Journal May 2026 Release_Full Edition - Flipbook - Page 63
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Michael White's “Outsider Witnessing Practice”. In his research, Tom came to
understand that it was towards a theory of outsight that Michael was operating
by when building a practice around Barbara Myerhoff’s Definitional Ceremony.
Outsight, as Tom outlines, is an orientation of viewing one’s life and lived
experience as if it is being looked upon, like reading about a character in a book
(2020). When one steps out from behind their own eyes and takes a position of
looking upon their life, they are granted the opportunity to make distinctions
about the conditions the character is operating within (Carlson, 2020). By
standing outside of the story, one is better positioned to experience the story as
an author, rather than a character; for a character operates their life in response
to the conditions their story is set, while an author has the right to set the
conditions by which the character's story will take place.
I am of the firm belief that the notion of “re-authoring” requires, first and
foremost, a commitment to externalizing the conditions that one might be
responding to as a means to re-author their lives in new and meaningful ways.
This is in effect externalizing. But the purpose of this style of externalizing is not
to simply separate a problem from a person such that it can be fashioned as an
entity wreaking havoc in a person’s life. No. It is externalizing for the sake of
inviting a person to take on “authorial agency” (Morson, 1994) such that they
might witness themselves responding to a problem with intelligence, integrity,
dignity, self-concern, courage, intention, and/or any other form of moral
character.
Looking upon one’s own life through the filter of the first-person perspective
When listening for how problems operate, narrative questions ought to orient the
inquiry through the eyes of the person seeking care. I submit that therapeutic
questions are markedly more effective when they invite the client to reflect on
their experience through the filter of the first-person perspective. Story
developing questions that ask about experience through the filter of the firstperson perspective are questions that ask a person about what they remember,
what they prefer, what they hope for, what they intended, what they desire, and
or what they long for (Paljakka & Carlson, 2024). They are questions that inquire
Animative Descriptions and Vivifying Discovery: Inviting Clients Into The Marvel Of Their Understory
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, May 2026 Release, p. 52-79.
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