Journal May 2026 Release_Full Edition - Flipbook - Page 67
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understand the peril they experience their life being in, and what they might be
doing in response to its unforgiving influence.
Animative descriptions and energizing verbs: How our questions make
overlooked experience “leap off the page” and into the lap of conversation
“Knowledge is not the discovery or reconstruction of a latent meaning, forgotten or concealed.
It is something newly raised up, an addition to the reality from which it begins.”
– Pierre Macherey
Knowledge is generated, not discovered. Our capacity to re-view our lives and
make sense of what is selected for re-view is not an act of remembering. It is an
act of re-generation. And in the act of generating knowledge, language is heavily
relied upon to give its constitution shape, texture, tone, and direction.
Words, and how they are used, matter in therapy. And though there is much to
say on this topic, my intention here is to call attention to the aesthetics of how
our questions and responses assist persons in making new meaning along the
margins of what is already known, vis-à-vis storied.
What makes a good story
Good stories captivate. They pull the reader along, word by word, and do so by
energizing the plots momentum with accelerant verbs and animative descriptions.
They show the reader what’s happening without telling them. They share enough
to provide an orientation towards the plot while inviting the reader to supply the
story with information of their own design and imagination for what might be
happening behind the scenes of the story and its characters.
Narrative therapy is a therapy that operates along the same principles; it helps
our clients to tell interesting stories about their ability to resist problems by
inviting their awareness towards unique knowledge, surprising insights, and
unexpected twists of fate, moral quandaries, and the perils of moral decisionmaking. This is in service of connecting them with the intentions that might be
standing behind the acts of life that give texture and nuance to day-to-day living.
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
