Keeping Faith with Keeping Faith: Conversations About A Conversation with Michael White

Abstract

This interview took place in May of 2007. Our intention was to hold a conversation two years after the passing of Michael White, based on the interview published in JST in 2009 (Duvall & Young, 2009). In keeping with the narrative tradition of telling, re-tellings, and re-tellings of re-tellings, we held three conversations on that day. The first conversation involved Jim, a faculty member in the doctoral program in family therapy at Nova Southeastern University, Paul, also a faculty member, and Marcela, who is completing her doctoral work and who has published and presented internationally on narrative issues. Witnessing this conversation, and subsequently reflecting on it, were Michelle, a doctoral student working on her dissertation about narrative approaches with families of perpetrators of crimes, Corinne, who is completing her dissertation on outsider witness practices with adolescent girls in a school setting, and Olivia, a doctoral student who is approaching the dissertation phase. The first group then responded briefly to this reflection. The introduction to the conversation with Duvall, Young, and White concludes with: "We were particularly interested in Michael's notion of keeping faith, staying true to those important sentiments, learnings, and circumstances in life that clarify what is important that we give value to" (p. 1). The idea of keeping faith forms the primary path for this conversation. But, as with most conversations, many excursions were made down unexpected side-paths. We are sure that if we held The authors would like to thank Maria Shields for her assistance in transcribing this conversation.