Discovering childrens

responsesa response-based
to trauma:
narrative practice
By Angel Yuen

Angel Yuen is a school social worker and private therapist in

Toronto. She is also a founding member and on the faculty of the
Narrative Therapy Centre of Toronto where she can be contacted
c/o P.O. Box 31030, 15 Westney Road North, Ajax, Ontario,
Canada. Email: [email protected]

Modern discourses of victimhood, which are often present

in instances of childhood trauma, can contribute considerably
to establishing long-term negative identity conclusions.
However, focussing on childrens responses to trauma can aid
in conversations that contribute to rich second story development,
without re-traumatising children or young people. These kinds of
enquiry can focus on childrens acts of resistance, places of safety,
and other skills of living. This paper gives examples of therapy
informed by this approach, and provides a map of four levels of
enquiry for conversations with children and young people which
elicit and build upon responses to trauma.

Keywords: children, trauma, externalising conversations, re-membering conversations,

memory theory, second story development, double-storied memories

The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work

2007 No. 4 www.dulwichcentre.com.au

PART ONE: CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE AS

AGENTS IN THEIR OWN LIVES
When I first met with Megan1 when she was
fifteen years old, she told me how her mother had
died two years previously after a life of destruction,
depression, alcohol and hopelessness. In our first
conversation, Megan provided me with a synopsis of
her difficult childhood. This had included not only
the trauma of her mothers death, but also
experiencing child sexual abuse, being exposed to
high alcohol and substance use, and witnessing
violence. After she had described this to me, she
stared at me knowingly and said, As you can see,
Im pretty messed up and Im not even sure if you
can help me!
As a school social worker and private therapist,
I have had many conversations with children and
young people who have been vulnerable to an array
of very serious and traumatic events. As a result,
I know well that children are not strangers to
trauma. Children and young people have confided
in me stories about the deaths of parents, exposure
to abuse and violence, living with a parent with
serious mental health difficulties or high substance
use, abduction, severe bullying, ongoing racism2,
emmigrating from war-torn countries, and/or facing
several injustices from within and outside their
families. After hearing these sorts of stories, it is
not unusual for the child or young person to repeat
Megans statement and identity conclusion, Im
messed up! Its also not uncommon for other
people to ascribe negative identity conclusions to
these young people, such as, Hes damaged for life
because of the years of abuse he went through as
a child.

DISCOURSES OF VICTIMHOOD
Contemporary discourses of victimhood can
contribute considerably to establishing long-term
negative identity conclusions. In Toronto, as in
many other major cities around the world,
discourses of victimhood are ever-present in the
media with regard to violence and other traumatic
events. For example, a few months ago the Toronto
community was shocked to hear of the murder of a
fourteen-year-old boy in his school in the middle of
the day. Almost instantly, the news was splashed
with headlines such as: The pain of the loss will be

there forever, and commentaries describing Twenty

per cent of the students will never get over it!
In these statements, there is a perception that the
child/young person subjected to trauma is unable
to have any effect whatsoever on their own life and
that they will be forever vulnerable.
When helplessness becomes the dominant story
in a childs life, their sense of agency is erased.
Caregivers and professionals referring children to
me who have experienced significant trauma often
say things like He will never get over it, She is
ruined for life, How could he/she ever be the
same? Often, these well-intentioned concerns are
accompanied by caring and compassion, but I think
these narrow descriptions inadvertently have
children experiencing less and less agency in their
lives. I do not want to minimise the intensity of pain
and distress resulting from trauma and the
devastating effects on children and young people.
However, these single-storied accounts can be
crushing of hope and promote the construction of
disabled identities. These victim stories not only
shape an individual childs life and identity, but
they can also define communities of children who
are vulnerable, thus creating a picture of
powerlessness and desolation for their future.

UNHINGING FROM VICTIM LIFE STORIES

Despite the discourses of victimhood, there are
also individuals and groups who are determined to
not be defined by stories of trauma. With regard to
child sexual abuse, counter-stories to the notion of
psychological long-lasting damage are offered which
question the claims that child sexual assault
inevitably leads to lasting emotional distress
(Kamsler, 1991; Mann, 2006; Silent too Long,
2001). Adams-Westcott, Daffron, and Sterne
(1992) considered the use of a number of
therapeutic conversations to help people who have
experienced childhood trauma escape victim life
stories and discovered that they can make a
difference in their own lives.
More generally, we hear unique survivor stories
of childhood trauma and the ability of individuals to
overcome adversity. These tellings offer an
important counterpoint to pathologising
descriptions. However, I believe that these stories of
beating the odds go much further than just a
childs capacity to survive and thrive. Ungar (2005)

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argues that it is a shallow description of resilience

to attribute success to something inside an
individual alone, and emphasises the necessity to
develop thicker descriptions of resilience. With this
notion in mind, its my preference to unearth the
sources of resilience which are linked less to
cognitive strategies and internal understandings,
and more to children and young peoples actions,
skills, and knowledges. This, then, is resilience that
is the outcome of experiences, identity stories, and
connections with others.
Along with these preferences, it is my intention
to engage in explorations which can be hope-filled
by assisting children and young people3 to unhinge
from victim life stories before these take hold of
their identities. These explorations seek out sources
of resilience and open space to alternative
knowledges. These conversations elevate personal
agency by exploring where the child feels that they
can be influential in their own life, where they can
be an agent in their own story.

