David Epston’s playful approach invites mutual creativity in the resolution of family problems. His writings illustrate the hospitality, playfulness and “respectworthiness” with which David engages people facing difficult problems.Together with Jennifer Freeman and Dean Lobovits, David co-authored of the book, Playful Approaches to Serious Problems: Narrative Therapy with Children and Their Families,  now available in English, Spanish, Chinese and German. Clickhere to read a brief description of narrative therapy with children. In 1997,  following the publication of Playful Approaches to Serious Problems,David, along with his co-authors Dean Lobovits and Jennifer Freeman, initiated the website Narrative Approaches.The website devotes an entire section to  Narrative Therapy with Children and their Families with co-authored papers, artwork and poetry.

Here is an unpublished (partial) manuscript for “The Growing Up Fairy and Sneaky Poo.”

Here is an excerpt from the article, “I am sick of the Problem’s Dirty Tricks” (2010)

“Serena, a disgruntled eleven year old accompanied Jenny, her single-parenting mother in to my office. Jenny wasn’t in a very good mood either. Whatever the problem was, it certainly was one of those that had set each of them at odds with the other. Although when turning and speaking to me, Jenny was polite and good natured, she couldn’t help scowling in response when she looked towards Serena who made no attempt whatsoever at putting on a good face for me. In fact, she looked vengefully at her mother as if she had been injured by her in some way or other. The looks on her face suggested something like this to me: “if you tell him what the Problem is, you will be sorry when we get home afterwards!”

As is my custom, I proposed a tack that caught both of them off guard. “Look, do you mind if we go about this conversation in a way that might be very, very different than what you both might have expected?….