Journal December 2025 Release - Flipbook - Page 65
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During the conversation with the internalised-other, we invite the person to
engage in a “make-believe play” and speak as if s/he was a loved one. This
disrupts the individualist logic of “I am me, and you are you”. Once the person
agrees to “go down the rabbit hole” and steps into the dynamics of being both
the one who speaks and the one who listens to what is said, s/he becomes, at
once, performer and audience. The person becomes an outsider witness to a
conversation that proceeds from them and emerges from within —in that magic
world of affections and narratives about to be born. This way of listening “from
within” makes possible a distinctive reflection between the person and his/her
life story. As one woman told me after such a conversation: “How lovely to speak
as if I were my aunt! It gave me such peace, such joy… How much she loves me!
And how many things we have in common!”
In this way, the conversation with the internalised-other reveals elements that
become the raw material for subsequent sessions. It is not the therapy itself, but
part of a wider context, entering the therapeutic flow as a way to “awake
memories” (Benites, 2023) and to activate precious stories in which I, he/she,
we… everyone inhabits the same narrative time, giving voice to possible futures
and creating untested-feasible paths.
After wandering through these stories and ideas, I keep wondering what you
might experience during these magical and powerful encounters that happen
when we go down the rabbit hole and let questions become the pirlimpimpim
dust (the pixie dust) that brings wonderfulness to life.
References
Anderson, H, & Goolishian, H. A. (2018). Sistemas humanos como sistemas
linguísticos: implicações para a teoria clínica e a terapia familiar. (Trad.
Adriana Müller) In: Colaboração e diálogo: aportes teóricos e possibilidades
práticas. Marilene A. Grandesso (org). CRV.
Benites, S. (2023). Arte para fazer acordar a memória. In: Povos Indígenas no
Brasil 2017/2022. Instituto Socioambiental.
Denborough, D. (2008). Práticas narrativas coletivas: trabalhando com indivíduos,
Narractivating Conversations with the Internalised-Other: A Therapy with a Little Bit of Fairy Dust.
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, December 2025 Release, p. 45-65.
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