CENTRING CHILDRENS KNOWLEDGES

ABOUT THEIR OWN LIVES
I am continually reminded of, and saddened by,
childrens limited power in the context of talking
about their dilemmas and troubling situations.
Within the dominant psychological cultural beliefs
and the many theories about children, it seems that
children are often not consulted about their
thoughts, actions, and the problem-solving skills
they possess.
White (2000) poignantly questions the
competing truths of childhood as described in the
culture of therapy:
There is now such an abundance of
explanations about childrens expressions of
life, such an avalanche of competing truths
about the origins of such expressions, such a
multiplicity of assertions about childrens
nature and about their needs, and such an
explosion of narratives about child
development and its stages, that it now
appears that childhood has been theorised in
all of its intimate particularities. Regardless
of the relative merits and veracity of these
theories, they are routinely taken up, in
popular and in professional culture, in the
interpretation of, and in the management of,

childrens actions in ways that neglect any

exploration of the possibilities that are
available for consulting children about these
actions. In fact, in relation to childrens
expressions of life, the term action is rarely
employed. (p. 15 emphasis added)
This is dramatic in relation to children who have
experienced significant trauma, where diagnoses
such as attention deficit, post-traumatic stress,
conduct, and anxiety disorders have become
pervasive and medications typically prescribed.
With these deficit descriptions, childrens sense of
agency is lessened, while reliance on expert
professional knowledge is increased. Often, when
children and young people do have something to
share about the meaning they attribute to their
symptoms and injustices faced, these are commonly
thought to be inadequate, irrelevant, or
insignificant.
I highlighted action in the quotation above, as
I agree that its a term rarely employed in relation to
childrens expressions of life. Children and young
persons who have endured trauma are often asked
questions which elicit effects and impact on their
lives, yet children are often not consulted about the
actions they took and how they responded. An
exploration into only effects of trauma is concerning
to me, as there is a risk of re-traumatising children.

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT TRAUMA

WITHOUT RE-TRAUMATISING
My hope is that, in working with children who
have experienced trauma, we can ensure that they
are not vulnerable to re-traumatisation when
speaking of what they have been through. This hope
and concern has been important in guiding me in
the questions I choose to ask in therapeutic
conversations, and in creating a safe context for
children to speak about their experiences.
Over some years, I have learned that how
I speak with children and young people about
events of suffering, injustice, and/or oppression
can make a significant difference to how engaged
and comfortable they are in the therapeutic
conversation. In my experience, many children do
not want to talk about the bad things that have
happened to them. Their reluctance is indicated by
saying, I dont want to talk about that! or, more

The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work

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subtly, they may change the subject, provide a thin

response, or perhaps respond simply with I dont
know.
White (2006a) speaks about the importance of
providing a different territory of identity in which a
child can stand, prior to speaking about their
traumatic experiences and how second story4
development provides this different territory:
When meeting with children about
experiences of trauma, the story of this
trauma and the effects that this has on the
childs life is often the first story that is
brought to our attention. This story requires
recognition. But there is also a second story
of how the child has responded to these
experiences of trauma, and this second story
is often overlooked. No-one is a passive
recipient of trauma. Even children respond in
ways to lessen the effects of the trauma, to
seek comfort, to try to preserve what is
precious to them, and so on. This second
story is very important. The ways in which
children respond to trauma are based on
certain skills. These skills reflect what the
child gives value to. And what the child gives
value to is linked to the childs history, to
their family, to their community, and to their
culture. (White, 2006a, p. 87)
With the development of a second story,
children are provided with a safe space to talk
about their experiences of trauma without reliving
the experience. The second story also acknowledges
that, even though a child may not have been able to
stop a traumatic event which may have involved a
range of abuses, or had no control over events of
suffering such as disease or death5, ample
possibility still remains to co-discover how they have
responded to these events in many ways. With this
in mind, I am interested in asking questions that
elicit experience-near descriptions of childrens
actions and responses. In doing so, I want to
present a willingness to engage in conversations
with children using their words and language,
thereby privileging their knowledge.

embark on a project of discovering responses.

Asking about responses essentially involves asking
about what children did. I ask specific, yet
straightforward questions about the actions they
took during times and events of trauma: How did
you respond or what did you do? The children and
young people are asked to describe how they
responded to trauma rather than how they were
affected (see Wade, 1997). While these questions
were already familiar to me, I have recently become
more active and deliberate in routinely entering this
line of enquiry.

A PROJECT OF DISCOVERING
CHILDRENS RESPONSES
Over the past year and a half in this project of
discovery, I have engaged in several conversations
with children and young persons, ranging from six to
seventeen years old. Half were children who were
currently experiencing or had experienced trauma,
and half were adolescents who had historically
faced significant trauma when they were children.
As I have become more purposeful about
discovering responses to trauma, I have begun to
explore what they did and how they responded
before, during, and after traumatic events.
The following questions have assisted my
inquiries:
How did you respond? What did you do?
What did you do when you were scared?
What did you show/not show on your face
during times of abuse?
Where did you hide when you were scared?
What did you do once you found a place
to hide?
Even though it was not possible for you to
stop the violence as a child, how did you
attempt to protect yourself or others?
How did you comfort yourself and
your siblings?
How did your brothers and sisters
comfort you?
What did you do/are you doing to lessen the
effects of abuse/witnessing violence/death of
your parent, etc?

