Narrative therapy

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Narrative therapy
MeSH D062525
Michael White (pictured) helped develop narrative therapy Michael White photo.jpg
Michael White (pictured) helped develop narrative therapy

Narrative therapy (or narrative practice) [1] is a form of psychotherapy that seeks to help patients identify their values and the skills associated with them. It provides the patient with knowledge of their ability to live these values so they can effectively confront current and future problems. The therapist seeks to help the patient co-author a new narrative about themselves by investigating the history of those values. Narrative therapy is a social justice approach to therapeutic conversations, seeking to challenge dominant discourses that shape people's lives in destructive ways. While narrative work is typically located within the field of family therapy, many authors and practitioners report using these ideas and practices in community work, schools and higher education. [2] [3] Narrative therapy has come to be associated with collaborative as well as person-centered therapy. [4] [ page needed ] [5] [6] [7] [8]

Contents

History

Narrative therapy was developed during the 1970s and 1980s, largely by Australian social worker Michael White and David Epston of New Zealand, [9] [10] and it was influenced by different philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists such as Michel Foucault, [9] [11] Jerome Bruner, [12] Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky [13] etc.

Conversation maps

Re-authoring identity

The narrative therapist focuses upon assisting people to create stories about themselves, about their identities, that are helpful to them. [14] This work of "re-authoring identity" helps people identify their values and identify the skills and knowledge to live out these values by way of the therapist's skilled use of listening and questioning. [15] Through the process of identifying the history of values in people's lives, the therapist and client are able to co-author a new story about the person. [16] : 24 

The story people tell about themselves and that is told about them is important in this approach, which asserts that the story of a person's identity may determine what they think is possible for themselves. The narrative process allows people to identify what values are important to them and how they might use their own skills and knowledge to live these values. [16] : 36 

This includes a focus on "unique outcomes" (a term of Erving Goffman) or exceptions to the problem that wouldn't be predicted by the problem's narrative or story itself.[ citation needed ]

Externalizing conversations

The concept of identity is important in narrative therapy. The approach aims not to conflate people's identities with the problems they may face or the mistakes they have made. Rather, the approach seeks to avoid modernist, essentialist notions of the self that lead people to believe there is a biologically determined "true self" or "true nature". Instead, identity, seen as primarily social, can be changed according to the choices people make. [17] [ page needed ]

To separate people's identities from the problems they face, narrative therapy employs externalizing conversations. The process of externalization allows people to consider their relationships with problems. [9] A person's strengths or positive attributes can also be externalized, allowing people to recognise the stories of how such strength and positive attributes come into the person's life, and engage in the construction and performance of preferred identities.[ citation needed ]

An externalizing emphasis involves naming a problem so that a person can assess the problem's effects in their life, can analyze how the problem operates or works in their life, and in the end can choose their relationship to the problem. [17]

"Statement of Position Map"

In a narrative approach, the therapist aims to adopt a collaborative therapeutic posture rather than imposing ideas on people by giving them advice. Michael White developed a conversation map called a "Statement of Position Map" designed to elicit the client's own evaluation of the problems and developments in their lives. Both the therapist and the client are seen as having valuable information relevant to the process and the content of the therapeutic conversation. By adopting a posture of curiosity and collaboration, the therapist aims to give the implicit message to people that they already have knowledge and skills to solve the problems they face. When people develop solutions to their own problems on the basis of their own values, they may become much more committed to implementing these solutions. [18]

Re-membering practice

Narrative therapy identifies that identities are social achievements and the practice of re-membering draws closer those who support a person's preferred story about themselves and dis-engages those that do not support the person.[ clarification needed ][ citation needed ]

Absent but implicit

Inspired by the work of Jacques Derrida, Michael White became curious about the values implicit in people's pain, their sense of failure, and actions.[ citation needed ] Often, people only feel pain or failure in when their values are abridged, or when their relationships and lives are not as they should be. Furthermore, there are often stalled initiatives that people take in life that are also guided by implicit values.

Outsider witnesses map

In this particular narrative practice or conversation, outsider witnesses are invited listeners to a consultation.[ citation needed ] Often they are friends of the consulting person or past clients of the therapist who have their own knowledge and experience of the problem at hand. During the first interview, between therapist and consulting person, the outsider listens without comment.

Then the therapist interviews them with the instructions not to critique or evaluate or make a proclamation about what they have just heard, but instead to simply say what phrase or image stood out for them, followed by any resonances between their life struggles and those just witnessed. Lastly, the outsider is asked in what ways they may feel a shift in how they experience themselves from when they first entered the room. [19]

Next, in similar fashion, the therapist turns to the consulting person, who has been listening all the while, and interviews them about what images or phrases stood out in the conversation just heard and what resonances have struck a chord within them.

