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Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends
Use of letter-writing in family therapy. White and Epston base their therapy on the assumption that people experience problems when the stories of their lives, as they or others have invented them, do not sufficiently represent their lived experience. Therapy then becomes a process of storying or restorying the lives and experiences of these people. In this way narrative comes to play a central role in therapy. Both authors share delightful examples of a storied therapy that privileges a person’s lived experience, inviting a reflexive posture and encouraging a sense of authorship and reauthorship of one’s experiences and relationships in the telling and retelling of one’s story.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1990
60 people are currently reading
1099 people want to read
About the author
Michael White
23 books54 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Michael White was an Australian social worker and family therapist.
He is known as the founder of narrative therapy, and for his significant contribution to psychotherapy and family therapy, which have been a source of techniques adopted by other approaches.
Michael White was an Australian social worker and family therapist.
He is known as the founder of narrative therapy, and for his significant contribution to psychotherapy and family therapy, which have been a source of techniques adopted by other approaches.
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July 8, 2017Trauma has been a topic of Psychology for centuries. Understanding and bringing some sort of comfort/meaning to those who underwent trauma experiences may have different approaches. Traditional Psychoanalysis conceptualized trauma as an instance when the ego had not the power (defense mechanisms) to cope/resist ….and a sort of invasion of the psyche apparatus would ensue.
My knowledge of Narrative Psychology is very small. Yet, when watching this tape (Workshop, April, 2007; New York; by Michael White) it surely turned me curious, made me search for more, trying to understand this peculiar way of trauma-approach.
MW has a worldwide record of interventions in trauma situations; in Israel-Palestine; in Caledonia (land issues) and African children.
From his extensive experience he’s been deriving several assumptions I will refer next:
(1) People have meaning-making skills.
(2) They’re always telling stories; main ones and subordinate ones. “Life is not a simple story”.
(3) Some of these stories are “identity”-related: “I am a failure”; “I am incompetent”; as sort of conclusions they (people) make about themselves. He compares these life narratives to a “landscape of action”, the therapist perceives. The task of the therapist is to “provide context” and take a “de-centered position”. Some people feel in some point of their lives “emptiness”, especially border-line personalities.
(4) Life is full of rich experiences but people are selective; only a very small piece of these experiences gets meaning, is significant. Mostly, we’re only conscious of some part of this richness.
(5) From an academic point of view MW was very much influenced by William James (American psychologist) views of “the stream of consciousness” and “self” description. From a developmental viewpoint he had the contribution of Russian psychologist L.Vygostsky, who explained the “origins of self”.
(6) How to change? How to bring meaning to life? How to overcome crisis…? Apparently, it’s a question of “narrative authorship”.
- That’s why I need to read this book.
Then I'll tell you another story... .
My knowledge of Narrative Psychology is very small. Yet, when watching this tape (Workshop, April, 2007; New York; by Michael White) it surely turned me curious, made me search for more, trying to understand this peculiar way of trauma-approach.
MW has a worldwide record of interventions in trauma situations; in Israel-Palestine; in Caledonia (land issues) and African children.
From his extensive experience he’s been deriving several assumptions I will refer next:
(1) People have meaning-making skills.
(2) They’re always telling stories; main ones and subordinate ones. “Life is not a simple story”.
(3) Some of these stories are “identity”-related: “I am a failure”; “I am incompetent”; as sort of conclusions they (people) make about themselves. He compares these life narratives to a “landscape of action”, the therapist perceives. The task of the therapist is to “provide context” and take a “de-centered position”. Some people feel in some point of their lives “emptiness”, especially border-line personalities.
(4) Life is full of rich experiences but people are selective; only a very small piece of these experiences gets meaning, is significant. Mostly, we’re only conscious of some part of this richness.
(5) From an academic point of view MW was very much influenced by William James (American psychologist) views of “the stream of consciousness” and “self” description. From a developmental viewpoint he had the contribution of Russian psychologist L.Vygostsky, who explained the “origins of self”.
(6) How to change? How to bring meaning to life? How to overcome crisis…? Apparently, it’s a question of “narrative authorship”.
- That’s why I need to read this book.
Then I'll tell you another story... .
March 23, 2011
One of my top 25 and probably top 10 psychotherapy books, well worthy of this current re-read. I heart Michael White, and am glad I had the chance to meet him at the eighth Evolution of Psychotherapy conference in 2005. As a former English grad student and lover of critical theory, I'm thoroughly enamored of the politics of empowerment that underlies Narrative Therapy, in particular the social constructionist notion that no-one has a monopoly on 'Truth.' Anyone who is able to make the work of Michel Foucault both legible and palatable to the layperson, as well as apply Foucaultian (I say Foucaultian, you say Foucauldian... let's call the whole thing off) critiques of Power/Knowledge and discourses directly to helping people live more fulfilling lives, is a hero in my book.
