Narrative Therapy - Writing Your Way to Wellness

Imagine yourself back in time a long time ago. You are a child sitting cross-legged near the central village fire. Firelight dances on the faces of those seated around you. Your eyes are wide with excitement! Your little heart pounds like thunder! Your tiny hands clutch bits of grass as the old and wise storyteller recounts stories of the heroic acts of courage and history. The storyteller’s ancient hands rise up toward the night sky as sparkling embers spiral upwards to join the stars. Through the careful weaving of these stories, the storyteller brings the past, present and future together. You listen. You learn. You remember. --Excerpt from The Wisdom Tree

Storytelling is as old as the first homosapien who picked up a stick and scribbled in the dirt. Native Americans chisel on the walls of caves; Nanas all over the world--with a gaggle of grandchildren at their feet--spin yarns passed down from prior generations; teenagers lock their diaries and hide them.  So why have first-person narratives ranked on best seller lists and in book reviews with so much fervor? Well, it goes something like this, Once upon a time…

Narrative therapy proposes that people use certain stories about themselves like the lens on a camera. These stories are selected and framed memories and information that are repeated over and over. But stories don’t mirror life, they shape it.  Stories organize the information from a person's life. They guide how people think, feel, act, and make sense of their experiences, thus have the power to control people’s perspectives of their lives, their histories and their futures.  Because people tend to become these stories they tell about themselves, whether inspiring or oppressive, narrative therapy focuses on how these important stories can get written and re-written. It provides a means to refocus the lens on this camera and help reshape a person's self-image, self-esteem and relationships.
However, often by the time a person or family comes to therapy, they feel isolated, defective and depressed. Their lives have become completely dominated by ‘problem-saturated’ stories that work to oppress them, divide them, hinder wellness, and sometimes actually make them ill.

Problem-saturated stories can also become identities—for example, if someone calls himself or herself “a failure” or “a victim” or “a depressive,” there is really one story and it’s a devastating one.

First draft: When I was four, I remember my mother was screaming and it was pitch black outside and I felt helpless. Then she pushed me out of a second story window.

Thousands of vignettes and criss-crossed story lines make up lives. Narrative therapy involves the process of drawing out and amplifying these story lines, focusing on the most meaningful intentions, influential relationships, turning points, treasured memories and how they all connect. Part of the process is helping patients and clients understand their experiences.  What was most meaningful? What choices, intentions, relationships have been most important? It’s more about poetry and prose than it is about archeology.

Second draft: My mother was shaking me. It was dark and I smelled smoke. A black man in a big coat appeared at the window and my mother handed me over to him.

Narrative therapy works by helping people ‘deconstruct’ unproductive stories in order to ‘reconstruct’ positive ones. In the process of re-storying experiences, especially where unhappy emotions such as anger, fear, anxiety and depression dominate, new and more empowering events can restore lives. It operates from the view that most people don’t want problems in their lives. By stepping away from problem saturated and oppressive stories, they can discover the ‘untold,’ preferred account by exploring the turning-points, the key relationships, and those particular memories not dimmed by time, and focus on the intentions, dreams, and values that have guided their life, despite the set-backs. Oftentimes, the very process of writing brings back memories that have been overlooked--surprising stories that speak of forgotten competence, strengths and even heroism.

Third draft: There were a couple of times in my life when I was really scared.  One time was when our house caught on fire in the middle of the night.  My mother and I waited for the fire engine together. “Be brave,” she instructed me, as she wrapped me in a blanket and led me to safety, and I was.

Discovering through new stories, the hopeful, preferred, and previously unrecognized and hidden possibilities and strengths contained within patients’ lives is referred to as ‘re-authoring.’ By listening to patients and helping them to externalize problems, deconstruct pessimistic life stories, and convey unswerving confidence in their ability to re-champion certain events, we have a powerful tool for change, healing and personal satisfaction.