In the end, an outsider witness conversation is often rewarding for witnesses. But for the consulting person the outcomes are remarkable: they learn they are not the only one with this problem, and they acquire new images and knowledge about it and their chosen alternate direction in life. The main aim of the narrative therapy is to engage in people's problems by providing the alternative best solution.[ citation needed ]

Therapeutic documents

Narrative therapy embodies a strong appreciation for the creation and use of documents, as when a person and a counsellor co-author "A Graduation from the Blues Certificate", for example. [20] In some instances, case notes are created collaboratively with clients to provide documentation as well as markers of progress.

Social-political therapeutic approach

A strong awareness of the impact of power relations in therapeutic conversations, with a commitment to checking back with the client about the effects of therapeutic styles in order to mitigate the possible negative effect of invisible assumptions or preferences held by the therapist. [21] There is also an awareness of how social narratives such as femininity and masculinity can be corrupted and negatively influence peoples identities. [16] : 23–38 

Eating disorders

Narrative therapy has made numerous contributions to the field of eating disorders. David Epston, Stephen Madigan and Catrina Brown have made the most significant contribution to bringing a depathologizing approach to this issue. [16] [ page needed ]

Men and domestic violence

Narrative therapy has also been applied to work with men who abuse their female partners. Alan Jenkins and Tod Augusta-Scott have been the most prolific in this field. They integrated a social-political analysis of the violence, while at the same time engaging men in a respectful, collaborative manner. [16] [ page needed ] [22] [ page needed ]

Community work

Narrative therapy has also been used in a variety of community settings. In particular, an exercise called "Tree of Life" has been used to mobilize communities to act according to their own values. [23]

Criticisms

There have been several formal criticisms of narrative therapy over what are viewed as its theoretical and methodological inconsistencies, among various other concerns. [24] [25] [26]

See also

Theoretical foundations

Related types of therapy

Other related concepts

Related Research Articles

Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome problems. Psychotherapy aims to improve an individual's well-being and mental health, to resolve or mitigate troublesome behaviors, beliefs, compulsions, thoughts, or emotions, and to improve relationships and social skills. Numerous types of psychotherapy have been designed either for individual adults, families, or children and adolescents. Certain types of psychotherapy are considered evidence-based for treating some diagnosed mental disorders; other types have been criticized as pseudoscience.

Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective that arose in the mid-20th century in answer to two theories: Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory and B. F. Skinner's behaviorism. Thus, Abraham Maslow established the need for a "third force" in psychology. The school of thought of humanistic psychology gained traction due to key figure Abraham Maslow in the 1950s during the time of the humanistic movement. It was made popular in the 1950s by the process of realizing and expressing one's own capabilities and creativity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Occupational therapy</span> Healthcare profession

Occupational therapy (OT) is a healthcare profession that involves the use of assessment and intervention to develop, recover, or maintain the meaningful activities, or occupations, of individuals, groups, or communities. The field of OT consists of health care practitioners trained and educated to improve mental and physical performance. Occupational therapists specialize in teaching, educating, and supporting participation in any activity that occupies an individual's time. It is an independent health profession sometimes categorized as an allied health profession and consists of occupational therapists (OTs) and occupational therapy assistants (OTAs). While OTs and OTAs have different roles, they both work with people who want to improve their mental and or physical health, disabilities, injuries, or impairments.

Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility and focuses on the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist–client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating adjustments people make as a result of their overall situation. It was developed by Fritz Perls, Laura Perls and Paul Goodman in the 1940s and 1950s, and was first described in the 1951 book Gestalt Therapy.

Person-centered therapy, also known as person-centered psychotherapy, person-centered counseling, client-centered therapy and Rogerian psychotherapy, is a form of psychotherapy developed by psychologist Carl Rogers and colleagues beginning in the 1940s and extending into the 1980s. Person-centered therapy seeks to facilitate a client's actualizing tendency, "an inbuilt proclivity toward growth and fulfillment", via acceptance, therapist congruence (genuineness), and empathic understanding.