I identify with the notion that most of experience goes by un-noticed until "storied," and that when people come to get therapy, they're experiencing problems of living, problems which all too often become intertwined with identity as they're telling/living their story (e.g., "I am depressed" or "I am anxious"), and Narrative Therapy helps to separate out the problem from the person by "externalizing" the problem and working to facilitate "re-authoring" of the individual's story. However, the whole notion that "the problem, not the person, is the problem" does not imply that White is not interested in dynamics (history), as history often reveals that the problem is a solution to another problem.
This book and this model of therapy profoundly influences me not only as a psychologist, but also as a living person who continuously authors and re-authors his own experience, something that White helps me to do consciously and intentionally rather than implicitly/unconsciously.
I identify with the notion that most of experience goes by un-noticed until "storied," and that when people come to get therapy, they're experiencing problems of living, problems which all too often become intertwined with identity as they're telling/living their story (e.g., "I am depressed" or "I am anxious"), and Narrative Therapy helps to separate out the problem from the person by "externalizing" the problem and working to facilitate "re-authoring" of the individual's story. However, the whole notion that "the problem, not the person, is the problem" does not imply that White is not interested in dynamics (history), as history often reveals that the problem is a solution to another problem.
This book and this model of therapy profoundly influences me not only as a psychologist, but also as a living person who continuously authors and re-authors his own experience, something that White helps me to do consciously and intentionally rather than implicitly/unconsciously.
May 3, 2012
A ground breaking book in the field of psychotherapy. White and Epston shift the idea of therapy from a doctor curing a disease to an editor helping the client tell a better story about her life. There's a wealth of techniques to look at the narrative of your life and change it from negative to positive, despairing to hopeful, dead end to a road with infinite possibilities. The therapist become a helpful companion, a wise guide, rather than an expert telling you what's wrong with you and telling you how to get over it. The book is a life changer.
December 28, 2020
My review of this book takes the form of an interactive narrative therapy exercise that was partly inspired by the book itself. And that's where this book really shines in my experience and opinion--as a source of inspiration. It can be worked through on its own terms, but for me it's been best employed as a departure point. This narrative exercise is an example of the kind of process the book can inspire.
---
Problems exist. That’s just the way it is.
Are there times when you’re the problem, in the sense that you as a person need to give way and transform? Absolutely.
Are there times when, for various reasons, you’ve taken a problem deep into you and identified with the problem, and this identification is actually harming you and others and should be stopped? Absolutely.
Can writing and speaking about a problem--telling the story of a problem--help you better see which of these might be true in the case of any given problem? Absolutely.
Why is it worth making distinctions about the internalization or externalization of a problem, anyway?
Consider this; when people experience problems for which they seek therapy or counseling, much of the time the narrative within which the problem is being experienced doesn’t sufficiently represent their lived experience; the whole story isn’t being told.
In situations like these, there are always important, vital strands of lived experience that challenge the dominant narrative, and that need to be woven into the account if the problem is to be truly solved.
It can be very difficult, if not impossible, to weave these vital strands into the narrative when a person, or (generally) multiple people are telling a story where the problem is inherent to a particular person or relationship.
Externalizing problems is an approach that encourages people to objectify the problems that they’re experiencing. In this process the problem becomes a separate entity that’s external to the person or relationship that was previously identified as being suffocating and oppressive.
This leads to the problem no longer being experienced as inherent to a person or relationship; the problem is no longer experienced as a fixed quality of a given person or relationship.
Is this the right way to deal with every problem? Of course not, but it can be a powerful way to render certain problems less fixed and restricting, and can lead to genuine resolutions.
Think about how the dynamics of problems tend to play out in a family. Although any given problem might come to be seen as internal to one particular person, all the family members are affected in some way, and might often feel overwhelmed, hopeless, and defeated.
In different ways, they can all begin to take the ongoing existence of the problem, and their failed attempts to solve it, as revelations of fixed structural aspects of themselves, each other, and their relationships.
The continuing survival of a problem, and the failure of the corrective measures taken against it, can serve to reinforce each family member’s notions of all the various negative personal characteristics of the other members of the family.
Over time this leads to a problem-saturated description of individual and family life, which all too often becomes the dominant story in any given family. Like salt in boiling water, the problem is dissolved and invisible in the hot, agitated solution of a disturbed individual or family.
Externalization opens up opportunities for people to describe themselves, each other, and their relationships from a new, less problem-saturated perspective; it seeks to enable the emergence of an alternative story of life, one that’s more encouraging and captivating to individuals and family members; it cools the water and allows the problem to recrystallize into a separate, more visible form that’s easier to work with.
In other words, externalizing problems can:
-Decrease unproductive conflict between people, especially arguments over who is to blame for the problem
-Loosen the suffocating sense of failure that has developed for people in response to the continued existence of the problem, despite their best efforts to solve it
-Pave the way for people to cooperate with each other, to unite in the struggle against the problem, and to sever its influence over their lives and relationships.
