we can
put our heads together and think about how we might use Billy9s wonderful
abilities and your family9s wonderful abilities together to deal with this problem.=
That9s one of the ways I might begin it. And hopefully that gives you a sense of
what it is.
LR: It does indeed. A little bit earlier on, you drew a distinction between an
inquiry and an interview, and while some may use those terms interchangeably,
my sense is that they are very different processes for you.
KAY: In several ways. The first is that this is something I9m doing with somebody.
I9m not interviewing somebody. I9m inquiring with people. We9re inquiring
together. I9m not bringing in the expectations of where I think we will end up
specifically. I don9t have a list of questions in front of me. It9s an inquiry. It9s an
inventive, imaginative inquiry that really stems from narrative values about being
decentered as a practitioner, valuing people9s knowledges and wisdom. It9s about
connecting to and bringing out their insider knowledge. When I say inquiry, it
occurs inside of a larger narrative inquiry, which is about the development of a
counterstory. And the counterstory is an attempt to co-create a narrative with the
client, with the parents of the client, that counters one of pathology and
problems.
Wonderfulness inquiries or virtue inquiries are so helpful in interviewing people
because the conversation is directed at what9s wonderful about them, what you
appreciate and respect about them. With older people, you9re discovering who
that person is as a character, a moral character. You are characterizing them as a
Kay Ingamells on the Wonderfulness Interview in Narrative Practice
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, August 2026 Release, p. 94-110.
www.journalcnt.com
