3 Reasons Narrative Therapy will change your life
Do you like the sound of being able to tell your story in your words, and having passionate support for every chapter? Every life is a collection of stories but for so many of us, society gets a little mixed up about who belongs in the role of narrator. Narrative therapy is a passion of mine because it is here to make sure you are empowered to remind anyone who forgets that absolutely no one gets to dictate your life story for you, but you!
But what is narrative therapy, and how can it help you heal?
Narrative therapy is a non-pathologizing form of therapy that positions you as the unquestioned expert of your own life without placing blame on you for the stories that have occurred within it. Developed by social workers committed to community work and human rights, narrative therapy is positioned as a leading therapeutic modality for those who want healing and justice in a shared space.
While the roots and history of reauthoring and storying are important, narrative therapy is more than the academic or therapeutic definition we use to describe the folx new to the practice. It’s about you showing up in this space, for yourself, with a witness who can help you tell your story without getting caught up in the logistics of everyone else’s interpretations of your lived experience. The commitment to creating space for you to tell your story as you see it is what I love about supporting clients on their narrative journey. I want to share with you the three things you may not know you need that narrative therapy can offer.
You’ll finally be viewed as the expert that you are in your own life and experiences
There are many places in your story where others feel entitled to tell you how your life has happened to you. From a well-intentioned family who wants to help you see a new perspective to a society hellbent on gaslighting minority folx to keep them from recognizing their oppression, your narrative is usurped too often every day. Narrative therapy offers you a space to take back the way those stories are written.
Whether you start at the beginning of your story or just the beginning of this one, re-authoring is the process of viewing what you’ve experienced through a new lens and telling that story in a way that empowers you to view your life with compassion for yourself and others.
Narrative therapy gives you a chance to step out of your story and examine it the way you need to
Through processes of externalization and deconstruction, narrative therapy invites you to remove yourself from the story you’ve lived and become a narrator. Examining your story through the lens that best suits your needs isn’t a prescriptive experience. This truly bespoke therapeutic process puts you in the writer's role as you take back control of every scene and begin to tell your story through an external and omniscient point of view.
Whether you previously lacked emotional context or physical context, moving beyond the moment and your frame of mind at the time (externalizing) will give you a new relationship with the information you already knew. As you deconstruct the scenes that make up a particular chapter, plot, or section of your story, you can shift the power of each moment back where it belongs to release from whatever foreshadowing it left behind.
You can radically re-story racial and generational trauma in your life
Because narrative therapy has a huge emphasis on externalizing your experiences and looking beyond blame, it is often used to begin unpacking traumas that are larger than your own self. When you grow up in a culture that views you as lesser, you carry the trauma of your race, gender, and the generations before you who felt it too. Through narrative therapy, we’re reminded that we often take on the blame for problems in life that we did not cause and do not deserve our guilt and shame.
“It’s non pathologizing, like our problems become the object rather than ourselves.”
- Tanvi Avasthi for Social Medicine on Air
The truth of black mental wellness is not the same truth that white folx are told about their state of mind. Black bodies, especially those who also wear queer or otherwise marginalized identities, live and feel and breathe and move differently through the world. While folx can learn more about these differences through cultural humility training, this is a chance to do your own rewriting instead. Narrative therapy doesn't prescribe a requirement that you exist within the world of the majority. The story you tell is yours; it lives and breathes your truth. Through this, you create space to connect honestly with the story of your loved ones, ancestors, and experiences in your own words.
Black stories matter- your story matters
In a world where you may feel that your body isn’t as visible and your stories shouldn’t be either, I want you to repeat with me: Black stories matter. My story matters.
Say it as many times as you need to for it to begin to ring true in your own narrative. Whether you choose to let narrative therapy guide your mental health journey through a therapist or your own discovery, you have a whole book of stories to tell in the way you need. Your life is not a single story, and there is no right or wrong way to move through it.
