It is important for the practitioner to clarify in his or her mind what are the SIMPLE BONES of the story or problem that they wish for help in thinking about. In conversation with a colleague about this problem I must ask myself:

what information does my colleague need in order to help me decide on actions that will address my concerns?

There is never time to tell the whole story, so the KeyWorker must act as a faithful editor, trying to represent to the best of his ability the account that has been given, but in an abbreviated form. Over-long "STORYTELLING" is in fact a version of Pretend mode thinking.

There is a balance to be struck between:

1. Providing sufficient data and information to convey the richness and complexity of the story, and...

2. Applying sufficient discernment to provide practical knowledge rather than an overwhelming "sea of facts."

Adding links

We do this to create narrative coherence. At times, in telling the stories of our clients, we are drawn into adding detail - that connects facts and which adds to the overall coherence of the narrative. This is tempting, and to some extent inevitable if we are to help our colleagues form "three dimensional" pictures of young people. It is important that if we do find ourselves doing this we MARK the fact explicitly: "Now this is my assumption, rather than anything Jane has directly said to me, but it seems that after her difficult experience with her father she went on to suffer a series of other difficult relationships with older men..."

The listener is contracted:

The colleague who has agreed to hold a conversation that is Marked as 'Thinking Together' has effectively contracted to hold the speaker to these boundaries - of task, time etc (see KeepingYourBearings) . It may be necessary to point out:

"Hey, we need to keep the SIMPLE BONES here... is this is getting into story-telling?

...Equally the worker giving the account needs to hold onto this shared understanding of the task, so that such prompts are not taken as criticisms. Thinking Together requires a degree of trust, and allows for conversations that might be seen as blunt, or fast outside of this environment. (Remember that the Theory of Mentalization places error right at the centre of communication; rather than it being something that is a surprising disappointment, it is to be expected.)