When people hit a point in life where they decide to seek therapy, they are often surprised by how different psychologists can be from one another and may be a bit perplexed as to how to go about deciding who would be a good fit for them. This article is meant to give you a small taste of what it means to me to call myself a Narrative Therapist and how you might know whether a narrative approach may be right for you. I begin with a brief description of what Narrative Therapy is and then provide an example to help illustrate its potential effects.
What is Narrative Therapy?
As people, we are inescapably meaning makers. We have an experience and almost immediately begin to attach meaning to it. The meaning we attach is not arbitrary. In fact, it often says something unique and significant about who we see ourselves to be and what we give value to. This process of attaching meaning to our experiences creates a “story” in our mind about what happened to us and why. Sharing our stories is the most common way we communicate with one another about the meaning we find in our experiences. This process also allows us to influence, and be influenced by, the people we choose to share our stories with, creating a web of significant relationships around us. In our minds, we arrange our stories in a sequence across time, connecting them together in such a way as to arrive at a coherent account of ourselves and the world around us. This stringing together of stories is what is referred to as a narrative.
Narratives give us a sense of continuity and meaning but can never encompass the full richness of lived experience. Lived experience is often filled with contradictions that our narratives filter out. Narrative therapy proposes that people use certain stories about themselves like a lens on a camera. These stories have the effect of filtering a person’s experience and thereby selecting what information gets focused in on, and what gets filtered out. The stories that get focused in on powerfully shape a person’s perspective in ways that the person may not consciously be aware of. The results are often astonishing. Far from being the stuff that harmless fairy tales are made of, these stories have serious and very real consequences for the ways in which people see themselves and the possibilities they see for their future. Narrative Therapy provides a means to widen the lens of the camera, allowing us to see parts of ourselves and our experience that were previously obscured. This process is referred to as the development of the second story.
An Example: Anxiety
Anxiety often has people identifying strongly with it. It is not uncommon for a person to come in to therapy and say, “I am Anxious.” It is as though the person and the problem have actually become one (this is evidence that the story of Anxiety and why it is troubling this person has had a serious impact on the person’s identity). The end result is often an unspoken expectation that the person needs to be ‘fixed’ or ‘corrected’ in some way.
As a Narrative Therapist I know that while a problem can be highly influential in a person’s life, there is always more to a person than the problem he/she is experiencing. In other words, this person is more than “Anxious.” My first step is to start the process of separating the person from the “problem” that has brought them in. It might look like this…
Person: Anxiety is strong. It is completely running my life.
Me: Wow, I am sure that is not what you had hoped for yourself. What does it feel like to have Anxiety running your life like this?
Person: It feels awful, like I am weak and powerless to stop it. It keeps me trapped in a very dark place.
Me: Can you tell me a little about this dark place where Anxiety has you trapped? What does it prevent you from doing?
Person: Well, I used to love going shopping with my friends, but Anxiety makes me dread going out where there might be lots of people. Parties too…I’d like to spend more time with my friends but when I go out I just get so anxious that I can’t enjoy myself. It’s easier to stay home. But when I stay home all I can think about is how much fun everyone else is having without me and how if I weren’t so weak that I could just snap myself out of it. It’s like I can’t win. I’m miserable.
Everyone affected by Anxiety has a unique relationship with it. Through this discussion, I have quickly learned that this particular Anxiety has cost this person dearly. The idea that this person should have been able to stop Anxiety from gaining control of their life is strong and has caused them to adopt the belief that they are weak. In our highly individualist culture, weakness is rarely a good thing. This cultural pressure only compounds the struggle this person is having. I might then use other questions to investigate what the person retains of their identity.
Me: What does this Anxiety stop other people from knowing about you?
Person: It makes me seem unfriendly and weak. People get the idea that I don’t like going out or having fun. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, if it wasn’t for Anxiety I think I might have a lot more friends. I’m actually a lot of fun. I like to tell jokes and make other people laugh. But the Anxiety keeps this hidden. I used to have so much confidence. Now people keep saying things to me like, “You’re so shy now, what happened?”
Me: What strategies does Anxiety use to try to keep this fun side of you hidden?
Person: It talks me out of going places, tells me I can’t handle it. I have every intention of going out to a get-together but Anxiety tells me it will be too hard and then I start to panic. Nobody understands how hard I try to stop this. They think I am pathetic and that I make excuses.
As a Narrative Therapist, I am always listening not only to the story of the problem, but also to the stories of resistance, resilience or action against the problem. In the above example, the person’s “trying” is hidden and is not recognized by others. In contrast, “weakness” is subtly reinforced through comments like, “You’re so shy now, what happened?” Our stories are never produced in isolation from the broader world. The people in our lives, as well as the culture that we live in, all have an impact on the evolving nature of our stories. My job moving forward with this person is to begin to bring the “trying” storyline into view. This is the part of the person’s identity that represents their strength, and will help to add balance to this idea that they are “pathetic” or “weak.” For more about how this happens, stay tuned for Part Two where I explain how the second story is developed.