Narrative Therapy

Question 1

Origins of narrative therapy

Answer 1

• First articulated by Michael White and David Epston
• In Australia and New Zealand in the 1980s
• Influenced by family therapy and feminist theory
• Energized by concerns for social justice

Question 2

Basic assumptions of narrative therapy theory

Answer 2

• Knowledge is contestable
• Claims to knowledge are produced within relationships of power
• People understand the world through the stories available to them in their cultural context

Question 3

Basic concepts of narrative therapy

Answer 3

• The primary organizing idea in narrative therapy is the metaphor of story
• Our stories have real effects on our own and others’ lives
• The dominant stories that shape our lives also shape and produce our problems

Question 4

What kind of stories shape our lives

Answer 4

Stories told in our families
Stories of our own life experiences
Cultural stories of gender, ethnicity, nationality and class

Question 5

The importance of words

Answer 5

The words w/ which stories are told shape and produce reality

Narrative counselors carefully select the language forms they use

Question 6

Dominant discourses

Answer 6

• Carry the cultural norm and systems of knowledge of a culture
• Contain normalizing judgments by which people’s lives are measured and scrutinized
• Dominant discourses contain taken-for-granted ideas about how things should be

Question 7

Key practices in narrative therapy

Answer 7

• Externalizing conversation
• Problem stories and alternative stories
• The intentions of inquiry
• Thin and thick descriptions
• Absent but implicit
• Therapeutic documents
• Audience and Witnessing

Question 8

Externalizing conversation

Answer 8

-Therapist rephrases the client’s words to create a space between the person and the problem

Question 9

Problem stories and alternative stories

Answer 9

a problem story depends on normalizing judgments that pathologize people and their lives

an alternative story is an account of a person’s life told on the terms the person prefers

Question 10

scaffolding inquiry

Answer 10

1. What problem brings this person to counseling and how might we use externalizing language to describe it?
2. What effects has the problem had in various areas of this person’s life?
3. What is the person’s evaluation of how things stand in his or her life?
4. What values or commitments stand behind the evaluation

Question 11

Scaffolding inquiry about an alternative story

Answer 11

1. Does the person have an alternative way of looking at the problem?
2. What are the effects of this alternative that are already known?
3. WHat other effects might be possible?

Question 12

Thin and thick descriptions of peoples lives

Answer 12

Thin description-comes from the dominant discourse
Thick description-comes from the person and carries the meanings of his or her community
The purpose of scaffolding inquiry is to turn this descriptions into thick descriptions

Question 13

Absent but implicit

Answer 13

–The unspoken “other side” of what is spoken

For example, absent but implicit in “disappointment” is “hope”

Question 14

Therapeutic documents

Answer 14

Records of knowledges generated in counseling

• A letter from the therapist to the client
• Session notes
• Videotapes
• Poetry written using only a client’s words

Question 15

Audience and witnessing

Answer 15

-Audiences are recruited as witnesses to the preferred developments in people’s lives

Question 16

Role of the client-counselor relationship

Answer 16

Active attention is given to the relation of power and the position of privilege of a counselor

Counselors and clients work together to coresearch clients’ lived experiences

Counselor witnessing of clients’ stories and alternative stories shape our own lives

With client’s permission, we pass the fruits of coresearch between one client and another

Question 17

Long term vs. short term applications

Answer 17

Rangesn from briefer to longer-term work

Includes both time limited and ongoing groups

Used in community work of many kinds, including health education, mediation and schools

Question 18

Evaluation of narrative therapy

Answer 18

Typically does not involve nomothetic knowledge, but rather idiographic, qualitative inquiry such as discursive analysis

Question 19

Narrative therapists are accountable to their clients, regularly:

Answer 19

• Asking clients how the conversation is going for them
• Asking clients advice about other directions the conversation might take
• Telling clients why they are asking the questions

Question 20

Blind spots, limitations and challenges of narrative therapy

Answer 20

Because of its postmodern epistemological base, narrative therapy does not blend into an integrated approach easily

Until narrative therapy is more widely understood, it is incumbent upon practitioners to be well versed in languages of traditional therapies

An important challenge is to work for modesty about the claims we make for narrative practice