Narrative Therapy

We are all authors of our own stories. Throughout our lives, our personal experiences become our own personal stories that we tell about ourselves and our life journeys. The meanings we give to such narratives make up our identity and our understanding of ourselves. Within the narrative therapy approach, the power and influence of these stories we tell about ourselves are explored, with the client as the narrator or expert of their own life narrative¹.

Often, such stories have the potential to become “problem-saturated,” or fail to account for all other possibilities beyond the problematic one. For example, someone struggling with depression takes on the identity of a “depressed individual” and fails to account for instances in their life narrative that provides evidence to the contrary². They live life according to this problem-saturated plot. Furthermore, the substantive role these problems take in the narrative can lead them to become internalized by the individual; that is, they are viewed as being an innate, inseparable part of the individual³.

Narrative therapy seeks to separate such problems from the individual, tasking them with exploring and re-writing their life stories⁴. Additionally, narrative therapy views the client as the expert, capable of utilizing their own skills to minimize the problems that they are facing in their lives⁴. As a proponent of narrative therapy, I would work as a non-directive collaborator, refraining from imposing my own judgments and remaining curious towards clients as they deconstruct problem stories, challenge negative perceptions of self, and re-author preferred stories with agency³.