Michael White | |
|---|---|
 Michael White, October 2006; photograph by Jill Freedman | |
| Born | 29 December 1948 |
| Died | 4 April 2008 (aged 59) |
| Occupation(s) | social worker, family therapist, author |
Michael White (29 December 1948 – 4 April 2008)[1] was an Australian social worker and family therapist. He is known as the founder of narrative therapy, and for his significant contribution to psychotherapy and family therapy, which have been a source of techniques adopted by other approaches.
Michael Kingsley White was born and raised in Adelaide, South Australia. His first professional job was as a probation and welfare worker. He earned an undergraduate social work degree from the University of South Australia in 1979 and worked as a psychiatric social worker at the Adelaide Children's Hospital. He founded the Dulwich Centre in 1983 and began a private practice as a family therapist. He continued to be associated with Dulwich Centre until his death.
White was a practicing social worker and co-director of the Dulwich Centre[2] in Adelaide, South Australia, and was author of several books of importance in the field of family therapy and narrative therapy.
In January 2008, White set up the Adelaide Narrative Therapy Centre[3] to provide counselling services and training workshops relevant to work with individuals, couples, families, groups and communities and to provide a context for exploring recent developments relevant to narrative practice."[4]
Michael White was also particularly known for his work with children and Indigenous Aboriginal communities, as well as with schizophrenia, anorexia/bulimia, men's violence, and trauma.
He received the following awards, honours, invitations:
While early influences included those of systems theory and cybernetics (Gregory Bateson),[6] White's main work drew on a wide range of sources, including literary theory (Jerome Bruner), cultural anthropology (Clifford Geertz, Barbara Myerhoff, Victor Turner), non-structuralist psychology (William James, Lev Vygotsky) and French critical / post-structuralist philosophy (Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault).[7]
Key therapeutic ideas developed by White include 'externalizing the problem',[8] commonly summarised as 'the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem'; 're-authoring' the dominant stories of people's lives; and the idea of 'double-listening' to accounts of trauma: not only the accounts of trauma itself, but how people have responded to trauma.
Key practices of narrative therapy and 'maps' of narrative practice include:
Michael White's books have also been published in Danish, Spanish, Japanese, Swedish, Italian, German, Chinese, Finnish, French and Portuguese.