-Free people to take more creative, inspired, and intentionally flexible approaches, and less compulsive and rigid approaches, to what remain serious problems
Externalizing a problem creates new space, where neither a person, nor the relationships between people, are the problem; instead, the problem becomes the problem, and then people’s relationships with the problem become the problem.
From this new perspective, people can begin to more clearly see the meaning of those previously ignored vital strands of experience in their lives and relationships that were clouded by the problem-saturated account; this meaning provides the threads out of which new stories are stitched together. This process, when carefully and competently stewarded, can lead to the genuine resolution of problems.
As these threads of meaning are identified, people can be encouraged to weave them into the pattern of individual or family life, instead of keeping them spooled up in a drawer under a sewing machine that, let’s be honest, not many people really know how to even use anymore…
Anyway, like I mentioned, doing this can help weave more vibrant stories out of the threads of previously neglected meaning.
One way to guide the adventure of weaving a new story is to try to develop a consciously conversational approach to individual and family life that encourages the active process of telling alternative stories. Over time this renders more complex and intricate patterns out of the thread of meaning.
This inspires people to keep investigating and elaborating what each new discovery might reflect about people and relationships that were previously simply “problems”.
All this draws out new textures and meanings from people and relationships that were previously flat and dull.
So, as an individual or a family member, how do you use writing to begin to externalize a problem?
Before that, how can you use writing to simply begin to define a problem?
---
So you’ve decided you have a problem, and that it might be worth trying to externalize it.
How do you separate a problem out of your sense of who you are, or who someone else is, and put it “outside” where you can deal with it in a different way?
Writing can help you do this.
You can use words to perform surgery; over time writing can be used to extract a problem out of you or other people, giving you the chance to experience the problem in different ways, where it isn’t intrinsically identified with any one person. Extraction can help you dissect and examine a problem from different angles than you might be used to seeing it from.
Hopefully this can help you and other people put the problem in a pen and starve it to death!
Side note: a general principle of behavioral psychology worth remembering is: don’t attribute to a personality what you can attribute to a situation.
This can’t always prevent you from assuming a personality problem in someone (for good reason, such problems exist!), but it’s a worthwhile principle to keep in mind, and is one that it can be helpful to remind yourself of throughout this process, especially if you’re prone to identifying a particular problem with a particular personality in ways that you increasingly begin to see aren’t telling the whole story.
The first step of extracting a problem is to define it. You want to define the problem with as much precision as possible across its entire range of manifestation, so that you give yourself and others the best chance of actually solving the problem and preventing it, or one similar to it, from emerging and becoming embedded in you or someone else again.
So, to start with, try to define and map the influence of the problem in your own life and in your relationships. A helpful way to begin this is to consider how you would name the problem, and then how you would categorize it. As far as categorizing the problem, is it:
-Physical?
-Behavioral?
-Emotional or Attitudinal?
-Relational?
-Situational or interactional?
Don’t get caught up on any one name or any one type of categorization, this is meant to be a way to get the ball rolling. The aim isn’t to reduce the complexity of the problem dishonestly to any one name or category, but to use categories and investigative questions to prompt you into identifying and exploring the problem more fully; to bring its impact into higher resolution across multiple categories.
Answering the following kinds of questions can help you name, categorize, and map the footprint of the problem in your life and relationships. You can plug how long has the problem been… into any one of these questions to shift your response from being more focused on the character of the problem to being more focused on the duration/history of it (those distinctions can be helpful):
-How is the problem making a mess of your life?
-How is the problem isolating you?
-How is the problem coating your life and relationships?
-How is the problem making it impossible for you, and others, to see what you’re really like?
-How is the problem driving you and others into misery or despair?
-How is the problem sucking the life out of your future?
-How is the problem pressuring you to question your general competence as a person?
-How is the problem embarrassing you or making you feel uncomfortable?
-How is the problem wedging itself between you and others?
-How is the problem putting stress on your relationships with others?
-How is the problem making it difficult for you to focus your attention on others?
The whole point of this process is to get you generating a definition of the problem that’s broader and deeper than how you might normally experience it and think about it; a definition with greater extension in space and time. It can be a struggle to name and define a problem in ways that adequately represent your experience, but try to be as specific as you can every step of the way. It’s also true that some problems are more narrow than others, so try not to stretch the definition carelessly.
In addition, this type of investigation and exploration can help you begin to identify the impact the problem is having on other people. Try to think of all the people the problem is affecting, starting with those you think are most intensely affected. Try to identify at least 5–10 people if you can. It can be good to start with people who you think might really want to help solve the problem in ways that work for as many other people as possible.
This might not be an option, but don’t be afraid to bring these other relevant people into the defining and extracting process right from the beginning if you think they’re truly dedicated to solving the problem. More people = more brain power, and an even broader and deeper definition of the problem. This also helps remind everyone involved of the continuing need for flexibility and negotiation.
