journal_august_2026_release_full_edition - Flipbook - Page 99
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these conversations. So, it9s helpful to interview people about what other people
would admire or respect about them or believe what is wonderful about them.
You can use a re-membering conversation for that. I don9t do that exactly in a
wonderfulness interview, but I am asking the young person to look back at how
other people have seen her.
LR: Although our client might not bring physical people into the therapy space
with them, they do bring internalized-others with them. So you might inquire
into who first recognized some of the client’s virtues in elementary school? Or
who wouldn't be surprised that you have accomplished what you have at work?
Who would not be surprised that you’ve become the young person that you
are?
KAY: Absolutely! It9s a key thing to do at the beginning of the session with a child
or young person or family as part of the counter storying endeavor. For instance,
you could just ask somebody what their strengths or virtues are. That would
become a very flat interview. You could say a bit more about it. Again, that could
be quite flat, and you could end up with a thin interview, as narrative therapists
call it.
You have to bring narrative counterstorying skills to it and be really persistent in
the questions you ask people, because these are not things people ordinarily talk
about. People9s virtues sometimes are only ever talked about at their funeral. So
you have to give people lots of prompts and lots of follow-up questions; be really
persistent and ask imaginative questions.
Kay Ingamells on the Wonderfulness Interview in Narrative Practice
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, August 2026 Release, p. 94-110.
www.journalcnt.com