CHILDRENS RESPONSES TO TRAUMA

As I thought more about this concept of the
second story, I found myself curious and eager to

In my ongoing efforts to create an atmosphere

that was child-friendly and not intrusive, I am

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conscious about asking the above questions in a

low-key way. I find that with gentle persistence,
children and young people offer a multitude of
responses. A six-year-old boy shared that he taught
his two-year-old toddler brother how to count to ten
in English, French, and Spanish, to distract him
and lessen the effects of abuse after beatings. From
this conversation, I also learnt how that toddler,
barely able to talk, would comfort his big brother by
bringing him a tissue when he cried.
I also learn about children deliberately finding
ways to not show distress, anger, fear, or sadness on
their face in order to minimise the severity of abuse
or to lessen the effects of trauma on their everyday
life. One child named this skill his fixing-face
abilities while another young woman who
experienced years of sexual abuse as a little girl
called it putting on my outside happy look while at
school. Now as a sixteen year old young woman,
she thinks this may have been one of her skills in
living which allowed her to continue playing with
other children.

EXPLORING PLACES OF SAFETY

In asking about the places6 of safety for children
during times of immense fear, children bring forth
many images of their creative responses, and are
therefore less likely to feel like a passive recipient
to trauma. Michael, a seven-year-old boy who faced
emotional abuse which he described as the bad,
angry, and scary voice, would often hide from place
to place in his house in attempts to get away from
the harsh voice. His hiding place of choice was a
closet that was never used. By simply asking where
Michael hid, he became more in touch with what
else was happening at the time and how he
responded, thus providing a more experience-near
description. When I asked him, So when you hid in
the closet, what did you do to comfort yourself once
you were safe?, he replied, The way I made myself
feel better was to sing a song to myself and that
would make the tears go away.
I mentioned Megan earlier who described
herself as messed up. As she told me more about
the difficult times of her life, I wondered about the
ways she had kept herself safe when her mother
would pass out from high alcohol use. She replied:
I think I was about six years old and I remember

being so afraid that intruders would come in while

my mom was passed out. Sometimes drug dealers
would come. So I would hide. There was this old
mattress that was tucked underneath a bed and
I would wiggle in between the mattress and hide
under the bed.
I asked her how long she would be under the
bed, and she remembered that it was sometimes up
to eight hours at a time. I asked her, What did you
do all of those hours underneath the bed? Thats a
long time to be hiding. I know it was ten years ago,
but do you remember yourself as a little girl and
what you did or what you thought about while
hiding? Megan thoughtfully said, Hmmm this
sounds funny but I used something sharp to
carve things in the board above my head while
I was lying underneath there all that time. I would
carve xs and hearts. I would put the initials of
people that I knew I wasnt safe with beside the
xs and I would carve the initials of people that
I knew cared for me inside of the hearts. Then
I would think about my mom eventually waking up
and how I would help her to feel better and take
care of her. And then I guess at some point I fell
asleep.

ACTS OF RESISTANCE
Often open opposition, rebelling, or fighting
back would have posed danger to the children
who spoke with me about their experiences of
abuse and violence. Therefore, I have found it
useful to enquire about their acts of resistance by
asking questions that elicit descriptions of very
subtle and micro-level responses (Wade, 1997).
For instance, one eight-year-old boy described
and recollected his resistance to the upset and
unfairness of his ongoing abuse and mistreatment
when he was very little: I knew that I couldnt show
that I was really mad or else she would hurt me.
So I just kept a straight face and instead clenched
my hands tight inside my pockets. She couldnt see
my hands, but clenching them meant that I could
be mad without her knowing or seeing it. I wouldnt
give her the satisfaction of having a reason to beat
me! By learning about childrens acts of resistance
such as this, I also find out more about the
thoughts and actions that sustained them during
difficult times.

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RESPONDING TO I DONT KNOW!

Sometimes, when I first ask these responsebased questions to children and young people, they
reply with I dont know or say Nothing I didnt
do anything! When asking questions about
childrens responses, I am mindful that many of
these young people have been in contexts where
their actions may had been negated, put-down,
insulted, or minimised, and that childrens personal
agency and sense of self is often erased by
traumatic experience. Moreover, discourses of
victimhood perpetuate the idea of victims doing
nothing, thus adding to the erasure of childrens
sense of agency.
Hence, it can take time for children who have
endured traumatic experience to believe that we
really want to learn about their life, and hear about
their experiences in their words. I also believe that
if a child cannot answer a question, it is my
responsibility to ask a question that they can more
readily answer.
To assist children in not experiencing a failureto-answer, I sometimes share a story of another
childs response, and ask if they can relate to this
story. I also become eager to be introduced to
stuffed friends, pets, and imaginary helpers that
children have had. These are often light-hearted
conversations in which I get introduced to Ellie the
Elephant, Pookie the Bear, Max the dog, the Easter
Bunny, and many others. With imaginative
questioning, many stuffed friends and loved pets
are brought into the therapy room, and I learn that
they have lots of information to share about the
childs responses, skills, and values and how both
provided comfort to each other during very hard
times.

PART TWO: BUILDING UPON CHILDRENS

RESPONSES TO TRAUMA
RENDERING SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGES VISIBLE
Like other narrative practitioners, I am
interested in rendering the skills and knowledges of
children and young people more visible and
accessible (Buckley & Dector, 2006; Hayward,
2006; Mitchell, 2005, Ncube, 2006). These
include childrens abilities, talents, cleverness, and,
most importantly, their own understandings of their
experiences and competencies.