Initially prioritizing this kind of collaboration can also make it possible for everyone involved to begin the experience by participating in a coordinated blossoming of individual and interpersonal trust and agency; a kind of social initiation. Be as wise as you can about navigating the dynamics of this sort of teamwork, but don’t be afraid to try it.
This is really important and worth attempting, because a broad and deep definition of the problem and an atmosphere of trust are going to help you and the other people impacted by the problem to identify as many of those neglected but vital strands of lived experience as possible. More people can gather more threads of meaning to stitch and weave a new story out of; a story strong enough to challenge the dominant narrative within which the problem is being experienced.
Getting more people in on the process gives you more voices to speak a richer story into being faster; with a bigger cast you can tell and perform a story that’s more able to challenge and critique the dominant narrative from as many angles and weak points as possible, and hopefully overwhelm it and turn its final page. However, it’s worth remembering that the definition of the problem will also evolve over time, due to the nature of the externalization process itself and the addition of each new person to the undertaking.
Mind mapping is the perfect tool to get this process going and inspire you to make connections if you’re a very visual person; plop the problem in the middle and start mapping it out into different categories and connecting different relationships to it (or map it some other way that strikes you as right). The image of a neuron is a great organic form to inspire connective creativity.
It isn’t easy to get people to agree on things, especially when it comes to the definition of a serious problem. Yet a mutually acceptable definition is critical for any serious attempt at solving a problem involving multiple people. Collaborative mind mapping can be a very effective way to generate a consensus on everything from a definition of the problem to the threads of neglected meaning that are going to be used to weave the pattern of the new story.
If you’re working with others, you can all agree to create your own mind maps and then compare them with each other and synthesize them into one master map. This is as natural a method of networking and arriving at a consensus as you’ll find.
Hopefully you’re on your way to defining and mapping the influence of the problem in your own life and in your relationships; perhaps others are joining you in the process as well.
Next time we’ll flip things around, and look at more fully defining your influence, and the influence of your relationships, in the life of the problem. We’ll do this in creative ways, with the aim of drawing out more meaning that challenges the dominant story and problem-saturated state of affairs.
Remember, the problem is probably not just impacting you as an individual. If it’s a family problem, start with yourself, and carefully see if you can get all your family members to join with you in defining and mapping the problem in ways that seek to ensure no one is forgotten or left behind.
---
Part 3 of this exercise can be found here: https://abettik.medium.com/penning-pr...
Part 1 - https://abettik.medium.com/penning-pr...
Part 2 - https://abettik.medium.com/penning-pr...
More narrative therapy exercises can be found at that Medium account if anyone reading this is interested.
---
Problems exist. That’s just the way it is.
Are there times when you’re the problem, in the sense that you as a person need to give way and transform? Absolutely.
Are there times when, for various reasons, you’ve taken a problem deep into you and identified with the problem, and this identification is actually harming you and others and should be stopped? Absolutely.
Can writing and speaking about a problem--telling the story of a problem--help you better see which of these might be true in the case of any given problem? Absolutely.
Why is it worth making distinctions about the internalization or externalization of a problem, anyway?
Consider this; when people experience problems for which they seek therapy or counseling, much of the time the narrative within which the problem is being experienced doesn’t sufficiently represent their lived experience; the whole story isn’t being told.
In situations like these, there are always important, vital strands of lived experience that challenge the dominant narrative, and that need to be woven into the account if the problem is to be truly solved.
It can be very difficult, if not impossible, to weave these vital strands into the narrative when a person, or (generally) multiple people are telling a story where the problem is inherent to a particular person or relationship.
Externalizing problems is an approach that encourages people to objectify the problems that they’re experiencing. In this process the problem becomes a separate entity that’s external to the person or relationship that was previously identified as being suffocating and oppressive.
This leads to the problem no longer being experienced as inherent to a person or relationship; the problem is no longer experienced as a fixed quality of a given person or relationship.
Is this the right way to deal with every problem? Of course not, but it can be a powerful way to render certain problems less fixed and restricting, and can lead to genuine resolutions.
Think about how the dynamics of problems tend to play out in a family. Although any given problem might come to be seen as internal to one particular person, all the family members are affected in some way, and might often feel overwhelmed, hopeless, and defeated.
In different ways, they can all begin to take the ongoing existence of the problem, and their failed attempts to solve it, as revelations of fixed structural aspects of themselves, each other, and their relationships.
The continuing survival of a problem, and the failure of the corrective measures taken against it, can serve to reinforce each family member’s notions of all the various negative personal characteristics of the other members of the family.
Over time this leads to a problem-saturated description of individual and family life, which all too often becomes the dominant story in any given family. Like salt in boiling water, the problem is dissolved and invisible in the hot, agitated solution of a disturbed individual or family.
Externalization opens up opportunities for people to describe themselves, each other, and their relationships from a new, less problem-saturated perspective; it seeks to enable the emergence of an alternative story of life, one that’s more encouraging and captivating to individuals and family members; it cools the water and allows the problem to recrystallize into a separate, more visible form that’s easier to work with.
