Mark Twain posted this notice at the beginning of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, knowing perfectly well that his readers would immediately set about interpreting the novel according to their own experience and their own point of view. But Twain is determined to make us aware of our urge to interpret B our refusal to just let a story take hold of us for a while and shake us up a bit. That probably makes him a 19 th century practitioner of a rather blunt form of narrative therapy. The answer is elusive because narrative is always in flux, always changing, depending on who is telling the story and who is listening.
Any narrative is an attempt to create meaning.
We need some sort of frame to make our lives intelligible to ourselves, and so we tell stories. Michael White, originator of 20 th century narrative therapy, says the narrative approach suggests that A . . . Narrative therapy offers a way to loosen the grip. In this issue of Narrative Matters we explore storytelling that is intended to shake us to our core. He is the director of the Dulwich Center in Adelaide, Australia.