Narrative Therapy
Narrative therapy is a form of psychotherapy that focuses on the stories we tell ourselves about our lives and experiences. It helps clients separate themselves from their problems, gain new perspectives, and create more empowering narratives.
If you too-often reflect on the negative things you’ve done, or you feel as if you don’t have a true identity or purpose, then narrative therapy may be beneficial for you. It helps you create a different and healthier view of life.
Narrative therapy teaches you to re-evaluate your skills, values, and general purpose. The goal of narrative therapy is to help clients gain new perspectives about their lives and have more meaningful life experiences.
What Is Narrative Therapy?
Narrative therapy is a type of psychotherapy that helps you see your own life from an outsider’s perspective. It emphasizes events in your life and frames them like a story. You are not the negative events, they are simply something that happens.
It’s important to spot the negative events and circumstances in your life, and view them as one big big picture.
Narrative therapy was created in the 1980s by Michael White and David Epston. Their philosophy is that a person’s mistakes don’t define them. Rather, these mistakes are growth opportunities in their story. Mistakes help you grow and give meaning and purpose to your story.
This perspective shift helps relieve some of the pressure that mistakes and difficult problems can create.
What Does Narrative Therapy Treat?
Narrative therapy can treat a large number of mental and behavioral health conditions, including:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Addictions
- Emotional regulation
When narrative therapy is utilized successfully, you can put your situation in a different perspective, pare down issues into smaller, digestible components, and have a more optimistic view of your story as a whole.
How Do I Know If I Need Narrative Therapy?
Mistakes, feeling like you’re coming up short, and traumatic events are inevitable. The way we deal with these events is extremely important. If you feel like you identify as a “bad person” because you continue to make mistakes, narrative therapy may be good for you.
The truth is, we cannot define ourselves by our mistakes. It only results in a vicious cycle of unhealthy thoughts. Narrative therapy frames negative experiences as small parts of a whole.
Sequoia Behavioral Health offers narrative therapy as part of our holistic mental health treatment program. We want you to challenge your negative beliefs and improve your mental health through mindfulness practices and focusing on your story. Call or schedule a call to get started on your mental wellness journey.
How Does Narrative Therapy Work?
Narrative therapy is made of four primary concepts:
- Narrative construction
- Externalization
- Deconstruction
- Outcomes
It’s very important to spend time outside of the sessions to practice these concepts in order to see your story in a full, realistic context. These four concepts are designed to help change your negative outlook and allow you to live a purposeful and meaningful life.
Related Article: What to Expect from Therapy
Narrative Construction
The first concept of narrative therapy is narrative construction. Your therapist will work alongside you to help map out and construct your story. The purpose of narrative construction is to make sense of your story and how to tell it correctly.
Narrative construction allows you to:
- Piece together the most prevalent events in your life
- Identify recurring themes
- Discover meaning in your story
This technique is also called “re-storying” because you are taking a step back, and constructing your narrative to interpret events correctly.
Externalization
The second concept is externalization. This allows you to separate negative experiences and problems from you as a person. Instead of seeing a problem as a part of you, you’re asked to see it as something that you overcome.
Externalization can have a huge impact on confidence and self-identity. For example, instead of viewing your low self-esteem as part of who you are, see it as an external force for you to overcome. Instead of seeing yourself as a problem, you have to re-analyze your actions and separate the “problem” label from your identity.
Deconstruction
In this technique, you’ll break down negative experiences and allow space for positive stories to happen. With this, you’ll gain clarity and see things for how they truly are—more often than not, things are truly not as bad or irreparable as they may seem.
You and your counselor will work on breaking the problem into smaller pieces to get deeper into the root of the issue. Now that you know the specifics of the problem, you can resolve the problem in the most effective and mindful way.
Outcomes
The focus of outcomes is to apply what you’ve learned from the first three concepts to your life going forward. Think about how you can utilize these techniques
When you put your problem into different views and perspectives, you may realize how many different options you have to apply to your narrative. This practice will help you realize that there can be multiple solutions to your problems and that things are not hopeless.
Narrative Therapy At Sequoia
You are not your struggles. Though, at times, it can certainly feel that way. Treatment for severe mental health or behavioral disorders doesn’t diminish who you are—it creates opportunities for new, positive experiences.
At Sequoia Behavioral Health, you’ll experience narrative therapy alongside a number of other therapy modalities individualized to your needs and goals.
Reach out to Sequoia Behavioral Health to find the best mental wellness solution for you. Our experienced team provides compassionate and professional care. Our goal is for you to live the life you want.