In other words, externalizing problems can:
-Decrease unproductive conflict between people, especially arguments over who is to blame for the problem
-Loosen the suffocating sense of failure that has developed for people in response to the continued existence of the problem, despite their best efforts to solve it
-Pave the way for people to cooperate with each other, to unite in the struggle against the problem, and to sever its influence over their lives and relationships.
-Free people to take more creative, inspired, and intentionally flexible approaches, and less compulsive and rigid approaches, to what remain serious problems
Externalizing a problem creates new space, where neither a person, nor the relationships between people, are the problem; instead, the problem becomes the problem, and then people’s relationships with the problem become the problem.
From this new perspective, people can begin to more clearly see the meaning of those previously ignored vital strands of experience in their lives and relationships that were clouded by the problem-saturated account; this meaning provides the threads out of which new stories are stitched together. This process, when carefully and competently stewarded, can lead to the genuine resolution of problems.
As these threads of meaning are identified, people can be encouraged to weave them into the pattern of individual or family life, instead of keeping them spooled up in a drawer under a sewing machine that, let’s be honest, not many people really know how to even use anymore…
Anyway, like I mentioned, doing this can help weave more vibrant stories out of the threads of previously neglected meaning.
One way to guide the adventure of weaving a new story is to try to develop a consciously conversational approach to individual and family life that encourages the active process of telling alternative stories. Over time this renders more complex and intricate patterns out of the thread of meaning.
This inspires people to keep investigating and elaborating what each new discovery might reflect about people and relationships that were previously simply “problems”.
All this draws out new textures and meanings from people and relationships that were previously flat and dull.
So, as an individual or a family member, how do you use writing to begin to externalize a problem?
Before that, how can you use writing to simply begin to define a problem?
---
So you’ve decided you have a problem, and that it might be worth trying to externalize it.
How do you separate a problem out of your sense of who you are, or who someone else is, and put it “outside” where you can deal with it in a different way?
Writing can help you do this.
You can use words to perform surgery; over time writing can be used to extract a problem out of you or other people, giving you the chance to experience the problem in different ways, where it isn’t intrinsically identified with any one person. Extraction can help you dissect and examine a problem from different angles than you might be used to seeing it from.
Hopefully this can help you and other people put the problem in a pen and starve it to death!
Side note: a general principle of behavioral psychology worth remembering is: don’t attribute to a personality what you can attribute to a situation.
This can’t always prevent you from assuming a personality problem in someone (for good reason, such problems exist!), but it’s a worthwhile principle to keep in mind, and is one that it can be helpful to remind yourself of throughout this process, especially if you’re prone to identifying a particular problem with a particular personality in ways that you increasingly begin to see aren’t telling the whole story.
The first step of extracting a problem is to define it. You want to define the problem with as much precision as possible across its entire range of manifestation, so that you give yourself and others the best chance of actually solving the problem and preventing it, or one similar to it, from emerging and becoming embedded in you or someone else again.
So, to start with, try to define and map the influence of the problem in your own life and in your relationships. A helpful way to begin this is to consider how you would name the problem, and then how you would categorize it. As far as categorizing the problem, is it:
-Physical?
-Behavioral?
-Emotional or Attitudinal?
-Relational?
-Situational or interactional?
Don’t get caught up on any one name or any one type of categorization, this is meant to be a way to get the ball rolling. The aim isn’t to reduce the complexity of the problem dishonestly to any one name or category, but to use categories and investigative questions to prompt you into identifying and exploring the problem more fully; to bring its impact into higher resolution across multiple categories.
Answering the following kinds of questions can help you name, categorize, and map the footprint of the problem in your life and relationships. You can plug how long has the problem been… into any one of these questions to shift your response from being more focused on the character of the problem to being more focused on the duration/history of it (those distinctions can be helpful):
-How is the problem making a mess of your life?
-How is the problem isolating you?
-How is the problem coating your life and relationships?
-How is the problem making it impossible for you, and others, to see what you’re really like?
-How is the problem driving you and others into misery or despair?
-How is the problem sucking the life out of your future?
-How is the problem pressuring you to question your general competence as a person?
-How is the problem embarrassing you or making you feel uncomfortable?
-How is the problem wedging itself between you and others?
-How is the problem putting stress on your relationships with others?
-How is the problem making it difficult for you to focus your attention on others?
The whole point of this process is to get you generating a definition of the problem that’s broader and deeper than how you might normally experience it and think about it; a definition with greater extension in space and time. It can be a struggle to name and define a problem in ways that adequately represent your experience, but try to be as specific as you can every step of the way. It’s also true that some problems are more narrow than others, so try not to stretch the definition carelessly.
In addition, this type of investigation and exploration can help you begin to identify the impact the problem is having on other people. Try to think of all the people the problem is affecting, starting with those you think are most intensely affected. Try to identify at least 5–10 people if you can. It can be good to start with people who you think might really want to help solve the problem in ways that work for as many other people as possible.
