Narrative Therapy

Summarised from Alice Morgan's ,What is narrative therapy? An easy-to-read introduction..

In brief Narrative Therapy:

seeks to be a respectful, non-blaming approach to counselling and community work, which centres people as the experts in their own lives.
views problems as separate from people and assumes people have many skills, competencies, beliefs, values, commitments and abilities that will assist them to change their relationship with problems in their lives.
Curiosity and a willingness to ask questions to which we genuinely don’t know the answers are important principles of this work.
There are many possible directions that any conversation can take (there is no single correct direction).
The person consulting the therapist plays a significant part in determining the directions that are taken.

Narrative therapy is sometimes known as involving ‘re-authoring’ or ‘re-storying’ conversations. As these descriptions suggest, stories are central to an understanding of narrative ways of working.

The word ‘story’ has different associations and understandings for different people. For narrative therapists, stories consist of:

events
linked in sequence
across time
according to a plot

As humans, we are interpreting beings. We all have daily experiences of events that we seek to make meaningful. The stories we have about our lives are created through linking certain events together in a particular sequence across a time period, and finding a way of explaining or making sense of them. This meaning forms the plot of the story. We give meanings to our experiences constantly as we live our lives. A narrative is like a thread that weaves the events together, forming a story.

We all have many stories about our lives and relationships, occurring simultaneously. For example, we have stories about ourselves, our abilities, our struggles, our competencies, our actions, our desires, our relationships, our work, our interests, our conquests, our achievements, our failures. The way we have developed these stories is determined by how we have linked certain events together in a sequence and by the meaning we have attributed to them.

As more and more events are selected and gathered into the dominant plot, the story gains richness and thickness. As it gains thickness, other related events are easily remembered and added to the story. Throughout this process, the story thickens, becomes more dominant in my life and it is increasingly easy for me to find more examples of events that fit with the meaning I have reached.

The effects of dominant stories

The dominant story of my abilities will not only affect me in the present but will also have implications for my future actions. For example, if I am asked to drive to a new suburb or drive a long distance at night, my decision and plans will be influenced by the dominant story I have about my driving. I would probably be more inclined to consider doing these things when influenced by the story I have about myself as being a good driver than if I had a story about myself as being a dangerous or accident-prone driver. Therefore, the meanings I give to these events are not neutral in their effects on my life – they will constitute and shape my life in the future. All stories are constitutive of life and shape our lives.

Living many stories at once

Our lives are multistoried. There are many stories occurring at the same time and different stories can be told about the same events. No single story can be free of ambiguity or contradiction and no single story can encapsulate or handle all the contingencies of life.

If I had a car accident, or if someone in my life began to focus on every little mistake that I ever made while driving, or if a new law was introduced that discriminated against people like me in some way, an alternative story about my driving might begin to develop. Other events, other people’s interpretations of these events, and my own interpretations could lead to an alternative story developing about my driving – a story of incompetence or carelessness. This alternative story would have effects too. For a time I might live with differing stories about my driving depending upon the context or the audience. Over time, depending on a variety of factors, the negative story about my driving might gain in influence and even become the dominant story in my life in relation to my driving. Neither the story of my driving ability nor the story of my driving failure would be free of ambiguity or contradiction.

Different types of stories

There are many different sorts of stories by which we live our lives and relationships – including stories about the past, present and future. Stories can also belong to individuals and/or communities. There can be family stories and relationship stories.

An individual may have a story about themselves as being successful and competent. Alternatively they may have a story about themselves as being ‘a failure at trying new things’ or ‘a coward’ or as ‘lacking determination’. Families may have stories about themselves as being ‘caring’ or ‘noisy’ or ‘risky’ or ‘dysfunctional’ or ‘close’. A community may have a story about itself as ‘isolated’ or ‘politically active’ or ‘financially strong’. All these stories could be occurring at the same time, and events, as they occur, will be interpreted according to the meaning (plot) that is dominant at that time. In this way, the act of living requires that we are engaged in the mediation between the dominant stories and the alternative stories of our lives. We are always negotiating and interpreting our experiences.

The broader social context of the stories by which we live our lives

The ways in which we understand our lives are influenced by the broader stories of the culture in which we live. Some of the stories we have about our lives will have positive effects and some will have negative effects on life in the past, present and future. Laura may describe herself as a skilled therapist. She has developed this story about herself from her experiences and feedback from her work. All these experiences have contributed to shaping a story about herself as a competent, caring and skilful therapist. When faced with the decision to apply for a new job in a field that is less familiar to her, Laura is more likely to apply or think about applying under the influence of this positive self-narrative. I suspect that she would experience the challenges in her work with some confidence and might talk about her work in ways that describe it as enriching.

The meanings that we give to these events occurring in a sequence across time do not occur in a vacuum. There is always a context in which the stories of our lives are formed. This context contributes to the interpretations and meanings that we give to events. The context of gender, class, race, culture and sexual preference are powerful contributors to the plot of the stories by which we live. Laura’s story of herself as a skilled therapist, for instance, would have been influenced by the ideas of the culture in which she lives. This culture would have particular beliefs about what constitutes ‘skills’ as a therapist and Laura’s story would be shaped by these beliefs.

Laura’s working-class background may have significantly contributed to the ways in which she finds it easy to make connections with people who come to consult with her from a diversity of backgrounds. Her confidence in speaking out in work situations may have much to do with her history within the feminist movement and also the fact that as she is a white Australian professional, it is likely that people will listen to what she is saying.

In these sorts of ways, the beliefs, ideas and practices of the culture in which we live play a large part in the meanings we make of our lives.

Summary