Interestingly enough, upon discovering a

multitude of responses to trauma, children and
young peoples many knowledges and skills also
became more apparent. As seen in Megans story,
by finding out how she kept herself safe by hiding
under a bed, her skills in discerning safety during
unsafe times were brought forward. Furthermore,
her knowledge about ways of caring for her mother
during hard times was rendered visible.
A young man named David shared traumatic
memories of being locked in a small basement room
sometimes for eight to ten hours at a time. At
seventeen years old, his best guess was that he
probably spent a few hundred hours locked in the
basement from when he was five to eight years old.
David recounted this period of immense fear in his
childhood: He put me there every other day. There
were many days that I had to go in there just after
returning home from school. It was a cold tiled floor
and it was very scary and hard to see with hardly
any light. Sometimes he would sit there for hours
screaming at me just outside the room, and he
would tell me that demons were going to get me.
I was scared to death.
To assist David in noticing his responses
I asked, This may seem like a strange question
but what did you do during all that time when you
were scared? For all of those hours you spent locked
in that small and dark room, what did you do?
David explained that there was all kinds of junk in
the basement room: Sometimes I would look at a
jar of screws and examine each and every one and
focus on them. This would help to not let the fear
grow or to think about the possible demons. If I just
focused on looking intently at the screws then it
would stop me from thinking about being scared.
After this response, we then had a conversation
which explored Davids focusing skills. I asked
him, Would you say that you started to develop
some focusing skills? Did your focusing skills help
you at other times when you were scared? David
thought of another time that Fear could have
overtaken him by attempting to convince him he
would die from extreme cold: Once he locked me in
a shed in minus ten degree weather with just a
candle burning. I just sat there and stared at the
candle and focused on the flame so I wouldnt think
of the cold getting to my body, or the fear of
freezing and never being released. I watched the

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candle burn for a few hours and didnt take my eyes

off of the flame.
David then decided that these focusing skills
had been not only helpful to him at that time, but
they also had grown and developed over the years.
He remembered that when he was seven years old,
fear was no longer getting the best of him and he
would focus on all the different odds and ends of
junk in the small basement room. As an antiboredom tactic, he began making and fixing things
with all of the different pieces of junk: I had to
spend hours at a time in the basement, so I would
find things to fix and do. I remember once I took a
broken circuit board, a walkie-talkie, and a talking
dinosaur and made a moving robot. I liked figuring
out how to make things work. With the
development of a second story based on his
responses, David now noticed his focusing, fixing,
and figuring out skills where before these were
neglected.

CLEVERNESS AND PERSONAL AGENCY

Hearing about Megan and Davids responses to
trauma as children had me thinking how clever they
both were at a very young age. As I always want to
check out the significance of events with young
people consulting with me rather than making
assumptions, I was interested in finding ways in
which Megan and David could reflect upon the
significance of their earlier actions.
I asked Megan, You were only six years old and
were able to find a way to keep yourself safe during
dangerous times. And you knew who you were safe
with and who you were not safe with and carved
those initials in the wood. Whats it like for you to
think of that six-year-old girl doing those things?
What do you think about yourself as that little girl?
Megan smiled and replied, You know I think
I must have been pretty smart when I was little!
When I asked David to reflect on the meaning of his
responses, he was somewhat surprised about his
ability to focus and concentrate so well at an early
age: I think thats pretty amazing for a five-year-old
boy to be able to focus so well. Now as a
seventeen-year-old young man, he realised that his
talent for handy-work most likely began at a very
early age, and he expressed feeling proud of his
ability to fix things.

During these conversations, not only were David

and Megan invited to think differently about
themselves but, more significantly, they began to
feel that they could be influential in their own lives.
Eliciting responses and making connections of these
responses to skills and knowledges were important
practices to this second story development and coconstructing personal agency. Where previously the
effects of the trauma identity story blinded the
moments of exception, there was now a developing
sense of personal agency.

SHRINKING THE STUCK THOUGHTS:

CONVERSATIONS WITH A BOY EXPERIENCING
FLASHBACKS
Developing rich stories about childrens
responses and skills can generate renewed and
more positive identity conclusions. The following
story demonstrates in more detail how this can
occur.
Billy7 was referred to me by his father Doug and
stepmother Lucy when he was eight years old. Four
years previously, Billy had been abducted by his
biological non-custodial mother. For three years,
while Billy was between the ages of four to seven,
Billy and his toddler half-brother experienced daily
physical and emotional abuse from multiple
perpetrators. Upon his return and hearing about the
abuse, Doug and Lucy consulted with me about
their immense worry and fear of Billy being
damaged from the trauma he had experienced.
They themselves had been left immobilised from
the three years of not knowing whether they would
ever see Billy again.
In the first sessions, I met with Billy individually
and with Doug and Lucy. Billy shared how he had
responded to the trauma in ways which lessened its
effects: I would just try to draw the thoughts off my
mind by finding any paper and pens, crayons to
draw. I still do this and it helps. He also talked
about how he used his fixing-face abilities to not
show anger or upset, and to minimise the severity of
the abuse. Billy recollected how he used his
memory to keep thinking about his father,
stepmother Lucy who he called mom, and baby
brother, and his wishes and hopes to return to
them: I was only four years old and even though
I was told over and over again that my mom, dad,

