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Past psychiatric history
• "How did you get through then?"

Inquiry can focus on bringing out the experience and knowledge the person has acquired.

  • “Have you ever noticed anything like this before?”
  • “How did you get through it then?”
  • “In the experiences you have had with people like us, what memories do you have of what felt helpful or not?”

Researching difference and context can be helpful:

  • “What is different this time from previously?”
  • “What was happening in your life then which helped you get through?”

Family psychiatric history
• What knowledge and ideas are held in the family around this?
• In what ways are the experience you are having similar and different?

Similarly, inquiry round this can focus on resources the family may have:

  • “Is there anyone in the family who has experience of this sort of thing?”
  • “What are the similarities and differences between this experience and their experience?”
  • “What do you know about who in the family was helpful at that time?”

Developmental history
• What are some of the previous challenges you have negotiated?
• Was there anything you noticed about Johnny’s’s development which was different from other children?

Rather than focusing on deficits, trauma, etc, which might undermine the person’s ability to function, a developmental history can focus on personal style in engaging with life, active ways of approaching and managing problems, strategies which have been helpful and opportunities for development. For instance, focus on presence rather than absence:

  • “What sort of learning environments were you exposed to when you were growing up?”
  • "What sort of role models did you have the opportunity to learn from?”
  • “What sort of challenges did you deal with?”
  • "How did you engage in social relationships/school/work, etc.”

Trauma histories need to have the focus:

“How did you get through this? What kept you going?”

rather than,

“How has this damaged you?”

If a developmental history is being taken from a parent, sense of agency can be promoted by asking them about what they noticed, felt concerned about or felt might be helpful in understanding the situation.

Alcohol and other drug history
• Bring forward values and intentions supporting AOD use.

Johnella Bird’s ideas can build on Motivational Interviewing (MI) (Miller and Rollnick 2002). MI works to bring forward ambivalence and personal knowledge and experience about the effect of substance use on people’s lives by careful listening, inquiry and summarizing. These conversations can be enriched by incorporating strategies from Johnella Bird’s ideas. Making a choice to use substances is usually supported by values and intentions (even if this is valuing spontaneity), as strategies to manage a difficulty. Bringing forward values and intentions can make these available to the person as a resource.

  • "How did you make the decision to use alcohol again?"
  • "It wasn’t a decision, I just let go and went with it."
  • "This ‘letting go and going with it’ strategy, is this something you use in other areas of your life?"
  • “What is the history of the ‘letting go and going with it’ strategy?"
  • "When you use it, is it absolute or is there sometimes a bit of careful thinking which goes with it?"
  • "Is it a strategy which works for you?"
 
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