David Epston

I was in Australia listening to Michael White teach.

Michael White, together with David Epstein, produced narrative therapy, what we call narrative therapy.

And he was talking about rites of passage.

And he used the phrase migration of identity as... kind of the way he spoke about when people come to see a counsellor, they're experiencing something which is not okay for them and they're desiring to be somewhere else.

Which, forgive me, by the way, I think is part of our therapy.

is that the individualising of therapy, I think, is valuable to help people to learn the skills of living for themselves, but to wrap that up in the relationships that they're a part of, that there's an us-ness to the answer, that it's not all about me or you, that I think that therapy can mature in that direction too.

So when I look at the Dulwich Centre, from which a lot of this narrative ideas come, together with where David Epstein is in Auckland, there's a real emphasis on social practice, on social practice, on conversations with large groups of people.

And in my work I do that.

How do I make it last?" I love this question because it's honest about something the wellness world or even the therapy world doesn't really like to admit: insights fade, and feeling connected for a weekend doesn't rewrite an entire lifetime.

In narrative therapy, Michael White and David Epston wrote about reauthoring.

The stories we live inside aren't fixed, but a new story needs to be lived, witnessed, and repeated before it can hold.

Told once on your own, it's very easily swallowed back up by the old story that we had.