Journal May 2026 Release_Full Edition - Flipbook - Page 56
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on the art and craft of asking good questions, narrative therapy does have a lot to
say about what makes a question therapeutic. A therapeutic question, in my view,
is one in which the person asked is invited to reflect on their own experience by
making important, difference-making distinctions. They are questions that render
the scene of important events visible in the mind’s eye and direct one’s
imagination to the exquisite details of the story being shared. They are questions
that ask someone to innocently re-view the historical events relevant to the
therapy in ways that energize the imagination and electrify the story with entirely
new ideas and conclusions for what’s possible. They are questions that more
richly describe what was happening at the time, and what it was like for the
person to be there at the scene of the events being discussed. Resulting in the
bulking of thinly known experience, giving the story, what Hilde Lindemann calls
"heft" (1998).
• Did you worry your worst fears were preparing to swallow the courage
you’d been collecting up for yourself when you finally decided to confront
your partner about the way they were treating you?
• How did you fight the fear back and give your relationship the chance to
turn a new leaf?
• How did you know you were ready to take your first step when you stepped
through the fear social anxiety worked so hard to keep you in?
• Was this the first time you stepped out of line of the life anxiety was
building around you, or do you have a record of defying the strict
requirements anxiety demanded you live your life by?
Questions like this paint the scene of the dilemma in the mind of the person being
asked and inquire about the autonomy they were in possession of to act “out-ofstep” with the problem story that had come to define their identity and life. To
look further into how questions call attention to a person’s history in ways that
vivify and guide, we’ll look at a conversation David Epston had with a young
woman named Lee-Marie.
Animative Descriptions and Vivifying Discovery: Inviting Clients Into The Marvel Of Their Understory
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, May 2026 Release, p. 52-79.
www.journalnft.com
