What is Narrative Therapy?

Narrative therapy is about interpretation and objectification. Language is important and there is emphasis on meaning and creativity. The problem creates the system. It is directional and relational. The issues in the relationship are between people, not in an individual. It is the connection between people that is most affected by the problem at hand. The way an event is construed or seen makes it inseparable from how it is experienced. There is a different between first hand and secondhand storytelling. Three people can see one event, and it can be experienced and told again in three different ways. We only know the our construction or version of reality.

Often times, we internalize problems. They become part of our personality. Narrative therapy seeks to externalize that problem. It wants to separate the person from the problem. Let’s break down narrative therapy for you. There are many methods that the therapist would use to work with their clients.

These can include:

• Dilemma questions

• Escape meetings

• Landscape-of-action questions

• Therapeutic certificates and letters

• Objectifying the problem

• Summarization

What these interventions do is make the client see how the problem has become part of who they are as an individual. The counselor wants to co-create the system with the client. Beiing either direct or indirect, they allow clients to have a voice in the process of their treatment. Think of the counselor as a co-conspirator in your treatment with you. They want the client to expound on their experience with the problem as a separate issue and change the way that the client participate in the problem itself. The story has become subjugated, the outcome is unique to the individual, and there is one dominant story:YOU!

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