Thank you for the reflection Chris. This is a question that has captured me as a person who struggles to do narrative therapy myself. I would submit that the Narrative Police experience is connected to a larger cultural project of "Being a good western student". I'm currently teaching for USF's MFT program in the south bay and the question of "am I doing this right?" comes up on a regular basis. Am I doing Intake right? Am I writing this clinical formulation right? Am I answer these questions right. Every time a student wears the face, "I'm afraid to share my thought because I'm not sure its what Brian is looking for" I immediately ask the student to wonder what the expectation is that is intimidating them into silence. Its becoming a running joke with the students. I've come to take seriously the naming of this style of self-policing (self-disciplining) with my students on behalf of encouraging them to foster their personal curiosities as a professional helper entering a field that has lost interest in the therapist as a person.
I submit the narrative-police is a kind of "special unit" of policing that specializes in reminding those of us practicing narrative therapy that we run the same risk of embarrassing ourselves if we dare being something other than some kind of resident expert.
i realized the narrative police showed up... and prevented me from writing a longer comment. I often think of the idea of policing and how it shows up in the most subtle and sneaky ways... haha for me and I and from what i have learned it shows up for others I consult with.. I'll have fun reading this and listing to this again. thanks again for exposing this, and offering it in such a palpable way.
May we examine the police for a moment? You name two kinds: one is an internalized self-judgment that leads to a lack of confidence. The other shows up with flesh and blood and tells you you’re not doing it right. They both arise from a system that prefers pristine rightness to messy authenticity - even when that system proclaims the opposite (hello, purity tests in social and political contexts.)
Both cases - the internalized self-doubt and the external expert - arise from a condition the police (not the people in blue necessarily, just using your metaphor) are subject to: asserting power over others to make themselves feel better about . . . something.
Part of the remedy is sitting with the police and asking them, what story are you telling that makes it an imperative to be right?
As much as I have processed the 'narrative police', I created an externalised character of the 'super-counsellor' who I would sensitivity introduce, with select clients n session - usually in an empty chair. It would then become a tool to externally explore some of my process, as well challenge narratives for 'flawless' performance and I even had some clients have their own conversations with the 'super' therapist.
What you're describing resonates deeply—and I find myself thinking about the structural setup underneath it. Not just in narrative therapy training, but across the mental health field. We are handed an impossible standard—perform mastery in the face of irreducible uncertainty—and then left to manage the gap between what's asked and what's actually possible. The internalized surveillance you're describing isn't a personal failing in your trainee. It's a predictable adaptation to conditions that ask more than any nervous system can deliver.
It reminds me of what I see in couples work. Couples get set up by a culture that tells them they should be able to manage what is actually unmanageable—the full weight of belonging, meaning, and connection concentrated in one relationship. When that proves impossible, they reach for management strategies. Not because they lack skill or commitment, but because the conditions were never right for anything else.
Therapists get set up the same way. The training culture installs an image of mastery, and then the nervous system does what nervous systems do when the standard is impossible: it reaches for control. Monitors. Measures. Finds itself wanting.
What your trainee needed—and what you were already offering—wasn't reassurance that the surveillance would stop. It was a room where not-knowing was safe enough to stay in. You're already creating conditions where she can hold more complexity without collapsing into management. That matters deeply.
But the strategies themselves—the monitoring, the measuring, the performance—are intelligent adaptations to conditions that ask the impossible. And as long as those conditions remain, the strategies will too. What they're protecting against never gets to be seen, let alone met.
That's the larger cultural problem your piece is pointing toward. Not just one trainee in her head on a Tuesday afternoon, but a whole system that has never asked what conditions would make the not-knowing survivable in the first place.
This names something I have watched for over two decades, and the Foucault read is the right one.
I would add a layer underneath it.
The self-monitoring you describe, adjudicating every response before it leaves her mouth, is more than normalization at work. It is also a threat state. When a trainee feels watched and measured, her body reads evaluation as danger, and the part of the brain that lets her stay curious and improvise is the first thing to go offline. So the police do not only shame her. They disable the very capacity the work requires.
Which is why making it visible matters but does not finish the job. You cannot be curious about the police from inside a threatened body. The curiosity you are asking of her comes back online through the accompaniment you already named. A supervisor who can stay regulated and in the room with her becomes the safety her system borrows until it becomes her own. Safety first, then the curiosity. Thank you for this.
