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Narrative Therapy

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Much discussion has been had regarding what narrative therapy is and what it is not, as the definition may at times seem ambiguous. According to a study done in 2011 by Jennifer Wallis, Jan Burns and Rose Capdevila, a better understanding of narrative therapy was given with the following words:
Narrative approaches to counseling and community work center people as the experts in their own lives and views problems as separate from people. The word ‘narrative’ refers to the emphasis that is placed upon the stories of people’s lives and the differences that can be made through particular tellings and retellings of these stories. Narrative approaches involve ways of understanding the stories of people’s lives and ways of re-authoring these stories …show more content…

The conversation began Enuresis doing the talking. ”'I'm not talked about nearly as much as I would like”, claimed Enuresis, “there can be misunderstandings, it's time to open things up a little; get to know me better”. (pp 1) In response to the conversation with “Enuresis”, one child, Selvan, age 7, was asked how he understood his bedwetting problem. He explained that the story he had always been told that was that he had a problem because his body was weak. He then continued this thinking by telling himself that a weak body also meant a weak mind. He described a weak mind as being stupid and therefore his bedwetting made him feel stupid. What a story to discover about a child! Narrative therapy can also involve documents as further illustrated in this study. When Robert, age 6, was asked to rename “Enuresis”, Mr. Mischief, and write a list about how Mr. Mischief messes up his life, he was able to externalize his problem and list ten ways in which bedwetting makes his life difficult. At the next session Robert’s parents noted that his bedwetting was already down by 50%! According to this stud, as evidenced by the above subjects and their stories, narrative therapy is a highly effective and efficient tool to use with …show more content…

Some negative qualities exist within most people’s life stories as each of us is a combination of our unique life experiences. The difficulty is when the particular story begins to affect an individual’s quality of life that he needs to seek help. An aspect that I find incredible about this form of therapy is that the cure is actually within the client himself. It doesn’t come from outside sources, but in actuality is just the redoing of a person’s understanding of his inner self. It isn’t a pill, an injection, or surgical procedure. One doesn’t even need any high-tech tools to utilize narrative therapy. All one needs is the story of one’s life and someone who is willing to listen with an open

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