This might not be an option, but don’t be afraid to bring these other relevant people into the defining and extracting process right from the beginning if you think they’re truly dedicated to solving the problem. More people = more brain power, and an even broader and deeper definition of the problem. This also helps remind everyone involved of the continuing need for flexibility and negotiation.
Initially prioritizing this kind of collaboration can also make it possible for everyone involved to begin the experience by participating in a coordinated blossoming of individual and interpersonal trust and agency; a kind of social initiation. Be as wise as you can about navigating the dynamics of this sort of teamwork, but don’t be afraid to try it.
This is really important and worth attempting, because a broad and deep definition of the problem and an atmosphere of trust are going to help you and the other people impacted by the problem to identify as many of those neglected but vital strands of lived experience as possible. More people can gather more threads of meaning to stitch and weave a new story out of; a story strong enough to challenge the dominant narrative within which the problem is being experienced.
Getting more people in on the process gives you more voices to speak a richer story into being faster; with a bigger cast you can tell and perform a story that’s more able to challenge and critique the dominant narrative from as many angles and weak points as possible, and hopefully overwhelm it and turn its final page. However, it’s worth remembering that the definition of the problem will also evolve over time, due to the nature of the externalization process itself and the addition of each new person to the undertaking.
Mind mapping is the perfect tool to get this process going and inspire you to make connections if you’re a very visual person; plop the problem in the middle and start mapping it out into different categories and connecting different relationships to it (or map it some other way that strikes you as right). The image of a neuron is a great organic form to inspire connective creativity.
It isn’t easy to get people to agree on things, especially when it comes to the definition of a serious problem. Yet a mutually acceptable definition is critical for any serious attempt at solving a problem involving multiple people. Collaborative mind mapping can be a very effective way to generate a consensus on everything from a definition of the problem to the threads of neglected meaning that are going to be used to weave the pattern of the new story.
If you’re working with others, you can all agree to create your own mind maps and then compare them with each other and synthesize them into one master map. This is as natural a method of networking and arriving at a consensus as you’ll find.
Hopefully you’re on your way to defining and mapping the influence of the problem in your own life and in your relationships; perhaps others are joining you in the process as well.
Next time we’ll flip things around, and look at more fully defining your influence, and the influence of your relationships, in the life of the problem. We’ll do this in creative ways, with the aim of drawing out more meaning that challenges the dominant story and problem-saturated state of affairs.
Remember, the problem is probably not just impacting you as an individual. If it’s a family problem, start with yourself, and carefully see if you can get all your family members to join with you in defining and mapping the problem in ways that seek to ensure no one is forgotten or left behind.
---
Part 3 of this exercise can be found here: https://abettik.medium.com/penning-pr...
Part 1 - https://abettik.medium.com/penning-pr...
Part 2 - https://abettik.medium.com/penning-pr...
More narrative therapy exercises can be found at that Medium account if anyone reading this is interested.
August 6, 2011
The wealth of the lived experience is immense. When we're constructing a story of our lives, we cannot possibly include all of it into a story. So, something always gets left out of the narrative. It's fine when it works. But what if it doesn't?
If one's life story doesn't work for them any more, it is time to get this story out and see what had gotten left out. We do not live out our story all the time; some experiences deviate from it. So, it's time to take these experiences and build a new, more suitable life story based on them.
The first part of the book discusses the discrepancies between narratives and lived experiences, the second one develops the ideas of power behind telling a story (based on Foucault, a very accessible rendition of his ideas!), and the third one is full of real life examples taken from family therapy. It was fascinating to read the narratives that led the family to a therapist and then read the therapist-aided alternative stories.
I don't remember whether there's a separate, fourth, part for them but the book also presents the examples of different genres of writing employed both by clients and the therapists.
Very informative and engaging as well as theoretically sound. Another proof that there's hardly anything more practical than a good theory!
If one's life story doesn't work for them any more, it is time to get this story out and see what had gotten left out. We do not live out our story all the time; some experiences deviate from it. So, it's time to take these experiences and build a new, more suitable life story based on them.
The first part of the book discusses the discrepancies between narratives and lived experiences, the second one develops the ideas of power behind telling a story (based on Foucault, a very accessible rendition of his ideas!), and the third one is full of real life examples taken from family therapy. It was fascinating to read the narratives that led the family to a therapist and then read the therapist-aided alternative stories.
I don't remember whether there's a separate, fourth, part for them but the book also presents the examples of different genres of writing employed both by clients and the therapists.
Very informative and engaging as well as theoretically sound. Another proof that there's hardly anything more practical than a good theory!
July 28, 2013
It's the art of story telling that shapes our perceptions of life. I really enjoyed this book as it shows the reader how a story can change a life, grant power and heal people. I found the first chapter a little dry and the language a little cumbersome, but it was essential to understand the concepts discussed later. On the whole the book is a very good source for anybody interested in mental health. The best part for me were the letters, some of them beautifully crafted. It's heart wrenching to read these letters as they narrate stories of human suffering and at the same time are a testament of courage and hope that emerges from that suffering.