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and brother werent my real family they could

never take my memory away.
After several conversations over a six month
period, and with a great deal of family support, Billy
did settle back into his old home. The damaged
negative identity conclusion was diminished as he
started to play again, have fun, cherish family time
he had missed for three years, and do well in school
despite his large gap in learning.
However, a year later, Lucy called to say that
she was again very concerned, as Billy was
experiencing multiple flashbacks of the abuse. In
catching up with Billy, now nine years old, he
shared that he had awful thoughts and memories of
the abuse stuck in his head. We entered an
externalising conversation8 about the effects and
influences of the Stuck Thoughts. They were
bringing fear and worry to him in the day time and
they interfered with his ability to get to sleep at
night time. The Stuck Thoughts had been reminding
Billy of the past violence, cursing, untrue stories,
threats, and weapons. They repeatedly played visual
images in Billys head of him and his brother being
physically abused, and a dog named Max being
beaten as well.
At this point, Billy was holding his head in his
hands to show me how the stuck thoughts were
physically hurting his head. I therefore didnt want
to pursue enquiries about the effects, nor invite him
to give details of visual images of the flashbacks, as
I was aware that this could be re-traumatising.
Before talking about the bad thoughts, as Billy had
termed them, I wanted to provide him with another,
safer territory of identity to stand in. I was also
curious to learn more about Max the dog, who I had
not heard about in our initial conversations, as
I thought he might provide clues to discovering
further responses that Billy had made in relation to
the traumatic experiences he had been subjected
to. I soon learnt that Max lived in the home where
the abuse had taken place, and that he would look
out for Billy and help him when he was hurt.
Hearing this, I inquired as to how both Billy and
Max comforted each other:

RE-MEMBERING9 MAX
Angel: What would Max do when he knew you were
hurt or sad? How did he try to comfort you?

10

Billy: He hopped like a basketball when he knew

I was hurt, or upset. He did silly things like
chase his tail or he would run in circles and
fall down and he would try to cheer me
up.
Angel: Why do you think he would he want to cheer
you up?
Billy: Because I was nice to him and didnt hurt
him and I was the only one who took care of
him. In the mornings other people in the
house wouldnt wake up to look after him
but I would.
Angel: If you could imagine that Max had a voice
and could talk what would he say if I asked
him about how you took care of him?
Billy: He would say that I fed him and cleaned up
after him and that I would wake up for him
in the morning when he was barking.
Angel: What would you feed him dog food?
Billy: No, there was never any dog food because
no one would ever buy food for him. Id give
him leftovers.
Angel: What kind of leftovers?
Billy: Anything that was there bones and any
food that was leftover.
Angel: You were only four years old how did you
know when Max was hungry?
Billy: By his bark! He barked a certain way when
he was hungry and would pant when he was
thirsty.
Angel: Do you think you had some skills in knowing
how to take care of animals even though you
were really little?
Billy: Yeah! I guess I did!
Angel: What do you think of that four-year-old boy
and about all of the ways he knew about
taking care of a dog?

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Billy: (smiles and keenly replies) I think hes pretty

smart!
Angel: Its nice for me to get to know Max and how
you helped each other during difficult times.
And to hear about how you took care of him
by making sure he was fed and how you
played with him. If I asked Max what this
might tell me about the kind of boy you are
what do you think he would say?

Billy: He would play with me to make me feel

better. He was always happy to see me.
I think he would jump for joy.
Angel: What does this conversation about thinking
about Max wanting to make you feel better
and being so happy to see you do to the
thoughts in your head? Are the Stuck
Thoughts the same, shrinking or growing?
Billy: Theyre shrinking

Billy: Ummm Max would say Hes good, fun,

and he cares a lot.
Angel: Why did you care about Max so much?
Billy: I like Max! Hes like my little brother.
Angel: Do you think Max thought of you like family
as well?
Billy: I think so because hes known me longer
than his own mother. Im like his big
brother.
Angel: If I asked Max how much he cared about you
what do you think he would say? Would
he say a little medium lot huge?
Billy: He would say More than you can
imagine!
Angel: Whats that like for you to think of Max
saying that he cares about you More than
you can imagine?
Billy: I would say, Wow, thats a lot!!
Angel: How is this conversation going for you by the
way? Are these questions okay?
Billy: Yeah! Its really good! I havent thought
about Max in a while.
Angel: If Max knew that you were having a tough
time today with Stuck Thoughts hurting your
head a few years after the abuse what do
you think he would do?

Angel: Knowing that the Stuck Thoughts are

shrinking Im just wondering how your
head feels now compared to the beginning of
our conversation?
Billy: My head feels a lot better and it doesnt hurt
right now.
Angel: If you continued to think about Max and how
you and he cared so much for each other
and played with each other during terrible
times would that help to continue
shrinking the terrible thoughts in your head?
Billy: Yeah for sure!

