Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends

1. Stories Shape Reality: Therapy as Re-Authoring

In the performance of an expression that we re-experience, re-live, re-create, re-tell, re-construct, and re-fashion our culture.

Narrative's Influence. Our lives are shaped by the stories we tell ourselves and others. These narratives determine the meaning we ascribe to experiences, influencing our behavior and relationships. Therapy, therefore, becomes a process of "re-authoring" these stories, allowing individuals to create more helpful and satisfying accounts of their lives.

Beyond Objective Truth. The book challenges the idea of objective reality, suggesting that all knowing requires interpretation. Instead of seeking a single "truth," narrative therapy explores the multiple stories available to us, empowering individuals to choose the narratives that best serve them. This approach emphasizes the subjective experience and the power of language in shaping our realities.

The Price of Storytelling. While stories provide a sense of continuity and meaning, they also come at a cost. Narratives can never fully encompass the richness of lived experience, requiring us to prune and select events that fit the dominant evolving stories. This leaves much of our experience unstoried and unexpressed, highlighting the importance of uncovering these neglected aspects in therapy.

2. Externalizing Problems: Separating People from Problems

When the distinction of the problem can be clearly separated from the distinction of the person, it becomes possible to carefully examine the dynamics and direction of the interaction between persons and problems.

Objectifying the Issue. Externalization involves objectifying and, at times, personifying the problems that individuals experience. This process separates the problem from the person, allowing for a clearer examination of the relationship between them. It shifts the focus from blaming the individual to understanding the problem's influence.

Benefits of Separation. By externalizing problems, individuals can:

• Reduce unproductive conflict and blame
• Undermine feelings of failure
• Foster cooperation in overcoming the problem
• Open up new possibilities for action
• Adopt a lighter, more effective approach

Problem vs. Person. The core principle is that neither the person nor the relationship is the problem. Instead, the problem becomes the problem, and the focus shifts to the person's relationship with it. This separation creates space for individuals to reclaim their lives and relationships from the problem's influence.

3. Relative Influence Questioning: Mapping Problem & Person Impact

By inviting persons to review the effects of the problem in their lives and their relationships, relative influence questions assist them to become aware of and to describe their relationship with the problem.

Two Sets of Questions. Relative influence questioning is a technique used to help individuals externalize problems. It involves two sets of questions: one that maps the influence of the problem on the person's life and relationships, and another that maps the person's influence on the "life" of the problem.

Mapping the Problem's Reach. The first set of questions encourages individuals to identify the problem's sphere of influence across various domains, including behavioral, emotional, physical, interactional, and attitudinal. This process creates a "problem-saturated description" of life, revealing the extent of the problem's control.

Highlighting Personal Agency. The second set of questions invites individuals to map their own influence on the problem. This helps them identify their competence and resourcefulness in the face of adversity, revealing "unique outcomes" that contradict the problem-saturated description. By mapping both the problem's and the person's influence, individuals gain a clearer understanding of their relationship and potential for change.

4. Unique Outcomes: Discovering Untapped Strengths

Although the existence of these unique outcomes can never be predicted by a reading of the "social strand" or the dominant story of a person's life, they are always present.

Moments of Resistance. Unique outcomes are those aspects of lived experience that fall outside the dominant, problem-saturated story. They represent moments when the person resisted the problem's influence, demonstrating untapped strengths and resources. These outcomes can be historical, current, or even future-oriented.

Imagination's Role. Identifying unique outcomes requires imagination, both from the therapist and the individual. The therapist must imagine what could be significant to the person, while the individual must be open to recognizing moments of resistance that may have previously gone unnoticed.

From Problem to Possibility. By identifying and exploring unique outcomes, individuals can begin to ascribe new meaning to their experiences. This process involves plotting the unique outcomes into an alternative story, creating a new narrative that emphasizes competence, resilience, and the potential for change.

5. The Power of the Written Word: Narrative Therapy in Black and White

In many circumstances, writing achieves unsurpassed authority from the fact that it is not heard, but seen.

Beyond the Spoken Word. While traditional therapy relies heavily on oral communication, narrative therapy also embraces the written word as a powerful tool for change. Writing provides a different domain of existence, offering unique advantages for formalization, legitimation, and continuity.