June 17, 2022
Really excellent book. Loved learning about narrative therapy.
September 6, 2022
The original work of Narrative Therapy. I’m a narrative therapist. My entire field started here. What else is there to say?
April 9, 2020
Essentially, a social impasse, rather than arising due to a pathological person, arises out of an alienated totality (of all persons involved). To be overwhelmed, at one's limit, to feel like a failure, or to feel incapable of getting through to someone, reveals a dearth in one's dominant narrative to express or enact one's lived experience (or understand an other's lived experience). One becomes an impotent object in the face of seemingly alien forces. One loses one's sense of agency because the dominant narrative one operates under is incapable of bypassing whatever problematic has arisen.
Narrative Therapy posits that persons are not failures, but rather that dominant narratives fail us, for we are more than our narratives, even if we can only operate through narratives. The symbolic is necessary, even if it is a misrecognition and limitation of the real. Narrative Therapy attempts to rupture problematic dominant narratives, through the recovery of marginalised, exceptional and irregular experiences that cannot be fitted into the dominant narrative. The particularity of marginalised knowledges is brought forth to challenge the universality of dominant knowledges.
It's pretty basic hegemony stuff, and the authors bring in Foucault's panopticon without providing a convincing argument as to how reauthoring one's own discourse bears any weight upon the material techniques of power that are reproduced in discourses of pedagogy, economy, media, politics, and so on and so on. Like it's great if you learn to treat your child as a qualitative, subjective being with their own desires, but good luck enacting that discourse in a workplace that monitors your affective performance with big happy face rating systems and gps phone apps tracking your efficiency across time. There is simply not enough discussion over the actual, material technologies of power that run in concert with techniques of power, which while we do enact ourselves, we do not always enact out our own of desire. Furthermore, the problematic discourses we have inherited cannot so easily be disinherited when they are reproduced all around us. Without social and cultural change, the family is constantly under threat to return to that which is safest: the dominant narrative.
Narrative Therapy posits that persons are not failures, but rather that dominant narratives fail us, for we are more than our narratives, even if we can only operate through narratives. The symbolic is necessary, even if it is a misrecognition and limitation of the real. Narrative Therapy attempts to rupture problematic dominant narratives, through the recovery of marginalised, exceptional and irregular experiences that cannot be fitted into the dominant narrative. The particularity of marginalised knowledges is brought forth to challenge the universality of dominant knowledges.
It's pretty basic hegemony stuff, and the authors bring in Foucault's panopticon without providing a convincing argument as to how reauthoring one's own discourse bears any weight upon the material techniques of power that are reproduced in discourses of pedagogy, economy, media, politics, and so on and so on. Like it's great if you learn to treat your child as a qualitative, subjective being with their own desires, but good luck enacting that discourse in a workplace that monitors your affective performance with big happy face rating systems and gps phone apps tracking your efficiency across time. There is simply not enough discussion over the actual, material technologies of power that run in concert with techniques of power, which while we do enact ourselves, we do not always enact out our own of desire. Furthermore, the problematic discourses we have inherited cannot so easily be disinherited when they are reproduced all around us. Without social and cultural change, the family is constantly under threat to return to that which is safest: the dominant narrative.
January 17, 2009
In the original words of pioneering family therapists Michael White and David Epston this book describes their theories of how change happens and what leads to third order, transformative change. It contains some revolutionary ideas about how power and knowledge are intricately connected and transfered through storytelling.
August 13, 2024
This book was assigned reading for one of my classes. While I find the concept of narrative therapy fascinating (of course I do; I love writing and stories!) I found that this particular book was not a very clear or helpful account of narrative therapy. (I much prefer Alice Morgan's book What is Narrative Therapy? which I've almost finished reading. The authors lean heavily on the philosophic underpinnings of their method, especially Foucault's ideas of power, but they don't always do a good job of clearly linking the sections on Foucault's philosophy with the concepts of narrative therapy itself.
August 28, 2022
Ich liebe das Konzept des narrativen Ansatzes und dieses Buch hat ziemlich gut gezeigt, was für eine Auswirkung Geschichten haben können.
Allerdings merkt man auch ziemlich gut, dass das Buch von zwei Personen geschrieben wurde, die ihre jeweiligen Anteile getrennt voneinander geschrieben haben. Es hat sich teilweise ziemlich wiederholt. Dennoch ziemlich gut und hat mich im Urlaub auch nochmal wieder in Verbindung mit meiner Arbeit gebracht.
Allerdings merkt man auch ziemlich gut, dass das Buch von zwei Personen geschrieben wurde, die ihre jeweiligen Anteile getrennt voneinander geschrieben haben. Es hat sich teilweise ziemlich wiederholt. Dennoch ziemlich gut und hat mich im Urlaub auch nochmal wieder in Verbindung mit meiner Arbeit gebracht.