DOUBLE-STORIED MEMORIES
With an enquiry into responses rather than
effects, Billys associations of the trauma of the
abduction were now not only about the harm done
to him, but also about how he and Max helped,
comforted, and cared for each other through
dangerous and fearful times. This conversation
created double-storied memories, with full
memories rather than half memories of the
trauma10. For quite some time, Billy had not thought
of Max. Through remembering Max as a loved pet,
the period of trauma was restored to full memory.
Having developed a second story of goodness
and caring, an alternative territory of identity was
provided for Billy to stand in to begin to talk about
the bad thoughts which were stuck in his head.
At this point, I heard more details about the abuse
that he had been subjected to, including memories
of severe violence, tricks, and dishonesty. Billy
made it clear that he wanted to share with someone

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11

the details of the Stuck Thoughts (which had

otherwise been unmentionable up until that time)
and to feel less alone with the effects of the
trauma. By bringing forward Billys clever skills, he
could now be an agent in his own story. Restoring
his sense of agency was evident as he keenly
reflected on his taking care of Max. With elevated
personal agency, revised understandings of his own
actions and identity, and with the opportunity to
speak about what had previously remained
unspoken, the Stuck Thoughts (flashbacks)
diminished and were eventually no longer present.

CONNECTION-MAKING QUESTIONS
AND CONVERSATIONS
In conversations with children and young
people, I ask questions in order to co-create
meaning. While I am not wanting to impose my
thoughts or assumptions, I still aim to be influential
by asking what I call connection-making questions
to assist children in attributing their own meaning
or significance to an event or action.
In the conversation with Billy, I discovered that
he responded to trauma in many different ways.
These included acts of comfort, feeding Max, and
recognising a certain hungry bark. In naming these
responses, I was interested in the significance Billy
gave to them, so I asked the connection-making
question, Do you think you had some skills in
knowing how to take care of animals even though
you were really little? Billy became wide-eyed and
eagerly replied, Yeah! I guess I did!, and he
immediately made links between his taking-care
skills and knowledge of himself as a smart boy.
Providing children with a summary to reflect on
their new meaning of hidden experiences, followed
by a connection-making question, can also be very
helpful in helping children attribute meaning to
events that might otherwise have been neglected.
With Billy, I provided the following brief summary:
Its nice for me to get to know Max and how you
helped each other during difficult times. And to
hear about how you took care of him by making sure
he was fed and how you played with him. After this
summary, I followed with the connection-making
question, If I asked Max what this might tell me
about the kind of boy you are, what do you think he
would say? Through this questioning, alternative

12

knowledges of Billys identity were discovered: Max

would say, Hes good, fun, and he cares a lot.
Billy continued to make connections and
associations as we explored his caring for Max like
a little brother. To make additional sense of his
experience I asked questions about Maxs caring for
him and Billy speculated that Max would care about
him more than you can imagine. What had
previously been only a story of the effects of trauma
was now linked to a story of two-way contribution,
where not only Max helped and comforted Billy, but
also how Billy contributed to Max.
This back-and-forth conversational connectionmaking allowed us to further build upon Billys
responses to trauma. With every answer from him,
I learned of new meanings, thereby allowing me to
ask the next connection-making question.

RICH SECOND STORY DEVELOPMENT

Connection-making questions and conversations
put children more in touch with their own skills and
knowledges, and through this process second story
development becomes possible. Children become
able to richly describe their own responses to
trauma, and what these responses, skills, and
knowledges may reflect. I cannot emphasise enough
the importance of this conversational partnership,
as rich second story development will not happen by
chance. As a therapist, I play a key role. I am
influential by asking particular questions which help
children to make new meanings about their
experiences and actions.
In following sessions with Billy, we had
the opportunity to richly describe the importance
and value he places on being a big brother.
When I asked Billy who would know about his
caring brotherly ways, he immediately named his
mother and father. In the following sessions, Lucy
and Doug were happy to join me in tracing the
history of these themes. They had several delightful
stories to share about Billy being a loving brother
with his younger half-brother. To link Lucy and
Dougs knowledge with Billys, I asked him, How
important is being a big brother to you? He replied,
To me its enormous. Being a big brother is like
having a kid.
I believe that these sorts of relational aspects of
childrens responses to trauma are significant in

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sustaining them through traumatic times and in

journeys of healing. Relational aspects here refers
to the contribution of significant figures in a childs
history, and how their responses to trauma reflect
their connection to these important figures.
In speaking with Billy, I recalled our
conversations from the previous year where he used
his memory skills to remember his mother, father,
and brother despite three years of being forced to
say that they were not his family. Billy recollected
that even though he could be coerced into saying
untrue statements, his memory skills could never be
taken away. These skills spoke strongly to Billys
honouring and valuing of family life: I would close
my eyes and picture my mom and dad and baby
brother and how much they loved me. I knew that
they were always thinking of me too. We were
always thinking of each other all the time. I just
kept wishing every day that I would return to them
and they could never take hope from me or my
memory of my family away. Lucy and Doug shared
and recollected a similar hope: We always held
hope that a lot of what we had taught to Billy about
love for family and caring for others was instilled
before he was abducted and he and we never ever
lost that.

DESCRIPTION OF FOUR
LEVELS OF ENQUIRY

In what otherwise could have easily been

overlooked, Billys memory skills and what they
spoke to were acknowledged. The theme of love for
family and caring which had sustained both Billy
and his family during the years of trauma was richly
explored.

