Narrative therapy

Narrative therapy is a social justice approach to therapeutic conversations, seeking to challenge dominant discourses that shape people's lives in destructive ways.

[4][page needed][5][6][7][8] Narrative therapy was developed during the 1970s and 1980s, largely by Australian social worker Michael White and David Epston of New Zealand,[9][10] and it was influenced by different philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists such as Michel Foucault,[9][11] Jerome Bruner,[12] Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky[13] etc.

[18] In a narrative approach, the therapist aims to adopt a collaborative therapeutic posture rather than imposing ideas on people by giving them advice.

By adopting a posture of curiosity and collaboration, the therapist aims to give the implicit message to people that they already have knowledge and skills to solve the problems they face.

[21] Inspired by the work of Jacques Derrida, Michael White became curious about the values implicit in people's pain, their sense of failure, and actions.

Then the therapist interviews them with the instructions not to critique or evaluate or make a proclamation about what they have just heard, but instead to simply say what phrase or image stood out for them, followed by any resonances between their life struggles and those just witnessed.

[23] Next, in similar fashion, the therapist turns to the consulting person, who has been listening all the while, and interviews them about what images or phrases stood out in the conversation just heard and what resonances have struck a chord within them.

But for the consulting person the outcomes are remarkable: they learn they are not the only one with this problem, and they acquire new images and knowledge about it and their chosen alternate direction in life.

[24] Narrative therapy helps to separate and externalize people's problems so they can become empowered and retake control of their lives in a positive, meaningful ways.

Narrative therapy embodies a strong appreciation for the creation and use of documents, as when a person and a counsellor co-author "A Graduation from the Blues Certificate", for example.

David Epston, Stephen Madigan and Catrina Brown have made the most significant contribution to bringing a depathologizing approach to this issue.