Narrating Your Life
Narrative Therapy is a treatment modality that centers the client’s life story and the meaning they make of it. It was developed by Michael White and David Epston, in New Zealand in the 1980s. You can read more about its history and foundations at the Narrative Therapy Centre website.
A key element of this modality is the understanding that problems are distinctly separate from clients. That is to say, the client is not the problem. The client has experienced problems.
This principle alone can be therapeutic. When we begin to see ourselves as separate from our problems, we can change the language around ourselves and our issues. We don’t say “We are the problem.” We don’t say “We are failures,” but instead say “We are experiencing failure,” for instance. This is known as externalizing the problem. I find that it helps to change negative self-talk. It helps us see that we ourselves have the ability to change, even if a problem has already occurred.
Sometimes it may feel like we are responsible for a given problem, but Narrative Therapy allows us to view what happened before the problem's onset and imagine what may happen after the problem resolves or concludes. This is another powerful element. Telling the story of the problem, or this chapter of life that involves problems, allows us to see action around the problem and helps us become unstuck.
We also acknowledge the impact that wider systems—society, family, socioeconomic and demographic factors, and other elements—have upon what happened in our life. We are all individuals within the broad context of the world around us and the influence of others. I like to look specifically at the time period, culture, and family expectations specific to each client. These elements combined with our own developmental stage at the time of certain life events matter regarding how much power or influence we had on our own situations.
In Narrative Therapy, the focus is not on the therapist as the problem solver. Rather, the therapist serves as a guide or collaborator with the client, who has the lived experience of the narrative story. As an artist and a therapist, I gravitate towards narrative techniques because they allow clients to use a bit of imagination and playfulness when desired. For clients who enjoy movies and TV, I like to ask what the title of their life film would be; or I might ask what a certain episode in their life story would be about. For clients who enjoy reading, I like to find out about chapters in their story; and for clients who enjoy theatre, music or dance I like to find out the mood of the orchestration and how a number would begin and end. Sometimes, envisioning a difficult storyline as an abstract concept or a familiar storytelling format can deepen our understanding of how we feel and what we want to know.
Timelines are a useful tool in helping the therapist and client understand the onset and duration of specific issues that matter to the client. They can also guide clients toward identifying their desired trajectory for what comes next, and help us articulate what could come next.
Simply being able to recall significant life events, sort out the roots of particular problems, or discover patterns that have shaped us are all healing outcomes of using Narrative Therapy approaches. I love integrating these tools into goals that each client determines, and watching clients become more empowered to step into a future that is even better than their past.
