Narrative Therapy

Narrative Therapy is considered a non-blaming approach to the problems clients deal with. This type of therapy is a respectful and collaborative approach to counseling and community work, focusing on people’s ability to externalize problems. Narrative Therapy was developed by Michael White and David Epston. The central idea to this therapy is ‘the person never IS the problem. The person HAS a problem’. It essentially focuses on the stories of people’s lives and is centered on the theories that problems are based or manufactured in social, cultural or political contexts [ (Morgan, 2000) ]. This therapy relates in many ways to postmodernism, which believes that there is no one objective “truth”, but that there are many possible interpretations of any one event. Thus with the narrative approach the lives and stories of clients are seen as multi-storied vs. single storied. Michael White is from Australia (December 29, 1948 – April 4, 2008) he was considered the guiding genius of narrative family therapy [ (Joanna Paratore, 1998) ]. He started out as a mechanical draftsman, and soon realized he preferred people much over working with machines. He soon moved to family therapy where he became attracted to the techniques of cybernetic thinking of Gregory Bateson [ (Joanna Paratore, 1998) ]. He showed more interest in the ways people hold meanings in their lives than just looking at the ways they behave. David Epston, the other genius to the development of narrative therapy was born in Canada [ (Combs, 1996) ]. He was originally trained as an anthropologist, then turned to social work and moved to New Zealand. He first began his work as a therapist in the public system devoting his time to children and adolescents in a hospital, in the late 1970’s he transitioned onto a private practice [ (Combs, 1996) ]. His anthropological training gave him significant knowledge of social connections and was well versed as a “story teller” and even created a Story Corner in the

Bibliography: Combs, F. &. (1996). Module1: 3hour element: 1. Retrieved March 30, 2012, from Narrative Therapy in the world: History: http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/diplomademo/175772/narrative/mod1web/3hour1.html Hermann Peine, P Joanna Paratore, M. N. (1998). Therapists Profiles. Retrieved March 30, 2012, from Family Therapy: http://www.abacon.com/famtherapy/white.html Micheal Thompson, P Morgan, A. (2000). What is Narrative Therapy. Adelaide: Dulwich Center Publications. Payne, M. (2007). Narrative Therapy. London: Sage Publications. Ridgway, J. (2007). Theory and practice 2. Retrieved March 31, 2012, from Narrative Therapy: http://myauz.com/ianr/articles/lect11narrativetherapy.pdf NARRATIVE THERAPY