Narrative Therapy – Writing Your Way to Wellness
April 15th, 2008 |
Barbara Kennedy, MPH, MSW
Imagine yourself back in time a long time ago. You are a child sitting cross-legged near the central village fire. Firelight dances on the faces of those seated around you. Your eyes are wide with excitement! Your little heart pounds like thunder! Your tiny hands clutch bits of grass as the old and wise storyteller recounts stories of the heroic acts of courage and history. The storyteller’s ancient hands rise up toward the night sky as sparkling embers spiral upwards to join the stars. Through the careful weaving of these stories, the storyteller brings the past, present and future together. You listen. You learn. You remember. –Excerpt from The Wisdom Tree
Storytelling is as old as the first homosapien who picked up a stick and scribbled in the dirt. Native Americans chisel on the walls of caves; Nanas all over the world–with a gaggle of grandchildren at their feet–spin yarns passed down from prior generations; teenagers lock their diaries and hide them. So why have first-person narratives ranked on best seller lists and in book reviews with so much fervor? Well, it goes something like this, Once upon a time…
Narrative therapy proposes that people use certain stories about themselves like the lens on a camera. These stories are selected and framed memories and information that are repeated over and over. But stories don’t mirror life, they shape it. Stories organize the information from a person’s life. They guide how people think, feel, act, and make sense of their experiences, thus have the power to control people’s perspectives of their lives, their histories and their futures. Because people tend to become these stories they tell about themselves, whether inspiring or oppressive, narrative therapy focuses on how these important stories can get written and re-written. It provides a means to refocus the lens on this camera and help reshape a person’s self-image, self-esteem and relationships.
However, often by the time a person or family comes to therapy, they feel isolated, defective and depressed. Their lives have become completely dominated by ‘problem-saturated’ stories that work to oppress them, divide them, hinder wellness, and sometimes actually make them ill.
Problem-saturated stories can also become identities—for example, if someone calls himself or herself “a failure” or “a victim” or “a depressive,” there is really one story and it’s a devastating one.
First draft: When I was four, I remember my mother was screaming and it was pitch black outside and I felt helpless. Then she pushed me out of a second story window.
Thousands of vignettes and criss-crossed story lines make up lives. Narrative therapy involves the process of drawing out and amplifying these story lines, focusing on the most meaningful intentions, influential relationships, turning points, treasured memories and how they all connect. Part of the process is helping patients and clients understand their experiences. What was most meaningful? What choices, intentions, relationships have been most important? It’s more about poetry and prose than it is about archeology.
Second draft: My mother was shaking me. It was dark and I smelled smoke. A black man in a big coat appeared at the window and my mother handed me over to him.
Narrative therapy works by helping people ‘deconstruct’ unproductive stories in order to ‘reconstruct’ positive ones. In the process of re-storying experiences, especially where unhappy emotions such as anger, fear, anxiety and depression dominate, new and more empowering events can restore lives. It operates from the view that most people don’t want problems in their lives. By stepping away from problem saturated and oppressive stories, they can discover the ‘untold,’ preferred account by exploring the turning-points, the key relationships, and those particular memories not dimmed by time, and focus on the intentions, dreams, and values that have guided their life, despite the set-backs. Oftentimes, the very process of writing brings back memories that have been overlooked–surprising stories that speak of forgotten competence, strengths and even heroism.
Third draft: There were a couple of times in my life when I was really scared. One time was when our house caught on fire in the middle of the night. My mother and I waited for the fire engine together. “Be brave,” she instructed me, as she wrapped me in a blanket and led me to safety, and I was.
Discovering through new stories, the hopeful, preferred, and previously unrecognized and hidden possibilities and strengths contained within patients’ lives is referred to as ‘re-authoring.’ By listening to patients and helping them to externalize problems, deconstruct pessimistic life stories, and convey unswerving confidence in their ability to re-champion certain events, we have a powerful tool for change, healing and personal satisfaction.
©Copyright 2008 by Barbara Kennedy, MPH, MSW. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Barbara and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
Interesting concept but I am not really sure how narrating one’s life story can help with their issues. Would this be the equivalent of doing personal talk therapy?
There are so many people who find it easier to write their feelings, emotions, and experiences versus sharing those aloud verbally with others. Think of it as therapeutic journaling if you will.
Thank you for sharing your view of narrative therapy… It is not an easy task to choose what is important to present to the reader in a short article. I would add that in narrative therapy as created by Michael White et al. the non-pathologising attitude of the practitioner is of paramount importance (for example, instead of “patient” or even “client” the expression “the person who consults us” or “the person in the centre” is used); there is no goal of therapy such as “wellness” defined beforehand (therapy is constructed as more like a journey, a road which is visible only till the next hill…); and narrative therapy encompasses not only work with the written word, but the variety of dimensions and factors of oral performance, including such as context and audience. Not an isolated person, but an interpretive community is put in the centre.
So there are no goals for wellness before beginning the road of therapy, but I would assume that there are indeed goals that you wish for the person to achieve while working with his or her therapist?
That would only make sense. I am not a therapist but have been in therapy myself once before for a depressive episode that I experienced. I did not have the opportunity to use something like narrative therapy throughout my treatment process but find that this helps me a great deal in my personal life. My therapist and I, however, did work together to create some goals and we worked very hard to get me to the point where I could meet and achieve these on my own and without that feeling of being overwhelmed that so often comes in those who are depressed.
Hopefully the good counselors out there understand that this is a risk they may face and are trained to be aware of this when this is happening. I can’t imagine someone making it all the way in to a counsleing session and then finding the need to make everything up, unless he is a compulsive liar. I think that narrative therapy could be very useful and might even play well in adolescent therapy sessions when they are sometimes so reluctant to talk anyway.
The concept of narrative therapy appeals to me but I think that it could be a real turn off to others. There are so many who just feel the need to get it all out without feeling the pressure of feeling like they are back in school with a writing assignment.
I think that you pose a valid point. But I do, however, think that a good therapist would recognize this in a patient from a very early stage and would not push this on someone who is not a willing participant.
I love to write so I can see how this could be beneficial for some people as they go through the therapy process. There is a great deal to be said for writing down your feelings and how easy this can be to really let it all out and get to the bottom of what is bugging you.
It is important to make the distinction that the ‘Narrative’ in Narrative Therapy (as described by Michael White et al) does not refer to writing or scripting a narrative of one’s life story (although this may be part of therapeutic collaboration). It refers to the ’story’ as being the primary building block or unit of people’s experience. People who consult with narrative therapists are not expected or required to write their life stories. The brevity of this article may have given this impression.
However the therapist and the person consulting the therapist may decide together that writing will be one aspect of the process. It would really depend on the the specific and particular preferences of the person consulting the therapist. Some people might prefer to use drawing or painting, placing an advertisement, holding a party, cooking a cake, writing songs, building a tree-house, going for walks, or just having conversations as activities to relate or explore untold or forgotten stories.
Similarly, as narrative practices are generally collaborative in nature, a therapist will not ‘decide’ goals for the person consulting with them. Destinations or goals may be an aspect of the work together and if they are they will generally be discussed in collaboration. Narrative practitioners do not generally centre themselves as the experts in the therapeutic relationship. The therapist does not generally determine what is ‘positive’ or ‘optimistic’ about a story, but asks the person who is consulting them to make these evaluations.