Unconditional positive regard, a concept initially developed by Stanley Standal in 1954, later expanded and popularized by the humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers in 1956, is the basic acceptance and support of a person regardless of what the person says or does, especially in the context of client-centred therapy. Rogers wrote:

For me it expresses the primary theme of my whole professional life, as that theme has been clarified through experience, interaction with others, and research. This theme has been utilized and found effective in many different areas until the broad label 'a person-centred approach' seems the most descriptive. The central hypothesis of this approach can be briefly stated. It is that the individual has within him or her self vast resources for self-understanding, for altering her or his self-concept, attitudes, and self-directed behaviour—and that these resources can be tapped if only a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art therapy</span> Creation of art to improve mental health

Art therapy is a distinct discipline that incorporates creative methods of expression through visual art media. Art therapy, as a creative arts therapy profession, originated in the fields of art and psychotherapy and may vary in definition. Art therapy encourages creative expression through painting, drawing, or modelling. It may work by providing a person with a safe space to express their feelings and allow them to feel more in control over their life.

Reality therapy (RT) is an approach to psychotherapy and counseling developed by William Glasser in the 1960s. It differs from conventional psychiatry, psychoanalysis and medical model schools of psychotherapy in that it focuses on what Glasser calls "psychiatry's three Rs" – realism, responsibility, and right-and-wrong – rather than mental disorders. Reality therapy maintains that most people suffer from socially universal human conditions rather than individual mental illnesses, and that failure to attain basic needs leads to a person's behavior moving away from the norm. Since fulfilling essential needs is part of a person's present life, reality therapy does not concern itself with a person's past. Neither does this type of therapy deal with unconscious mental processes.

Behaviour therapy or behavioural psychotherapy is a broad term referring to clinical psychotherapy that uses techniques derived from behaviourism and/or cognitive psychology. It looks at specific, learned behaviours and how the environment, or other people's mental states, influences those behaviours, and consists of techniques based on behaviorism's theory of learning: respondent or operant conditioning. Behaviourists who practice these techniques are either behaviour analysts or cognitive-behavioural therapists. They tend to look for treatment outcomes that are objectively measurable. Behaviour therapy does not involve one specific method, but it has a wide range of techniques that can be used to treat a person's psychological problems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael White (psychotherapist)</span>

Michael White was an Australian social worker and family therapist. He is known as the founder of narrative therapy, and for his significant contribution to psychotherapy and family therapy, which have been a source of techniques adopted by other approaches.

Child psychotherapy, or mental health interventions for children refers to the psychological treatment of various mental disorders diagnosed in children and adolescents. The therapeutic techniques developed for younger age ranges specialize in prioritizing the relationship between the child and the therapist. The goal of maintaining positive therapist-client relationships is typically achieved using therapeutic conversations and can take place with the client alone, or through engagement with family members.

Emotionally focused therapy and emotion-focused therapy (EFT) are a set of related approaches to psychotherapy with individuals, couples, or families. EFT approaches include elements of experiential therapy, systemic therapy, and attachment theory. EFT is usually a short-term treatment. EFT approaches are based on the premise that human emotions are connected to human needs, and therefore emotions have an innately adaptive potential that, if activated and worked through, can help people change problematic emotional states and interpersonal relationships. Emotion-focused therapy for individuals was originally known as process-experiential therapy, and it is still sometimes called by that name.

Collaborative therapy is a therapy developed by Harlene Anderson, along with Harold A. Goolishian (1924–1991), in the US. It is intended for clients who are well educated in any field, or for those that have distrust of psychotherapists due to past negative experiences with one or more.

Status Dynamic Psychotherapy (SDT) is an approach to psychotherapy that focuses on changing a client's "statuses", whether they be career related, personal or social in nature. SDT is characterized by its lack of focus on factors traditionally targeted by psychotherapy such as the client's behaviors and cognitions, and how unconscious factors come into play. SDT was created by Peter G. Ossorio at the University of Colorado in the late 1960s as part of a larger system known as "descriptive psychology".

Common factors theory, a theory guiding some research in clinical psychology and counseling psychology, proposes that different approaches and evidence-based practices in psychotherapy and counseling share common factors that account for much of the effectiveness of a psychological treatment. This is in contrast to the view that the effectiveness of psychotherapy and counseling is best explained by specific or unique factors that are suited to treatment of particular problems.

Family therapy is a branch of psychotherapy focused on families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of interaction between family members.

The Houston Galveston Institute is a non-profit organization that offers collaborative counselling and postmodern therapy to individuals, families and communities. The institute is strongly associated with collaborative language systems, a type of postmodern therapy that works with clients via a cooperative partnership to access their own natural resources and develop solutions to their problems. The Houston Galveston Institute is a sponsor of the International Journal of Collaborative Practices.