A GUIDE FOR SECOND STORY DEVELOPMENT

QUESTIONS TO ELICIT AND BUILD UPON
CHILDRENS RESPONSES TO TRUAMA
The following guide is intended to assist
practitioners in talking with children about their
experiences of trauma. The questions offered below
elicit varied responses to trauma and build upon
these responses to create a context for rich second
story development. The guide is structured into four
levels of enquiry11 in order to progressively co-create
meaning in conversational partnership. An answer
from the child or young person at each level allows
movement to the next level of enquiry by the
therapist. In this way, the child and therapist will
incrementally move from level to level starting
from the lowest and progressing to the highest level.
Level Four (the highest level) involves a rich
description of a childs responses to trauma which
reflects the childs values, skills, knowledges, and
also links to significant figures in their lives.

QUESTIONS

LEVEL 1
DISCOVERING CHILDRENS RESPONSES
AND ACTIONS
In this level, we encourage children to name the
events (responses and actions) of trauma.
This level is the lowest, with questions that will
most likely be easier for a child to answer, such
as What did you do?

Note: An exploration of responses at this level

(vs. effects) can help to begin to restore and/or
develop personal agency where the child feels
that he/she can be influential in their own life.

Questions that can be asked to elicit responses:

How did you respond? What did you do?
How did you and your sibling(s) comfort
each other?
How did you comfort yourself?
What did you do when you were scared?
Where did you go during times of fear?
How did you attempt to keep yourself safe?
Where did you hide?
What would you do when you found
a safe place?
What would you show on your face?

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13

DESCRIPTION OF FOUR
LEVELS OF ENQUIRY

QUESTIONS
Additional specific response-based
questions re:
Lessening the effects
After the abuse, was there anything you did
that helped to lessen the effects?
How did you make yourself feel better?
Is there anything you are doing now that helps
to get through it?
Skills of living
Did you have imagining skills?
Did you have a refuge of sanctuary?
Was there a place that provided you with
comfort and safety during difficult times?
Acts of resistance
Did you do things to resist or oppose?
Significant stuffed friends and pets
Did/do you have a stuffed friend/pet that
helped you?
How would your stuffed friend/pet try to
comfort you?
How did you and your dog help each other?

LEVEL 2
MAKING LINKS OF CHILDRENS RESPONSES
TO THEIR KNOWLEDGES AND SKILLS
When a response has been named, questions in
this level involve making links and associations
of the response to knowledges and skills.
By asking connection-making questions, there is
the assumption that all children and young
people have meaning-making skills. Even very
little children have meaning-making skills.
Provide a summary using the childs descriptions
and knowledge in order for him/her to reflect on
and give meaning to their responses to trauma.

14

Connection-making questions could include:

How did you know to do that?
What name would you give to this skill?
What do you think of yourself as a younger
boy/girl and all the things that you did?
How do you feel about this knowledge/skill
you have?
Provide a summary followed by a connectionmaking question:
Example:
So ... when there was terrible fighting and things
being broken, you would take your little brother
and sister outside to get away and play at the
park. You said you would distract them. How did
you know how to do that? Would you call what
you did distracting skills? ... or do you have
another name for what you did?

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DESCRIPTION OF FOUR
LEVELS OF ENQUIRY
LEVEL 3
MAKING LINKS OF SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGES
TO PREFERRED WAYS OF BEING (SUCH AS
VALUES, BELIEFS, HOPES, COMMITMENTS)
When a skill or knowledge is rendered visible,
we can invite children to reflect on, evaluate,
and draw realisations from the meaning they
have made.
Personal agency is elevated when skills,
knowledges, and values are made known.
When a skill or knowledge has been identified,
we can provide a summary using their
descriptions for the child to reflect on and give
meaning, and make links to values and
intentions.

LEVEL 4
RICH DESCRIPTION OF RESPONSES
WHICH REFLECTS VALUES, SKILLS,
AND KNOWLEDGES
In this highest level, we want to richly describe
responses and what they may reflect.
We can trace the history of the knowledges,
skills, values, and commitments in life.
In this level, questions are asked to explore the
influence of significant figures in the childs life
on their skills, knowledges, and values.

QUESTIONS
Connection-making questions could include:
Why was that skill important to you?
What do you think of yourself as a little
boy/girl and knowing at an early age how
to focus / keep yourself safe?
What to you think this says about the kind
of person you are?
Provide a summary followed by a connectionmaking question:
Example:
Youve shared lots of times with me that you
used your distraction skills to keep your little
brother and sister away from the fighting. Why
was it important to you that they did not see or
hear the fighting? What do you think this would
tell me about you?

Questions which richly describe responses, skills,

knowledges, values:
What is the history of this skill/value in
your life?
Who introduced you to this skill?
Where did you learn this skill?
Who wouldnt be surprised that you
value________? What would they say they
appreciate about you and your value for
_________?
When did it first become important in
your life?

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15

ILLUSTRATION OF A CONVERSATION WHICH

BUILDS UPON RESPONSES TO TRUAMA
Level 1 Discovering responses and actions
David: I remember he took a heavy cane and
hit me with it. He hit me so hard that
the cane broke in half.
Angel: How did you respond? What did you
show on your face?
David: When I was being hit I did not show any
fear. I just looked at him and didnt
show anything on my face.
Level 2 Making links of responses to knowledges
and skills
Angel: So you found ways to not show a
reaction? How did you do that?

Level 4 Rich description of responses

Angel: Is that something you stand for
Non-violent ways?
David: Yes for sure!
Angel: Why is this important to you?
David: I know what it is like to be hurt and
I dont want to ever hurt others!
Angel: Has this always been important to you in
your life? Is there a history to this?
Who would know about your commitment to
non-violent ways and not hurting others?
Is this something that you learned from
someone in your life? What might they say they
appreciate about this? And so on

David: I just concentrated!

