Narrative Therapy
By: Alex DeWoskin
It is not a revolutionary view that culture and environment contribute to identity formation and how one experiences themselves and others. Since Freud, schools of psychology have, to some extent, incorporated the influence of the external environment into their theories. We all have daily experiences of events that we seek to make meaningful…a narrative is like a thread that weaves the events together, forming a story.
People interpret the world and turn experiences into narratives or stories to make them understandable. People have many stories about their lives and relationships occurring simultaneously.
The contexts of gender, class, race, culture, and sexual preference in which stories are formed contribute to interpretation and the meanings we give to events. Stories are created by linking together events in a sequence and then attributing meaning to them, much like dreams.
The more events that are gathered into the story, the more dominant, rich, and thick it becomes. These meanings to events characterize and shape life in the future and those events that are outside the dominant story become hidden or less significant.
As stories becomes more dominant it becomes easier to find more events that fit with the meaning; thus, enabling them. In this process we give some stories more weight than others and some may have positive effects and some negative effects.
The problematic stories people create and tell themselves (produced in social, cultural and political contexts) unintentionally contributes to their problems by the way they construct meaning of their experiences; thus, affecting their behavior and description of self. Meanings reached in the face of adversity are often referred to as ‘thin descriptions’ because they obscure other possible meanings, leading to thin conclusions about identities.
Thin descriptions are often created by others/external sources yet they are expressed as truths about the person who may be struggling with the problem as well as their identity. Thin conclusions, deriving from problem-saturated stories, disempower people because they are based on weaknesses, disabilities, dysfunctions, or inadequacies.
Once these thin conclusions take control, people have more evidence to support these dominant problem-saturated stories which then become bigger. In the process, occasions when the person has actually escaped the problem become less visible.
These occasions are called “unique outcomes” and are those neglected experiences, feelings, intentions, thoughts, and actions that cannot be accommodated by the dominant story. The bigger the problem gets, the more powerful its influence becomes in affecting future events as people’s abilities and competencies become further hidden by the problem story.
Narrative theory is a postmodern psychological theory. It views reality and truth as subjective (understood within the cultural context of individual personal experience). With narrative theory’s emphasis on people’s stories, constructed life themes within these stories, meanings attached to these themes, and the recreation of new life themes, it is an outgrowth of constructionist concepts that problems are created in social contexts rather than embedded in individuals.
Narrative theory characterizes the problems people face as part of greater contexts including family relations, history, and culture. Narrative theory also focuses on the effects of cultural systems in shaping lives and the power people can reclaim when they release themselves from the cultural influences on self-definition.
Narrative therapists are interested in conversations with people that reveal alternative stories by which they would like to live their lives, stories of identity that will assist them to not be influenced by problems they are facing. They are curious, optimistic, and respectful as they assist people draw their own conclusions regarding inconsistencies and contradictions in their stories.
The client plays a significant role in this process and the conversations between client and therapist are interactive and collaborative. Since many presenting stories are problem-oriented ones, narrative therapists ask creative questions aimed at learning the meanings the person has made of their world and joins with them to help investigate the influence of those meanings on their lives.
During this process, the therapist keeps in mind that stories are co-authored within the context of society, organizations, and family structures and that there is much in life that is inconsistent, incoherent, and irrational. It is assumed that these dominant narratives do not tell the complete story and are distorting people’s sense of self. Therapists work with people to thicken stories that do not support problems in an effort to create stories of new self-images and possibilities for relationships in the future.
The therapist’s role is not to edit client stories, but to help expand them. The aim of narrative therapy is to revive facts that have been dominated and generate alternative stories that incorporate those neglected aspects of experience. Discrepant and omitted material can be incorporated into the new story; thus, acknowledging client strengths in hard times, loosening the control of the dominant story, and allowing for preferred stories of identity.
The goal is to resolve problems via separating their lives and relationships from problem stories that are defeating and creating alternative stories more aligned with their preferred identity.
But, this is work one can also do on their own following the following phases. The first phase is story deconstruction which seeks to reveal and personify the problem and explore how it is affects you. This exposure weakens dominant patterns of relating that people find problematic. The next phase, externalization, involves exploring experiences that reflect exceptions to the problem-saturated story, those “unique outcomes” to find new perspectives.
Strengths are uncovered when the problem is positioned as the enemy and you as the hero and this process one to become more reflective of their life, challenge disempowering truths, and explore new options. Revise your relationship with the problem so as to recognize that the problem is based on cultural messages rather than personal deficiencies.
As you separate from the problem, this allows you to activate your own resources to challenge it. In the next phase, coauthor alternative stories that are more empowering, meaningful, and representative of actual lived experiences. These alternative and enabling narratives are stories that are richer rather than thin. Use familiar words in new ways with new meanings and to find alternative ways in which you would prefer to describe yourself.
As problem saturated stories are revised and new stories of courage and strength are created, reflection on these experiences of achievement make for more meaningful stories that more closely resemble one’s actual experience.
A history of the new life story is constructed by piecing together empowering moments just as the problematic story was constructed by piecing together disempowering moments. In the final phase of narrative therapy, an audience of sorts is incorporated to participate in your new description of yourself.
These are people in your life who can help authenticate and strengthen the preferred stories that are emerging. Empowerment comes about by learning ways to understand unhealthy conditions and power relations in your life, how to re-author your life, and how to identify and use skills to work on problems and find one’s own solutions.
The focus becomes one’s accomplishments and strengths not deficits. Narrative theory does not discount biologically based mental illness and traumatic events such as abuse. But, it offers that there is more than one way of living with an illness or past experience. The question then becomes, how one wants to live with illness?
So, the stories we tell ourselves are enormously influential in how we live our lives and navigate our relationships. Narrative theory assumes that people have the competencies to reduce the influence of problems in their lives and that they are also the expert of their lives. It places emphasis on the meaning we give to and the impact of dominant life stories, especially those internalized stories that become oppressive.
Essentially, people can learn to tell a different story and to be their own expert and essential resource for change. They may not be able to change the past, but they can learn to change their relationship to the past. Thus, allowing for a plethora new attitudes, behaviors, and moods for living one’s life in the future.