Thank you for the reflection Chris. This is a question that has captured me as a person who struggles to do narrative therapy myself. I would submit that the Narrative Police experience is connected to a larger cultural project of "Being a good western student". I'm currently teaching for USF's MFT program in the south bay and the question of "am I doing this right?" comes up on a regular basis. Am I doing Intake right? Am I writing this clinical formulation right? Am I answer these questions right. Every time a student wears the face, "I'm afraid to share my thought because I'm not sure its what Brian is looking for" I immediately ask the student to wonder what the expectation is that is intimidating them into silence. Its becoming a running joke with the students. I've come to take seriously the naming of this style of self-policing (self-disciplining) with my students on behalf of encouraging them to foster their personal curiosities as a professional helper entering a field that has lost interest in the therapist as a person.
I submit the narrative-police is a kind of "special unit" of policing that specializes in reminding those of us practicing narrative therapy that we run the same risk of embarrassing ourselves if we dare being something other than some kind of resident expert.
i realized the narrative police showed up... and prevented me from writing a longer comment. I often think of the idea of policing and how it shows up in the most subtle and sneaky ways... haha for me and I and from what i have learned it shows up for others I consult with.. I'll have fun reading this and listing to this again. thanks again for exposing this, and offering it in such a palpable way.
This is an article I wish existed ten years ago, but I am delighted to be able to read it now. Thank you.
May we examine the police for a moment? You name two kinds: one is an internalized self-judgment that leads to a lack of confidence. The other shows up with flesh and blood and tells you you’re not doing it right. They both arise from a system that prefers pristine rightness to messy authenticity - even when that system proclaims the opposite (hello, purity tests in social and political contexts.)
Both cases - the internalized self-doubt and the external expert - arise from a condition the police (not the people in blue necessarily, just using your metaphor) are subject to: asserting power over others to make themselves feel better about . . . something.
Part of the remedy is sitting with the police and asking them, what story are you telling that makes it an imperative to be right?
Love this!
As much as I have processed the 'narrative police', I created an externalised character of the 'super-counsellor' who I would sensitivity introduce, with select clients n session - usually in an empty chair. It would then become a tool to externally explore some of my process, as well challenge narratives for 'flawless' performance and I even had some clients have their own conversations with the 'super' therapist.
What you're describing resonates deeply—and I find myself thinking about the structural setup underneath it. Not just in narrative therapy training, but across the mental health field. We are handed an impossible standard—perform mastery in the face of irreducible uncertainty—and then left to manage the gap between what's asked and what's actually possible. The internalized surveillance you're describing isn't a personal failing in your trainee. It's a predictable adaptation to conditions that ask more than any nervous system can deliver.
It reminds me of what I see in couples work. Couples get set up by a culture that tells them they should be able to manage what is actually unmanageable—the full weight of belonging, meaning, and connection concentrated in one relationship. When that proves impossible, they reach for management strategies. Not because they lack skill or commitment, but because the conditions were never right for anything else.
Therapists get set up the same way. The training culture installs an image of mastery, and then the nervous system does what nervous systems do when the standard is impossible: it reaches for control. Monitors. Measures. Finds itself wanting.
What your trainee needed—and what you were already offering—wasn't reassurance that the surveillance would stop. It was a room where not-knowing was safe enough to stay in. You're already creating conditions where she can hold more complexity without collapsing into management. That matters deeply.
But the strategies themselves—the monitoring, the measuring, the performance—are intelligent adaptations to conditions that ask the impossible. And as long as those conditions remain, the strategies will too. What they're protecting against never gets to be seen, let alone met.
That's the larger cultural problem your piece is pointing toward. Not just one trainee in her head on a Tuesday afternoon, but a whole system that has never asked what conditions would make the not-knowing survivable in the first place.
Thank you for exploring such an important topic. When people fear judgment, they stop telling the truth about their experiences.
Bravo. Well said. This is an article I planned to write but you did a marvelous job already. Great job!
This names something I have watched for over two decades, and the Foucault read is the right one.
I would add a layer underneath it.
The self-monitoring you describe, adjudicating every response before it leaves her mouth, is more than normalization at work. It is also a threat state. When a trainee feels watched and measured, her body reads evaluation as danger, and the part of the brain that lets her stay curious and improvise is the first thing to go offline. So the police do not only shame her. They disable the very capacity the work requires.
Which is why making it visible matters but does not finish the job. You cannot be curious about the police from inside a threatened body. The curiosity you are asking of her comes back online through the accompaniment you already named. A supervisor who can stay regulated and in the room with her becomes the safety her system borrows until it becomes her own. Safety first, then the curiosity. Thank you for this.