The following conversation describes a narrative means of uncovering (or ‘deconstructing’) some of the invisible forces that undermine parents' capacities in caring for their children in preferred ways. In the authors' experience, parents can be hugely resourceful and provide a clear account of what they ‘should’ be doing, yet seem unable to act upon their own good advice – it is as though an external agent, named below as ‘Virus X’, prevents them from being the parents they would like to be. Through naming this external agent, identifying its influences and noticing parents' acts of resistance in the face of these influences, antidotes to Virus X can be developed. This paper describes the development of such an approach within a child behaviour management group. In keeping with the playful approach encouraged by narrative therapy, the authors of this paper join forces to act as investigative journalists in exposing Virus X to the readers.

Where a behaviour has been maintained on a variable schedule of reinforcement theoretically it should be possible to reduce resistance to extinction by first putting the behaviour onto a continuous schedule of reinforcement. This approach has been employed in animal research but rarely with human participants, and where it has, with little success. This study describes the use of the approach to overcome some minor problems in the behaviour of young children, the problems being sufficiently troublesome for the parents to consult their GP. All the families who used the approach were successful in remediating the behaviour. Some reasons for this success, in contrast with the disappointing outcomes of some of the earlier research, are discussed. Although the study lacks formal controls it is suggested that the approach could be usefully applied to other common childhood behaviours that have been subjected to variable reinforcement.