Pros And Cons Of Narrative Therapy

For its time, narrative therapy was considered radical and unlike past therapies used. The major contributors, Michael White and David Epston, put aside the main idea and view of the preceding and dominate psychological theories and focused on the person’s story. Both White and Epston were influenced by French post-structural philosopher Michel Foucault. His ideas were largely based on existentialism, which gave worth to a person’s own experience. Narrative therapy became a tool to help people see the problem that that they are facing but also the ability to see how the problem arose. This therapy takes power away from the problem and also empowers the person. The main point of narrative theory is to that the stories people tell about
their life illustrate the value that they give their lives. (Madigan, 2011).
The objective of this paper is to introduce the reader to three different topics pertaining to narrative therapy. The first topic will include the main assumptions of narrative therapy and the different approaches. The next topic will include the key intervention strategies of narrative therapy. The last topic will include the effectiveness of narrative therapy and this section will include journal articles with narrative therapy themes.
Main underlying assumptions and premise of the approach:
There are four main assumptions of narrative therapy.
The first assumption is the theory that personal stories are built around societal customs. Each narrative constructed by a person is based off what the person considers their reality, beliefs and values.. The postmodernism perspective lends some of its underlining theories to narrative therapy. One of the points of the postmodernism perspective is the awareness that one’s belief is not solely based on one’s own assumptions, but also on the belief of the person’s society (Grenz, 1996). The idea of what is real is determined by the person’s dominant culture. When listening to a story it is important to understand that person’s story based on the cultural context. The audience must have an understanding that there will be underlying cultural expression in a person’s narrative (Yarhouse,
2008). The next assumption is that one’s reality, beliefs, view of self, and values are based on the language used by the dominant society.
A person’s belief about themself comes from ideas placed on them by the dominant culture they are a part of or their own family system (Piercy et al., 1996). The language that is used to transfer ideas into a person can be derived from that person’s own family structure. What a person thinks are their own beliefs about their shortcomings or prevailing points in a situation could be related to that family structure or that dominant culture. The third assumption is that a person’s reality is preserved through their narrative. A person’s reality is influenced by the society in which that person is a part of and so is their narrative. It is important to deconstruct the narrative, so the person is not the problem, but the problem is the problem. The narrative is created by the person surrounding their problem, so it is important to understand all the aspects of that narrative to get a full understanding of the assumptions placed on that person by society (Brown & Augusta-Scott,
2007). The last assumption deals with truths a person holds pertaining to their narrative. The idea of narrative therapy is not to pass judgment on a person’s narrative. It does not create a typical example of what a narrative should look like because each person’s narrative is different. Postmodernism, in which narrative therapy is based, talks about how there are no universal truths.(Madigan, 2011). A culture’s truth is socially constructed by the society (Brown & Augusta-Scott, 2007). In turn, a person’s truth and reality is subjective and based on that culture’s held perspectives (Yarbouse, 2008) according to narrative therapy.
Key intervention strategies associated with the approach: With narrative therapy assumptions, there comes intervention. Many of the interventions of narrative therapy involve having the client externalize the problem to make it more understandable. It gives clients the opportunity to transpose themselves with the problem. is the intervention is arranged in a way that splits the person and the problem into two separate personalities, specifically making the problem something other than the person. (Angus & McLeod, 2004). By Externalizing the problem, allows one to divide one’s self from the controlling narrative that has been overpowering the person’s reality. Externalization does not have to always be used in narrative therapy; however, it is a tool to help a person decode their story (Madigan, 2011).
According to Madigan (2011), “re-authoring” is also an important intervention in narrative therapy. This intervention requires one to discuss ignored events in their lives. The ignored events in some aspects have been shadowed by bigger problems inside a person’s narrative. In this intervention, the therapist or the professional asks the client questions that shed light on the over shadowed parts of their narrative. This questioning of ignored events allows one to see different points of views and it may help create a new narrative based on this new point of view. This intervention also helps to fill in parts of the dominant story that could be missing. The next intervention involves externalizing and diagraming the effect of problem in the person’s life. This intervention involves the therapist asking the client questions about how this problem has influenced their life. By answering these questions one is able to better understand the problem. It gives the therapist and the client a road map of the problem and its effects. The questions asked in this intervention ask the client about the change in their reality or self during the problem’s occurrence (Madigan, 2011). The questions are asked in a manner that gives the problem a personality separating the issue from the client. For example one of the questions that could be asked; are you excited or frustrated with the way depression is destroying your school work? The intervention that follows is the opposite of the last intervention. In this intervention the therapist and the client are diagraming the effects of the client in the nature of the problematic narrative. In this section the therapist uses narrative therapy to show the clients how they might have given the problem the power. As a result of showing the clients this diagram, the client becomes empowered as the author of their own story. In this intervention the therapist would ask questions like; could there have been periods in your life that you could have given fear the dominating lead in your life?