NARRATIVE

THERAPY

Chapter 13

To illustrate how experience is shaped by the

language we use to describe it, consider the
difference between calling the heart-racing
tension most people feel before speaking in
public: stage fright or excitement ?
The first description makes this familiar agitation
a problem, something to overcome. The second
suggests that its a natural, almost inevitable,
response to standing up in front of people whose
approval hope you win.

Strategic therapists gave clients reframesnew

interpretationsfor their experience. The next
time youre speaking, just think of yourself as
excited rather than frightened.
A man whose life story is that hes boring will
have trouble seeing his trembling hands as due to
excitement, no matter how hard someone tries to
sell that frame.

Stories dont mirror life, they shape it. That is why

people have the interesting habit of becoming the
stories they tell about their experience.

THEORETICAL
FORMULATIONS
The narrative approach first found its way into
psychotherapy in the hermeneutic tradition in
psychoanalysis.
Patients may not understand their dreams or
symptoms, because their motives were
unconscious, but an analyst possessed of the
truth of psychoanalytic theory could discover
unconscious meaning much like an archeologist
uncovering the past.

THEORETICAL
FORMULATIONS
The truth of experience isnt discovered, it is
created. So the goal of therapy shifted from
historical truth to narrative intelligibility.
The challenge was to construct truths in the
service of self-coherencenot a true picture of the
past. The therapist became more of a poet or
novelist than an archeologist.
Therapists came to recognize how much narrative
accounts affected clients perceptions and
interpretations of those perceptions.

NORMAL FAMILY
DEVELOPMENT
Narrative therapists not only avoid judgements
about what is normal, they reject the very idea of
categorizing people. Theories of normality have
been used to perpetuate patterns of privilege and
oppression.
In the spirit of collaboration, narrative therapists
endeavor to situate themselves with clientsthat
is, disclose the beliefs that inform their therapy so
that clients can know what theyre getting into.

NORMAL FAMILY
DEVELOPMENT
From the ideas described in the previous section,
we can distill the basic assumptions narrative
therapists make about normal families, people:
1. have good intentions
2. are profoundly influenced by the discourses
around them
3. are not their problems
4. can develop alternative, empowering stories
once separated from their problems and from the
common wisdom they have internalized.

GOALS OF THERAPY
Narrative therapists arent problem solvers.
Instead, they help people separate themselves
from problem-saturated stories (and destructive
cultural assumptions) in order to open space for
new and more constructive views of themselves.

CONDITIONS FOR
BEHAVIOR CHANGE
Narrative therapy works by helping clients
deconstruct unproductive stories in order to
reconstruct new and more productive ones.
Narrative therapists externalize problems from
persons as one way to deconstruct the
disempowering assumptions that often surround
problems.

THERAPY

ASSESSMENT
A narrative assessment means getting the
familys storyincluding not only their experience
with their problems but also their presuppositions
about those problems.
The therapist approaches assessment as both an
anthropologist and a hypnotist.
Tell me this storylet us see what we can make
of it together
What would you prefer to happen?
What are you hoping to accomplish here?
Is this what you intend for your future?

THERAPEUTIC
TECHNIQUES
Almost all narrative interventions are delivered in
the form of questions. In the first session,
therapists begin by finding out how people spend
their time. This gives the therapist a chance to
appreciate how clients see themselves, without
getting into a lengthy history.

EXTERNALIZING: THE
PERSON IS NOT THE
PROBLEM
Therapists begin by asking clients to tell their
problem-saturated story, and they listen long
enough to convey their appreciation for what the
family has been going through. After building
rapport, the therapist begins to ask questions that
externalize the problem and make its destructive
effects apparent.

WHOS IN CHARGE, THE

PERSON OR THE PROBLEM?
Over many sessions therapists ask a multitude of
questions that explore how the problem has
managed to disrupt or dominate the family,
versus how much they have been able to control
it. (relative influence questions)

READING BETWEEN
THE LINES OF THE
PROBLEM
While asking relative influence questions, the
therapist listens for sparkling events or unique
outcomes when clients were able to avoid the
problems effects, and asks for elaboration on how
that was done.

REAUTHORING THE
WHOLE STORY
Evidence of competence relative to the problem,
gathered from sifting through the clients history,
can serve as the start of new narratives regarding
what kind of people they are. To make this
connection, the therapist begins by asking about
what the series of past and present victories over
the problem say about the client.

REINFORCING A NEW
STORY
Because they believe that the self is constituted in
social interaction and, therefore, that people are
susceptible to having their new stories
undermined by the same contexts that bred the
old ones, narrative therapists make a point of
helping clients find an audience to support their
progress in constructing new stories for
themselves.