Angel: Do you think you had some
concentrating skills as a child?
David: Definitely, if I set my mind to it
I could concentrate.
Level 3 Making links of skills and knowledges to
values, beliefs and intentions
Angel: Youve told me about other times that
you made a point of not showing any
fear, upset or anger on your face. What
do you think that might tell me about
what was important to you? Why did you
want to use your concentration skills to
not show fear?
David: It was the only way to get back without
hurting him.
Angel: Was that something important to you .
not hurting him or getting back with
violence?
David: Yes non-violent ways of getting back
were important. Now I can look back
and say, I never touched you!

16

REFLECTIONS
Discourses of victimhood can obscure the
cleverness, competencies, and knowledges of
children. These discourses can also influence
therapists. When working with children who have
endured significant trauma, counsellors sometimes
lose hope during the process of seeking ways
forward.
In this paper, I have tried to describe my own
project of discovery. In working with children and
young people who have had traumatic experiences,
holding onto the belief that regardless of the nature
of the trauma, children and young people always
respond, has opened significant possibilities. An
enquiry into the responses a child has made to the
traumatic experience (versus the effects of what
they have experienced) can make many things
possible. When we discover multiple actions,
multiple responses, links can then be made
between particular responses and childrens skills,
knowledges, and values. Rather than making
statements which imply the child will never get over
it, by exploring responses we can co-discover how
they are getting through it. In saying this, its not
my intention to avoid the facts of the trauma and its
effects, as I know that children may express that

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they want to talk about what they have endured. In

fact, by providing safety and a newer territory of
identity for children to stand within, we can open
space for children and young people to speak more
clearly about events which they have not previously
spoken.
I hope that by sharing these ideas, stories of my
work, and a guide for second story development,
that this will enable other practitioners to be on the
lookout for childrens responses and for creative
ways of acknowledging these and building upon
them even one response can be a gateway to rich
second story development!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge all of the children
and young people I have worked with who have
experienced trauma. It has been their stories that
have generated hope and passion in my work and
contributed significantly to the development of the
ideas in this paper. Many thanks to the following
people who all offered feedback on an earlier draft:
Ruth Pluznick, David Newman, Sue Mann, Heather
Johnson and Linda Brown.

of the dominant trauma stories (see White, 2006c).

Also, the second story does not replace the first story,
but rather in the development of a second story, there
can be a parallel story alongside the first story of
trauma. The reason I have chosen to use second story
more often than subordinate stories is that I have
found this languaging easier to grasp in teaching
contexts for those who are very new to narrative ideas,
and also when teaching in simultaneous translation.
5

For a description of an exercise which focuses on

second story development when working with groups of
vulnerable children see the Tree of Life Project (Ncube
2006) which describes work in Southern Africa which
has an emphasis on creating safety for orphans and
vulnerable children prior to having them talk about
their experiences of parental death and suffering due
to HIV/AIDS.

Asking about where children seek safety touches

on the ideas of considerations of place. Place
is not usually included in the broader explorations
of the thinking that informs narrative therapy.
This is an area that I look forward to exploring and
considering with respect to children who have
experienced trauma, and particularly the places
where they may seek refuge or find sanctuary. For a
complete exploration of the relationship of place to
identity see Trudinger (2006).

Billys story was presented as a keynote address at the

3rd International Summer School of narrative practice
in Adelaide, Australia (Yuen, 2007). I would like to
acknowledge Billy and his familys contribution to this
paper by sharing their story. Most of all, I am thankful
to Billy for teaching me so much about children and
personal agency.

For a description and illustration of externalising

practices and conversations, see Russell and Carey
(2004).

For a description and illustration of re-membering

practices and conversations see Russell and Carey
(2004).

10

For more on memory theory and systems in relation to

a narrative approach to the consequences of trauma
see White (2006b, pp. 67-81).

11

Michael Whites notion of therapists responsibility to

scaffold conversations (see White 2007, Hayward,
2006) has been helpful to me in developing this
guide. While the metaphor of scaffolding is not one
that I readily relate to, the idea that it is therapists
responsibility to ask questions that children can answer
has been extremely helpful and has led me to develop
the four levels of questions that are included in this
guide.

NOTES
1

All of the names of the children and young people

throughout this paper are pseudonyms. I would like to
particularly acknowledge and thank Megan, David, and
Billy for their willingness to share their stories with
hopes of helping other children and young people who
have experienced trauma.
The trauma of ongoing racism is prevalent and relevant
in my work in schools in the multicultural context of
Toronto. Although the content of this paper does not
include the broader considerations of the power
relations of culture and race, it is an area which I have
an ongoing commitment to address the inequities for
many young people. For a description of a way of
working with young men who are grappling with the
effects of racism, see Yuen (2007).
Although the focus of this paper is on work with
children and young people, the ideas and questions
hold relevance to adults who have experienced
childhood trauma and particularly for those whose lives
are continuing to be defined by trauma. I would like to
acknowledge Sue Mann as a reader who reflected on
the relevance of the ideas to work with adults who have
experienced childhood trauma.
Throughout this paper, I refer to second story
development. However I do not want to imply that
there are only two stories to trauma, as there can be
other subordinate storylines to be found in the shadows

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