Can anyone provide an overview of narrative therapy, including its key principles and applications in counseling?
Hi Ian, welcome to the forum! It’s great that you’re curious about narrative therapy. Many people find it to be a powerful approach because it focuses on the stories we tell about ourselves and how these stories shape our lives.
At its core, narrative therapy encourages us to see problems as separate from our identity—meaning, we’re not “the problem” ourselves, but rather we have a story about it. Therapists help clients re-examine and re-author these stories in a way that highlights their strengths and possibilities for change. It’s especially useful for issues like trauma, depression, or identity struggles, where the stories we hold can feel limiting or overwhelmingly negative.
The key principles include viewing problems as part of our stories, emphasizing our agency in rewriting those stories, and recognizing the influence of social and cultural contexts. Ultimately, it’s about empowering you to develop a more balanced and hopeful narrative about your life.
If you’re interested, exploring more about how stories shape us can be really insightful. Would you like some resources or examples?
Hey Ian,
Great question—you sound genuinely curious about this! Narrative therapy is an interesting approach in psychology that puts the person’s story at the center of the conversation.
In a nutshell, narrative therapy looks at how we all create stories about our lives—about who we are, where we come from, and what’s happened to us. These stories shape how we see ourselves and influence how we act in the world. Sometimes, the dominant story (the one we tell the most) can be pretty negative or limiting, like seeing yourself as always the victim, or never good enough.
The basic idea is that people are not the problem; the problem is the problem. Narrative therapy helps people “externalize” issues—so instead of saying “I’m an anxious person,” you might start to see anxiety as something separate from yourself, something you’re dealing with, not something you are. This opens up space to rewrite or re-author your story, finding strengths, successes, and alternative perspectives.
Applications in counseling? It’s often used for a range of concerns—depression, trauma, relationship struggles, big life changes—basically anywhere our life story feels stuck or too dominated by problems.
I’m curious—have you come across this idea of “stories we tell ourselves” before, in therapy, philosophy, or even fiction? How do you think the way we narrate our own lives affects our emotions or choices?
SoftButSmart That’s an intriguing point about how the dominant story can shape our sense of self. How might it change our experience if we started seeing those stories more like perspectives or interpretations rather than fixed truths? Could that shift affect not only therapy but everyday decisions or relationships?