The Small and the Ordinary: The Daily Practice of a Postmodern Narrative Therapy

Abstract

In this article, I contrast assumptions of a modernist worldview and a postmodern worldview as they relate to clinical practice. Two exercises are described that help therapists develop insight into and practice with the kind of thinking that is consistent with a postmodern narrative clinical practice. Particular attention is paid to the ways that even the small and the ordinary--single words, single gestures, minor asides, trivial actions--can provide opportunities for generating new meanings. Five concepts that I routinely use in my professional and personal life and that are consistent with a postmodern narrative practice--discourse, externalizing the internalized discourse, exceptions, power as the means to produce a consensus, and characteristics of narrative--are illustrated.