Different pathways
A narrative therapy session is rarely linear and could take many detours, jumping back and forth between maps.
The counsellor will ask questions that challenge and trouble the problem story, to expose the tactics the problem is using.
Narrative therapy uses ‘externalisation’ to provide an antidote to these internal understandings by objectifying the problem. This makes it possible for people to experience an identity that is separate from the problem; the problem becomes the problem, not the person.
Narrative therapy aims to deconstruct the problem story in collaboration with the client. In deconstructing conversations the therapist invites an exploration of the history of the problem and what has led them to seek help. The themes of these conversations often reflect a range of feelings such as loss or failure or incompetence or hopelessness. People have often reached conclusions in relation to their own or others identity.
The conversations that follow these disclosures we name reauthoring conversations where the therapist invites people to continue to develop and tell stories about their lives. This mostly includes some of the more neglected but potentially significant events and experiences that are “out of phase” with the dominant storylines of the problem or issue that has got them to seek help. These events and experiences provide a starting point for the reauthoring conversations.The therapist facilitates the development of these storylines by introducing questions that invite people to recruit their lived experience, to stretch their imagination, and to employ their meaning making resources.
People become curious about and fascinated with previously neglected aspects of their lives and relationships and as these conversations progress, these neglected stories become significant “alternative storylines.” People are often amazed and grateful that in reauthoring their stories they witness themselves taking actions that they hadn’t previously thought of as significant.
These stories are opened up by delving into the territory of landscapes of identity and action that help construct a kete of knowledge and understanding that can be used to stand up to and work against the problem. This shifts the power/knowledge of the problem's territory and makes this dynamic available to the person. The scaffolding of questions related to these landscapes often bring forward memories about what other people in their lives have mentioned about them. During this conversation the therapist works to make the memories visible in ways that help the person relate to them as their own active intentions.
