Narrative Therapy

For the last 10 years, I have been very interested in what is called Narrative Therapy, a model of therapeutic understanding pioneered by Australian, Michael White, and others.

I have concocted by own understanding of the ideas of Narrative Therapy and I have been intrigued by the challenge of explaining some of the seminal ideas in every day language that anyone could understand.

My understanding of Narrative Therapy is that it is based on what is called Social Constructionism. Social Constructionism means that a human being's understanding of what is real in the social world is really a construction made up by human beings and sustained by them. Society at one in the same time is a creation of human beings and society creates a human beings awareness and understanding of him/herself and the society that he/she lives in.

The best way that I have come to understand this is through a model called discourse analysis. A discourse is made up of a vocabulary, certain practices, certain roles of expertise, and certain power dynamics between representatives of the discourse and the rest of society. Reality is what these experts, representing their discourse, with their special vocabularies, and practices say it is.

There is a medical discourse, a legal discourse, an educational discourse, a business discourse, a psychiatric discourse, a criminal justice discourse, and social welfare discourse, religious discourse, political discourse, gender discourses, etc.

We become socialized and captured by discourses which define us in certain ways and contribute to our identity development.

Females are told that they cannot do certain things in our society like be priests in the Catholic Church, or engage in certain roles because they are women.

Gay people cannot marry in most states.

Men must be strong and not express emotion lest they be perceived as weak, vulnerable, and will be taken advantage of.

Greed in our current American culture has become a virtue, and gambling, previously thought a sin, is now not only acceptable but encouraged by the state.

People often internalize the expectations that discourses have for them and they internalize these expectations for better or for worse as if they had some objective, natural basis.

Sometimes, Michael White would observe, that people have what he called a "problem saturated self" and that task of Narrative therapy is to help the person create some other story about themselves and the world they live in which would be more satisfying.

Is John an alcoholic or is he a person for whom alcohol causes trouble?

In the next article we will be looking at externalization as a therapeutic technique.

Till then, let me ask you, "What's your story?"