By: Jonaki Arora
This paper addresses the phenomenon of personal failure and its relationship with modern power. It describes Michael White’s failure conversations map and the underlying narrative practices that support it. It demonstrates the usefulness of the failure conversations map in subverting modern power and generating preferred identity conclusions with a young woman in India. The paper also brings attention to the politics of therapy. Through this, I hope to not only address people’s sense of failure but to also use therapy as a site for local social activism.
Key words: personal failure; failure conversations map; modern power; inadequacy; imposter; India; narrative therapy; narrative practice
Arora, J. (2026). Exposing the feeling of “not good enough”: Working with the failure conversations map. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (1), 47–57. https://doi.org/10.4320/OEWD6807