Narrative therapy is a highly compatible therapeutic approach with individuals or cultures that value oral traditions or storytelling such as Indigenous cultures. Narrative therapists believe that clients are the experts in their own lives and experiences and, thus, seek to work with their clients in a non-pathologizing and non-blaming way.
Narrative therapy helps people to first find their voice and, then, use that voice to become an advocate for themselves and their life.
Narrative therapy maintains that people carry and develop many stories and storylines about their life and experiences. Psychological challenges arise when the dominant storyline in a person’s life is problematic or negative. This problematic storyline creates a negative lens through which the individuals create further stories about their life and future experiences.
Narrative therapists work with their clients to put together a narrative about the client’s life, externalize the identified problem(s) (I am a depressed person vs. depression makes me sad when it comes), deconstruct their problematic storylines to identify it’s conception, and re-story their lives to create new and more adaptive storylines.
Narrative therapy can be used to work with a variety of psychological challenges such as anxiety, attachment concerns, depression, ADHD, grief, trauma, and PTSD.