Losses and Justice: An Australian Perspective

Abstract

At one level the justice system can be understood as the major institutional way we deal with losses, largely around our expectations of how other people will behave towards us. These losses range from minor slights, where our sense of fairness is challenged, to more serious encounters where our homes are invaded, to severe assaults. This chapter discusses some of our ways of dealing with these losses, taking a narrative therapy approach. Narrative therapy is based on the idea that personal problems are created in social, cultural and political contexts (White and Epston, 1990).