Narrative Therapy - Research Paper Example

Particularly, narrative therapy helps consider problems as distinct from the people they affect since it presumes that people typically possess diverse skills, beliefs, values, commitments, and competencies capable of assisting them to diminish or deter the impact of the problems in their lives (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2011). The purpose of this paper is to examine the details and processes that constitute narrative therapy. Narrative therapy encompasses comprehensive conversations, which are both interactive and in collaboration with the individuals seeking therapy (American Psychological Association, 2006).

Significantly, the people consulting therapists play a marked role in shaping the direction of the therapeutic journey. Through collaboration, the therapist endeavors to appreciate what the client finds interesting, as well as how the therapeutic journey suits these preferences. Collaboration is, therefore, a vital part of narrative therapy since it enables the client must feel at ease while giving the narrative. Consequently, narrative therapists constantly inquire from their clients their levels of comfort and interest in the topic being discussed (Etchison & Kleist, 2000).

This allows for narrative conversations to be directed and guided by the interests of the clients rather than the therapists’ point of view. . Overall, narrative therapy is centered on the premise that people’s identities are influenced by accounts inherent in their stories whether formed individually or culturally. Narrative therapy focuses on helping people distance themselves from their problems. The concept of narrative suggests the multi-storied character of the identities held by people and their complementary meanings (Etchison & Kleist, 2000).

Stories that are saturated with problems often gain dominance over desired stories, which people rarely tell. Over time, such marginalized stories are barred by problem-saturated narratives that gain hegemonic prominence, particularly through their appreciation as influential cultural narratives. The essence of narrative therapy is to assist individuals to reverse the course of their narratives to place desired, marginalized narratives at the forefront.   Narrative therapists serve as collaborators with clients throughout the process of creating and developing rich narratives.

Throughout this process, therapists pose questions aimed at generating extremely vivid descriptions of life experiences that are distinct from those included in the outline of the problematic narrative (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2011). In narrative therapy, a number of principles enlighten narrative approaches, including among others, always posing questions to which the clients genuinely have no knowledge of the responses. The second principle is always sustaining a position of curiosity that enables the client to delve deeper into their experiences to find the answers needed.

Therefore, by constantly asking questions, therapists influence clients to externalize the problems before investigating them thoroughly.