The person is not the problem
In the 1980s, the Australian social worker Michael White met a family whose young son had been soiling himself for years. Everyone was exhausted and ashamed, and the boy had come to see himself as the problem. White did something unexpected. He gave the problem a name, Sneaky Poo, and started asking about it as if it were a separate, mischievous character. When did Sneaky Poo trick the boy into playing with it? When had he outwitted it? The whole family, boy included, began working together against Sneaky Poo rather than against each other.
This is called externalising, and it is at the heart of narrative therapy, which White developed with the New Zealand therapist David Epston. White summed it up in a line that has become the approach’s motto: “The person is not the problem, the problem is the problem.”
The idea reaches well beyond childhood. An adult who says “I’m an anxious person” has merged their identity with the problem. Someone who says “anxiety has been pushing me around since my divorce” has a little distance, and with it, some room to push back. Narrative therapists help people find that room through careful questions.
White and Epston also noticed that people’s stories about themselves tend to be problem-saturated, leaving out everything that doesn’t fit. They looked for what they called unique outcomes: moments when the problem didn’t win. The evening the anxious person went to the party anyway. The week the critical voice was quieter. These moments become the raw material for a different, truer story about who someone is.
I draw on narrative ideas alongside other approaches, particularly with anyone who has come to feel defined by what they are struggling with. If that sounds familiar, it may be a helpful way in. Read more about narrative ideas, or get in touch.