Advantages of Writing:

• Accumulation of recorded wisdom
• Critical study and consideration of findings
• Higher information content and less predictability
• Transformation of the teacher-student relationship

Time and Linearity. Writing facilitates the mapping of experience onto the temporal dimension, allowing individuals to perceive change and progress in their lives. This linear conception of time is crucial for generating meaning and experiencing personal agency.

6. Counter Documents: Challenging Dominant Narratives

We have to promote new forms of subjectivity through refusal of this kind of individuality which has been imposed on us for several centuries.

Resisting Objectification. Modern documents, such as files and evaluations, often contribute to the objectification and subjugation of individuals. Counter documents, on the other hand, challenge these dominant narratives by emphasizing the person's strengths, competencies, and unique history.

Rituals of Inclusion. Unlike files, which are often used in rituals of exclusion, counter documents aim to include individuals in a wider community. Awards, certificates, and declarations can celebrate a person's achievements and contributions, fostering a sense of belonging and worth.

Self-Authorship. The most powerful counter documents are those that are significantly authored by the individual themselves. By actively participating in the creation of their own narratives, individuals gain a sense of personal responsibility and the capacity to shape their lives.

7. Subjugated Knowledge: Resurrecting Alternative Stories

It is through the re-emergence of these low-ranking knowledges, these unqualified, even directly disqualified knowledges ... and which involve what I would call a popular knowledge ... that criticism performs its work.

Challenging Dominant Discourses. Subjugated knowledges are those that have been marginalized or disqualified by dominant, unitary knowledges. These include both previously established erudite knowledge and local, popular knowledge.

Reclaiming Lost Voices. By resurrecting subjugated knowledge, individuals can challenge the "truths" that have been imposed upon them and reclaim their own unique perspectives. This process involves:

• Identifying aspects of life that don't fit with dominant narratives
• Discovering "unique knowledges" that accommodate new realizations
• Investigating family and community archives for previously established knowledge

Insurrection of Knowledge. In therapy, the embrace of unique knowledge can lead to an "insurrection of the subjugated knowledges," empowering individuals to resist the centralizing powers of scientific discourse and reclaim their own authority.

8. The Panopticon Effect: Recognizing and Resisting Social Control

He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes himself in the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjugation.

The Ever-Present Gaze. The Panopticon, a model for social control, relies on the technique of "normalizing judgment," where individuals are constantly evaluated according to institutionalized norms. This creates a sense of perpetual surveillance, leading to self-subjugation.

Techniques of Power. The techniques of power include:

• Organization of persons in space
• Registration and classification
• Exclusion of groups and ascription of identity
• Isolation and surveillance

Challenging the Gaze. By externalizing problems, individuals can challenge the "truths" that specify their lives and refuse the objectification of themselves and their bodies. This involves identifying and resisting the techniques of power that incite self-subjugation.

9. Letters as a Tool: Practical Applications in Therapy

The evolution of lives and relationships occurs through the performance of such stories or narratives.

Diverse Applications. Letters can be used in various ways to facilitate narrative therapy, including:

• Letters of invitation to engage reluctant individuals
• Redundancy letters to relinquish unhelpful roles
• Letters of prediction to encourage future-oriented thinking
• Counter-referral letters to celebrate progress
• Letters for special occasions to mark significant events

Flexibility and Creativity. The key is to tailor the letters to the specific needs and circumstances of the individual or family. The content and style of the letters should be carefully selected to bring forth distinctions that are heuristic, link specific experiences and events that promise to be resourceful, and promote those kinds of "stories" that have healing potential.

Beyond the Formulaic. These letters are far from simple "objective" descriptions. They employ vernacular language, common words used in uncommon ways, and an enticing novelty that stimulates the reader's imagination and participation in the text.

10. The Therapist's Role: Facilitator, Not Expert

We are subjected to the production of truth through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth.

Challenging Authority. The therapist's role is not to impose their own expertise or knowledge, but to facilitate the individual's exploration of their own experiences and stories. This involves challenging the isolation of professional knowledge and embracing a more egalitarian relationship.

Critiquing Practices. Therapists must be aware of their own participation in domains of power and knowledge, and actively critique their practices. This includes identifying the context of ideas in which their practices are situated and exploring the history of these ideas.

Political Engagement. By joining with individuals to challenge the techniques of power, therapists are inevitably engaged in a political activity. This involves challenging the systems that subjugate individuals to dominant ideologies and empowering them to author their own lives.

Last updated: April 7, 2025