Narrative Therapy, yeah!

This is one of my favorite therapy models. It is easy to see what the point of this model can be. Created by Michael White and David Epston, this is based on the idea that we are a story and we create the meaning of life events to use available societal stories about how we should live. Basically. people experience problems when their personal life doesn't fit what they believe society determines is right, and people can take on that problem as identity. It is the power of a story that can affect how people talk to each other. It is more of a social construction theory. The therapist is more like a co-author of a story. As I said in the original post, the therapy model seeks to externalize the problem from the person. We tend to take the problem on as part of our personality or character. But your problems are not you. Your problems should not define you as a person. By externalizing them, you can provide others a clear sense of who you are as an individual. The motto is the therapy is "the problem is the problem, the person is not the problem". The identity needs to be separate from the problem. The therapist can then take either a adversial or compassionate stance. They can either want to outsmart/evict the problem or understand the message behind it.

The narrative therapist wants to have hope and be optimistic. But don't get me wrong, there is no sugar-coating allowed in narrative therapy. The therapist wants find what's real in that client. They want to connect with the best in the client. When the client is talking, the therapist is looking for the story in which the problem is playing the leading role. Personally, I believe that you should never play second fiddle in your own life story. But therapists are looking for the points in which you do. There are 2 distinct levels in which the problem affects you: the individual level(health, emotions, etc.); and the relational level(significant others, social groups, etc.). There are different things that can affect a story. The sparkling event(unique outcome) is when the story does not play out in a typical fashion. These stories can go unnoticed because of its lack of drama. But if you look deep enough, you can find the problem. On the other hand, the outcomes can help clients create the lives that they prefer. According to Gehart(2014), the clients can develop a more full and accurate account of their own or others' identities. The therapist also looks for gender, alternative, and cultural discourse. There are roles that these can play on how we see ourselves and others. Sometimes, they do not conform with what society wants from us. That is okay. It is about finding that preferred reality.

I think that you would love to learn more about this therapy model. There are many books that have explanations of how it works and the most used techniques. I will go into detail about the techniques at a later date, but find these books at your local library or online.

Narrative Therapy by Stephen Madigan

Narrative Play Therapy: Theory and Practice (Paperback) by Aideen Taylor De Faoite

Conversation, Language, And Possibilities: A Postmodern Approach To Therapy by Harlene Anderson

Playful Approaches to Serious Problems: Narrative Therapy with Children and their Families by Jennifer Freeman

Story Re-Visions: Narrative Therapy in the Postmodern World by Alan Parry, Robert E. Doan

Narrative Therapy: Making Meaning, Making Lives by Catrina Brown

Narrative Therapy: The Social Construction of Preferred Realities by Jill Freedman, Gene Combs

Gehart, D. R. (2014). Collaborative and narrative therapies. In Mastering competencies in family therapy: A practical approach to theories and clinical case documentation (2nd ed., pp. 379-445).

Okay, I am including 2 videos on narrative therapy here for you. These should help you understand what I was saying here, and they will also prepare you for the next post on this topic.

Dr. Diane Gehart https://youtu.be/2yoS3tM_gdE

Dr. Todd Grande https://youtu.be/7HNw8LkTS68

As far as music goes, I want to give you this one from the Backstreet Boys, Permanent Stain--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BruEqHpQRgY

#therapy #history