Narrative therapy seeks to be a respectful, non-blaming approach to counselling and community work, which centres people as the experts in their own lives. It views problems as separate from people and assumes people have many skills, competencies, beliefs, values, commitments and abilities that will assist them to reduce the influence of problems in their lives.

 

Narrative Therapy refers primarily to the ideas and practices of Michael White, David Epston, and other practitioners who have built upon this work.

 

Narrative therapy pays attention to how people make sense of their experiences and assists in changing their relationship with problems affecting their lives. Best known for “externalizing conversations” that separate a person from a problem, and for letter-writing practices, this approach is guided by its philosophical foundations, interviewing practices and range of playful possibilities.

 

In addition to guiding counselling conversations, these principles and ways of working offer tremendous possibilities in community, organizational and coaching contexts. For this reason, the term “narrative practice” is sometimes used instead of “narrative therapy.”

 

In essence, the narrative therapist is a collaborator in the process of discovering richer or ‘thicker’ narratives that emerge from different descriptions of experience, thus destabilizing the hold of negative or ‘thin’ narratives (White & Epston 1990).  Narrative therapy draws on social constructionist theory for many of its ideas and assumptions.

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