Journal December 2025 Release - Flipbook - Page 45
43
You taught me - without teaching - that narrative is not a therapy; it’s a
language for living. It is the way a person chooses to stand in the world,
with curiosity as compass, and respect as the ground beneath their feet.
Because of you, I learned to notice. To notice the stories people tell
themselves and the ones they’ve been told. To notice how a people’s history
can be both wound and medicine. To notice the hope tucked in the corners
where others see only endings.
You will never know all the places your spark has travelled.
The conversations I’ve carried into rooms you will never enter.
The circles of people who will never know your name but will feel your
influence in the way I lean forward, the way I ask, the way I honour their
truths.
This is the gift you gave me: Not a toolkit, but a way of seeing. Not a
profession, but a life. You didn’t hand me narrative therapy; you placed me
in the flow of a much bigger river, and now I cannot stop moving with its
current.
You changed my work, yes. But more than that - you changed my
world. (Nonka Byker)
The honour and credit of every word Nonka attributed to me and my relationship
with narrative therapy goes to David and Joanna. Without this apprenticeship
and the meticulous teaching from Joanna and David, I would never have been
able to bring narrative therapy to life for others.
My apprenticeship with David and Joanna helped me to develop the courage of
my convictions to take on many problems other therapists shy away from,
especially working with people suffering from the effects of addictions. Without
David’s help, I would never have been able to do the work that I now do. He
taught me how to see the long strands of dark history but to protest the tiniest
rebellions against despair. It was hard work, but we were unstoppable. We rolled
An Apprenticeship in Extremis
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, December 2025 Release, p. 5-44.
www.journalnft.com
