Narrative Therapy Essay

The beginnings of Narrative Therapy can be traced back to Australia and New Zealand in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Based on the early works of Michel Foucalt, Michael White and David Epston forged a new model of therapy. Narrative therapy asserts, “narratives are a reflection of the dominant culture and therefore must be challenged to ensure that they are sensitive to diversity issues, such as gender, sexual orientation, and culture” (Nystul, 2011). Through the process of storytelling, narrative therapy seeks to redesign the dysfunctional narratives of the dominant society and create more functional stories. People often experience difficulties when their personal lives do not coincide with societal norms. Narrative therapy separates the
268). It was during a time, the early 1980’s, when feminist and issues of race and culture were challenging the views of society and the field of psychology. “Everything was up for questioning: the gender roles in families; the practices of mother-blaming; the concept of ‘schizophrenogenic mothers’; gender inequities in the field of family therapy; male-centered language; heterosexual dominance; the politics of representation, and so on “ (White, 2009). Narrative therapy began to emerge due to necessity to address these issues and was influenced by various preexisting approaches.
Founders
Michael White and David Epston are known as the pioneers of Narrative Therapy. The two met at the Australian Family Therapy Conference in 1981 in Adelaide, Australia after David Epston’s gave a riveting presentation the two were introduced and began their friendship and partnership (White, 2009).
Michael White was born in 1948 in Adelaide Australia. He went to school for social work and began working at Royal Adelaide Children’s Hospital. He left the hospital in the late 1970’s and began his own private practice and strove to provide equal treatment to those who needed. In 1983, White and his wife Cheryl founded the Dulwich Centre (Gallant, 2008). White is credited with being the first person to write about externalizing problems (Gehart,
They generally see the best in people and believe people are essentially good. There are no constructs of good or bad, abnormal or normal, right or wrong within this approach (Halbur & Halbur, 2015). “From a narrative perspective, persons are not the problem; problems are the problem” (Gehart, 2014, p. 402). This optimistic outlook allows therapist to separate people from their problems. This allows them to connect with the noblest part of the client thereby fostering “hope and optimism” (Gehart, 2014). Narrative therapist do not believe problems are pathology but