<i>A Stranger in the Family</i>

A Stranger in The Family: Culture, Families, and Therapy is a text written by Canadian cultural psychiatrist and family therapist Vincenzo Di Nicola integrating family therapy and cultural psychiatry to create a model of cultural family therapy.

Collaborative language systems is a therapeutic approach largely based in contemporary hermeneutics, the study of interpretation as a way to produce understanding, while considering both context and cognition, as well as social constructionism. This approach involves a reciprocal relationship between both the therapist and client, through which the client works through his or her clinical problems using dialogical conversation with the therapist. The therapist and client work together, utilizing their own, individual knowledge and understanding of the issues, to conceptualize and illuminate the client’s problems and provide new context, meaning and comprehension to those problems based on the collaboration.

Eve Lipchik is an Austrian-American psychologist. She was a member of the original team in the development of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). The practice is a goal-directed collaborative approach to psychotherapeutic change that is conducted through direct observation of clients' responses to a series of precisely constructed interview questions. Lipchik is a certified member and approved supervisor of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, as well as co-founder of ICF Consultants, Inc., in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After retiring from active practice, Lipchik has taught, lectured and consulted in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia.

References

  1. ↑ Re-Authoring (2015-08-18). "What is narrative practice?". Re-Authoring Teaching. Retrieved 2021-10-06.
  2. ↑ Winslade, John; Monk, Gerald (2000). Narrative Mediation: A New Approach to Conflict Resolution. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN   0787941921. OCLC   42598442.
  3. ↑ Nylund, David; Tilsen, Julie (December 2006). "Pedagogy and praxis: postmodern spirit in the classroom". Journal of Systemic Therapies. 25 (4): 21–31. doi:10.1521/jsyt.2006.25.4.21.
  4. ↑ Malinen, Tapio; Cooper, Scot J.; Thomas, Frank N., eds. (2012). Masters of Narrative and Collaborative Therapies: The Voices of Andersen, Anderson, and White. New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203806999. ISBN   9780789038258. OCLC   703208854.
  5. ↑ Chow, Esther OW (2014-08-20). "Narrative therapy an evaluated intervention to improve stroke survivors' social and emotional adaptation". Clinical Rehabilitation. SAGE Publications. 29 (4): 315–326. doi: 10.1177/0269215514544039 . ISSN   0269-2155. PMID   25142279. S2CID   33230523. In narrative therapy, people construct their life stories to make sense of their lives. However, in view of illness narrative, these stories are regularly constrictive and blaming. ...narrative therapists believe that multiple realities can serve as a means to help people reconstruct their lives from a more positive and appreciative perspective.
  6. ↑ Grossoehme, Daniel H. (2013). "Chaplaincy and Narrative Theory: A Response to Risk's Case Study". Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy. Informa UK Limited. 19 (3): 99–111. doi:10.1080/08854726.2013.806119. ISSN   0885-4726. PMC   4609436 . PMID   23844843. While both narrative therapy and narrative theory focus on storytelling and constructed meaning, they are different; narrative therapy resisting the "expert" knowledge (which means power) that is inherently claimed by someone who classifies or labels a narrative as a particular type. Power lies not as a quality internal to people who exercise it over others, but instead power resides in the jointly constructed meaning that people give to the problem in their lives.
  7. ↑ Cashin, Andrew (2008). "Narrative Therapy: A Psychotherapeutic Approach in the Treatment of Adolescents With Asperger's Disorder". Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing. Wiley. 21 (1): 48–56. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6171.2008.00128.x. ISSN   1073-6077. PMID   18269411. Narrative therapy specifically involves working with a person to examine and edit the stories the person tells himself or herself about the world to promote social adaptation while working on specific problems of living. These complex stories include those related to who they are as a person and their interpretation of events that signal to them where they fit into the world. It is very much about re-ordering parts or in some cases the whole of the personal in head filing cabinet.
  8. ↑ STRAND, PAUL S. (1997). "Toward a Developmentally Informed Narrative Therapy". Family Process. Wiley. 36 (4): 325–339. doi:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1997.00325.x. ISSN   0014-7370. PMID   9543655. ...defocusing on pathology while verbally elucidating the hidden strengths and resources of families (4), and generating questions such that important family narratives are re-authored to provide greater possibilities for developing solutions to present problems. ...narrative approaches are designed to free families from their difficulties by helping them verbally construct new mental frameworks that deemphasize problems and/or open opportunities for their solutions.
