What Is Narrative Family Therapy?

Narrative family therapy is a method of psychotherapy that is often used with children, and focuses on helping individuals reimagine the stories they tell themselves, and the way they view their own experiences. This helps them to reach a more complete understanding of experiences and events, and may help to identify the root causes of certain problems. Narrative family therapy may allow an individual to take a more positive perspective on his or her own life, and in the future, change the way that he perceives an experience. Many people are dubious of this "storytelling" method of therapy, but a number of psychologists and researchers have found it to be quite effective, especially in a family setting.

It is possible to use narrative family therapy techniques either one on one with the psychologist, or with various family members present. The way the therapy is structured will largely depend on the specific issue that is being discussed. In each situation, the therapist will generally pose a number of different questions in order to get the narrative started, and to direct the course of each session. In group therapy, this can allow other people to see how their family members perceive certain things; in individual therapy, the client is more internally focused.

The narratives that are shared as part of narrative family therapy are primarily up to the client, though the therapist will provide some direction to ensure that the stories are relevant to the problem at hand. The stories will generally be related to specific people or events that have occurred, and the therapist will help the client to fully develop the story and include all the details. Once this is done, the process of examining the meaning that the client has assigned to the story may begin, which is really the key to narrative family therapy.

All people assign meaning to the events they experience in their lives, and often this meaning can be very negative and detrimental. The therapist may help the client to imagine the story in a different way, and thereby to reimagine the meaning it might have. This will, by extension, teach them different ways of dealing with problems in the future, and choosing different ways of reacting to and perceiving events. This is an important skill for anyone to have, but is particularly for people who have struggled with traumatic or challenging events in the past, or who have persistent family issues that will need to be dealt with.