January 22, 2022
Excellent foundation in the philosophical origins of Narrative Therapy and the problem externalization technique from the creators of the theory. The second half of the book is about using letters and documents in therapy, however, and while this could be useful, it is not frequently a key process.
April 18, 2021
An interesting approach to therapy is described. I struggled to understand the link between the described theory and the use of theraputic techniques. I appreciated the inclusion of samples of letters etc. but far too many samples were included.
September 24, 2023
I'm glad I finally dived in to this one and really appreciated the first half but I don't love the documentation part of this book. I understand that documentation is a big part of Narrative therapy but just not a part I vibe with. So that made the whole second half of the book a bit of a slog.
December 25, 2023
Work book, about the evolution of therapy to the exploration of unique outcomes that can allow people to externalize problems. Not an easy read, but I imagine an important one. This paints a picture of the direction psychotherapy will take for the next 20 years.
February 25, 2019
Stunning, and eminently practical. I imagine that I will refer to this again and again in my practice.
May 9, 2019
Lots of certificate and therapeutic writing advice and epistemological framing of narrative work but little practical advice on questioning style esp. Externalisation
February 27, 2021
Great guide to narrative therapy and gives you a sense of how it emerged. Quite a dense read at times.
May 13, 2021
Excelente libro para entender un poco más de cómo aplicar los relatos alternos y la literatura en la terapia.
GENIOS
GENIOS
April 21, 2022
Bastante interesante la terapia narrativa y las bondades de la literatura y el lenguaje
May 15, 2023
For BCSSW course SCWK8877: Narrative Therapy.
The first part was great - the second part (storied therapies, letter examples, and counter documents) was a slog and so I def rushed through a lot~
The first part was great - the second part (storied therapies, letter examples, and counter documents) was a slog and so I def rushed through a lot~
June 12, 2024
This just makes sense to me, and I've already utilized some of these concepts with my clients. 4 stars because M.W. outshines D.E. as a writer so much that it's almost distracting when they switch.
September 13, 2024
Fascinating ideas but a rather boring, text-book-style read overall.
September 18, 2024
this was great because it helped me decide to not do narrative and switch my modality AGAIN. really cool stuff but just wasnt coming naturally to me in session
November 18, 2024
All narrative therapy roads start here. White and Epston created the foundation of using narrative as a way to redefine ourselves. This book is the bedrock of narrative therapy.
January 25, 2012
I was really excited about this book and learning more about Narrative Therapy, and was very disappointed to find that it was very heavy on abstract theory and not so heavy on how a therapeutic session takes place.
Part of therapy is how the session is structured and how the questions themselves are asked, which was not really addressed. When they discussed externalizing the problem it would have been so useful to see a transcript from a therapy session to get an example of how this looks, but there was none.
Most of the book comprises of case examples and letters written to clients. While some were interesting and I liked the idea of letter writing, it got rather tedious to go through after awhile.
In all, this was a tedious book to get through with a lot of tell and no show. I think people who are more tuned to philosophy will like this book better than me, who prefers things to be more concrete.
Part of therapy is how the session is structured and how the questions themselves are asked, which was not really addressed. When they discussed externalizing the problem it would have been so useful to see a transcript from a therapy session to get an example of how this looks, but there was none.
Most of the book comprises of case examples and letters written to clients. While some were interesting and I liked the idea of letter writing, it got rather tedious to go through after awhile.
In all, this was a tedious book to get through with a lot of tell and no show. I think people who are more tuned to philosophy will like this book better than me, who prefers things to be more concrete.
October 24, 2016
This is a book about narrative therapy.
There is a lot of discussion about Foucault, very introductory discussion.
It opens the space for literature theory to be incorporated into counselling.
I will be very careful to be a co-constructivist of anyone else's life.
Most of the book are case studies. Jeez, a lot of letters were written. How much time does one want to spend writing letters.
Worth the read for the general ideas of narrative therapy, a very basic book that can be used as a reference guide when considering different techniques to employ.
There is a lot of discussion about Foucault, very introductory discussion.
It opens the space for literature theory to be incorporated into counselling.
I will be very careful to be a co-constructivist of anyone else's life.
Most of the book are case studies. Jeez, a lot of letters were written. How much time does one want to spend writing letters.
Worth the read for the general ideas of narrative therapy, a very basic book that can be used as a reference guide when considering different techniques to employ.
September 20, 2007
This is one of the first if not THE first volumes on Narrative Therapy. The ideas are still vibrant and important, but the text is a little hard to follow at times. It does link the therapy to some of the philosophical traditions that appear throughout the later work. Still probably a must read for someone really interested in this type of therapy.
May 12, 2012
Really enjoyed this. Continue to be fascinated by narrative and the role that story plays in shaping our culture and our individual lives. This is a good intro to "narrative therapy" and the tools employed could be useful in congregational studies and interventions.
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