  9. 1 2 3 White, Michael; Epston, David (1990). Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN   0393700984. OCLC   20828023.
  10. ↑ Payne, Martin (2015). "Narrative therapy". In Nelson-Jones, Richard (ed.). Nelson-Jones' Theory and Practice of Counselling and Psychotherapy (6th ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE Publications. pp. 360–382. ISBN   9781446295564. OCLC   897445861.
  11. ↑ Combs, Gene; Freedman, Jill (October 2012). "Narrative, poststructuralism, and social justice: current practices in narrative therapy". The Counseling Psychologist . 40 (7): 1033–1060. doi:10.1177/0011000012460662. ISSN   0011-0000. S2CID   145432322.
  12. ↑ White, Michael (2016). Narrative therapy classics. Adelaide, South Australia. ISBN   978-0-9752180-8-2. OCLC   961218406.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  13. ↑ Kingsley), White, Michael (Michael (2006). Narrative therapy with children and their families. Dulwich Centre Publications. ISBN   0-9752180-2-6. OCLC   70782282.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ↑ Angus, Lynne E.; McLeod, John (2004). The handbook of narrative and psychotherapy : practice, theory, and research. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications. p. 60. ISBN   0-7619-2684-4. OCLC   52766323. The socially authored plots adapted to the local circumstances of individuals are termed dominant stories. Overcoming the dominant story: therapist works with the person to deconstruct his or her dominant plot. The first step in overcoming an internalized, culturally imposed self-story is to bring the story to awareness.
  15. ↑ Bavelas, Janet B.; Coates, Linda; Johnson, Trudy (December 2000). "Listeners as co-narrators". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . 79 (6): 941–952. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.79.6.941. PMID   11138763. S2CID   39770808.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 Brown, Catrina; Augusta-Scott, Tod, eds. (2007). Narrative Therapy: Making Meaning, Making Lives. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. ISBN   978-1412909877. OCLC   64688794.
  17. 1 2 White, Michael (2007). Maps of Narrative Practice. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 139. ISBN   9780393705164. OCLC   76792066.
  18. ↑ White, Michael (1995). Re-Authoring Lives: Interviews & Essays. Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. p. 39. ISBN   9780646227351. OCLC   34403483.
  19. ↑ White, Michael (2004). Narrative Practice and Exotic Lives: Resurrecting Diversity in Everyday Life. Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. p. 15. ISBN   9780957792999. OCLC   60583048.
  20. ↑ Payne, Martin (2006). Narrative Therapy: An Introduction for Counsellors (2nd ed.). London; Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. p. 106. doi:10.4135/9781446213322. ISBN   9781412920124. OCLC   62178252.
  21. ↑ Madigan, Stephen (2019). Narrative Therapy. Theories of Psychotherapy Series (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. p. 81. doi:10.1037/0000131-000. ISBN   9781433829864. OCLC   1056201760. S2CID   150822712.
  22. ↑ Augusta-Scott, Tod; Scott, Katreena; Tutty, Leslie M., eds. (2017). Innovations in Interventions to Address Intimate Partner Violence: Research and Practice. New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315532776. ISBN   9781138692268. OCLC   948558557.
  23. ↑ Denborough, David (2014). Retelling the Stories of Our Lives: Everyday Narrative Therapy to Draw Inspiration and Transform Experience. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 11–21. ISBN   9780393708158. OCLC   855507198.
  24. ↑ Fish, Vincent (July 1993). "Poststructuralism in family therapy: interrogating the narrative/conversatinal mode". Journal of Marital and Family Therapy . 19 (3): 221–232. doi:10.1111/j.1752-0606.1993.tb00983.x.
  25. 1 2 3 Minuchin, Salvador (October 1998). "Where is the family in narrative family therapy?". Journal of Marital and Family Therapy . 24 (4): 397–403. doi:10.1111/j.1752-0606.1998.tb01094.x. PMID   9801999.
  26. ↑ Madigan, Stephen (March 1996). "The politics of identity: considering community discourse in the externalizing of internalized problem conversations". Journal of Systemic Therapies. 15 (1): 47–62. doi:10.1521/jsyt.1996.15.1.47.
  27. 1 2 Doan, Robert E. (Fall 1998). "The king is dead; long live the king: narrative therapy and practicing what we preach". Family Process . 37 (3): 379–385. doi:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1998.00379.x. PMID   9879006.
  28. 1 2 Etchison, Mary; Kleist, David M. (January 2000). "Review of narrative therapy: research and utility". The Family Journal . 8 (1): 61–66. doi:10.1177/1066480700081009. S2CID   143708204.
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