ABSTRACT
While clients want to express the uniqueness of their experiences, professionals generally try to do the opposite. Health and social care workers seem to vary greatly in their awareness of this tension. Some exert their professional power unthinkingly and as a matter of routine, ensuring that the normative style dominates every consultation. This chapter illustrates the difference between a purely normative approach and a narrative-based one, using a fictional scenario: two different occupational therapists carrying out a home assessment for mobility aids, in the same patient. It shows the integration of narrative and normative approaches, based on the traditional depiction of "yin" and "yang" in Chinese thought. Sharing power is at the heart of a narrative approach. While professionals who use a narrative-based approach should be looking for opportunities throughout every conversation to share power, they also need to be aware that few clients will feel that the encounter is a totally equal one.
