About Narrative Therapy

Here are two excerpts from publications that I've found helpful in explaining narrative therapy, one of the approaches I use in my work.

Excerpt from "What is Narrative Therapy?” by Alice Morgan, Dulwich Centre Publications, 2000 (available from narrativebooks.com)

Assumptions that inform ways of working

• The problem is the problem (the person is not the problem).
• People have expertise on their own lives.
• People can become the primary authors of the stories of their own lives.
• By the time a person consults a therapist, they will have already made many attempts to reduce the influence of the problem in their lives and relationships.
• Problems are constructed in cultural contexts. These contexts include power, relations of race, class, sexual preference, gender, and disadvantage.
• The problems for which people seek consultation usually cause them to reach thin conclusions about their lives and relationships. Often these conclusions have encouraged them to consider themselves as deficient in some way and this makes it difficult for them to access their knowledges, competencies, skills and abilities.
• These skills, competencies and knowledges can be made available to them to assist with reclaiming their lives from the influence of the problem for which they seek help.
• There are always occasions in a person's life upon which they have escaped a problem's influence. Problems never successfully claim 100% of people's lives or relationships.
• Ensuring an atmosphere of curiosity, respect and transparency is the responsibility of the therapist.

Excerpt from The One-minute question: What is Narrative Therapy? by Erik Sween, originally published in Gecko 1998 #2, Dulwich Centre Publications, reproduced by permission of the author.)

...here are my best attempts at responding to the one-minute question. Each response is intended to stand on its own. Multiple answers are provided for different days of the week or for different audiences - whichever proves more useful. Order is arbitrary and not meant to signify importance.

1. If narrative therapy had one slogan , it would be: ‘The person is never the problem; the problem is the problem.’ This phrase captures the importance attached to who a person is, regardless of his or her circumstances. Narrative therapy involves exploring the shaping moments of a person’s life, the turning points, the key relationships, and those particular memories not dimmed by time. Focus is drawn to the intentions, dreams, and values that have guided a person’s life, despite the setbacks. Oftentimes, the process brings back stories that have been overlooked - surprising stories that speak of forgotten competence and heroism.

2. Every type of psychotherapy designates a different aspect of life as the basic unit of experience. For example, behavioral therapy focuses on behavior, cognitive therapy focuses on logical thinking, while systems therapy focuses on family interaction as the basic unit. In this way, narrative therapy holds up the story as the basic unit of experience. Stories guide how people act, think, feel, and make sense of new experience. Stories organize the information from a person’s life. Narrative therapy focuses on how these important stories can get written and rewritten.

3. Narrative therapy proposes that people use certain stories about themselves like the lens on a camera. These stories have the effect of filtering a person’s experience and thereby selecting what information gets focused in or focused out. These stories shape people’s perspectives of their lives, histories, and futures. Despite information to the contrary, these stories of identity can be remarkably stable. Narrative therapy provides a means to refocus the lens on this camera and help reshape a person’s stories and lives.

4. As people, we are inescapably meaning makers. We have an experience and then attach meaning to it. Since time immemorial, and the days around the campfire, we have been telling stories. Stories are our most familiar means of communicating the meaning we find in our experiences. Narrative therapy is interested in the stories we live by - those stories we carry with us about who we are and what is most important to us. Narrative therapy involves unearthing these stories, understanding them, and re-telling them.

5. Many forms of psychology and therapy place enormous emphasis on the process of individuation. In this way, the individual is believed to construct her or his internal world almost single-handedly. Narrative therapy provides a contrast to this perspective. Narrative therapy proposes that identity is co-created in relationship with other people as well as by one’s history and culture. Thus, being seen by others in a certain way can contribute as much as seeing oneself in a certain way. We come to see ourselves by looking in the mirrors that other people hold up for us. In this way, a person’s identity is said to be socially constructed. Narrative therapy involves unearthing these stories, understanding them, and retelling them.

6. Narrative therapy consists of understanding the stories or themes that have shaped a person’s life. Out of all the experiences a person has lived, what has held the most meaning? What choices, intention, relationships have been most important? Narrative therapy proposes that only these experiences that are part of a larger story will have a significant impact on a person’s lived experience. Therefore, narrative therapy focuses on building the plot which connects a person’s life together.

7. A person’s life is criss-crossed by invisible story-lines. These unseen storylines can have enormous power in shaping a person’s life. Narrative therapy involves the process of drawing out and amplifying these story-lines. Questions are used to focus on what has been most meaningful in a person’s life. Common areas of inquiry include intentions, influential relationships, turning points, treasured memories, and how these areas connect with each other.