It’s common to make sense of our lives through stories.
Sometimes, those stories might be influenced by what the world around us tells us to believe. But we all have the power to re-write those stories.
That’s the basic idea of narrative therapy: a style of therapy that supports you to understand, and sometimes “re-author” the stories you tell about your life.
Read this guide to understand what narrative therapy is, techniques that narrative therapists use, and how it can be particularly helpful for LGBTQIA+ folks.
What is narrative therapy?
Narrative therapy is a non-blaming, non-pathologising approach to therapy that sees you as the expert and the author of your own life.
Narrative therapists often support you to identify the stories that you tell yourself about your life, and to write new ones.
Rather than seeing yourself as the problem, narrative therapy encourages you to see problems as things that you face.
For example, you might tell yourself a story that goes something like, “I’m unlucky in love”. With time in narrative therapy, this story might evolve into, “I’ve had some difficult experiences with love in the past, but I still want to find love”.
Key principles of narrative therapy
Narrative therapists generally agree on a few core principles:
- People are not problems. Rather than blaming yourself, narrative therapists encourage you to see that external issues are not your fault, and identify your strengths and positive qualities.
- You are the expert on your own life. No one, including your therapist, can tell you about your life.
- Therapy should be collaborative. Narrative therapists generally support their clients as a co-pilot in therapy, rather than taking the lead.
- We’re all made up of multiple stories. People can’t be defined by one narrative – we’re more complex than that. We all have numerous intersecting stories that make up who we are.
- We can break down and rewrite negative stories. You don’t have to believe the harsh stories that society, your family, or even your own mind has told you about yourself – you get to narrate your own truth.
History of narrative therapy
Narrative therapy first emerged from Australia and New Zealand in the 1980s and 1990s.
Who created narrative therapy?
Narrative therapy was created by two social workers and family therapists, Michael White and David Epston.
White was Australian, and Epston is from Canada, but moved to New Zealand in the 1960s.
The pair met in the early 1980s, and began developing the ideas of narrative therapy.
The core principles and techniques of narrative therapy evolved from their close collaboration over the following years.
Social justice was always at the heart of White and Epston’s work. They were very influenced by feminist theory, and by learnings from Australian Aboriginal community leaders.
Narrative therapy techniques
There are many different ways a narrative therapist might support you to explore and reshape your inner stories.
Narrative therapists are collaborative, and they see you as the expert on your own life.
This means they might invite you to take the lead in therapy sessions, with questions like:
- “How does this conversation feel for you?”
- “Would you like to focus on X, or Y?”
- “We could try technique A or B – which one sounds most helpful for you?”
Below is a brief description of some of the most common narrative therapy techniques.
Externalisation
Externalisation, sometimes called “externalising the problem”, is a way of separating yourself from your problems.
For example, a narrative therapist might encourage you to see your anxiety as a problem that you face, instead of seeing yourself as an “anxious person”.
Or they might encourage you to see your internalised transphobia as something that is separate from you – not an organic part of who you are.
They might do this through subtle language shifts, or they might offer you the option of externalising your problem by drawing it, naming it, or even imagining it as a character separate from yourself.
Re-authoring
Narrative therapists see you as the author of your own story – and that also means that you get to re-author it.
This means that if there’s a problematic story you’ve internalised – something that sounds like, “it’s all my fault” – a narrative therapist can support you to re-assess it.
Re-authoring is not a case of simply saying “no, it isn’t your fault”. It’s a gradual process of exploring alternative ways to interpret your situation.
No one story encapsulates all of you. All of us hold multiple, complex truths.
Unique outcomes
Even when it feels like the whole world is against us, there might be one small thing that’s going our way.
To a narrative therapist, these small things might be called unique outcomes, or sometimes, “sparkling moments”.
Unique outcomes are like “exceptions to the rule”. We might not always notice them, or we may even gloss over them – but their existence proves that there’s nuance in every situation, no matter how difficult.
For example, if you feel anxious when socialising, you might tell a story about yourself that goes something like, “I don’t know how to talk to people”.
Your narrative therapist might respond by gently encouraging you to think of any times when you have enjoyed socialising, or managed to make your way through a conversation.
Perhaps your therapist could even draw attention to the way you’re able to talk openly with them – the session could itself be the unique outcome!
The tree of life
The tree of life is a narrative therapy tool that was originally developed for children, but can be used by anyone.
It involves drawing a tree that represents your life. The roots of the tree are made up of where you come from: your family, ancestry, and cultural background.
The ground represents what’s happening presently in your life right now.
The trunk shows your skills, while the branches of the tree contain your hopes and dreams.
Finally, leaves represent the people who are important in your life, and fruits represent gifts (literal or metaphorical) that they’ve given to you.
Drawing a tree of life with a narrative therapist can be a helpful way to work towards building a sense of self that’s rooted in resilience and strength.
Letter writing
Writing out our experiences and feelings can help us to see the story in new ways.
Narrative therapists might encourage you to write a letter to your past or future self, or to another person (even if you don’t intend to send it).
Some narrative therapists also write therapeutic letters to their clients, to summarise and extend the work beyond the counselling room.
Who is narrative therapy good for?
Narrative therapy can benefit a wide range of people, including people facing:
- Depression or low mood.
- Anxiety or panic.
- Addiction and disordered eating.
- Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
- Chronic pain and illness.
- Making sense of difficult experiences, including grief and abuse.
It can be particularly helpful for anyone who has internalised negative beliefs about themselves – which makes it especially well-suited to people from marginalised communities.
Benefits of narrative therapy
- Challenging negative internalised beliefs: Narrative therapy is really helpful for identifying the ways our society, relationships, or environment have shaped the ways we think about ourselves.
- A non-pathologising approach: Rather than label you, or see your problems as intrinsic to you, narrative therapists see you as a person distinct from your problems.
- Respect and empowerment: Narrative therapy views the client as the expert on their own life. When you work with a narrative therapist, you’re supported to take control of your own life story.
Limitations of narrative therapy
Like other kinds of therapy that involve talking and thinking through issues deeply, narrative therapy might not be recommended for people who are:
- Experiencing acute psychosis or crisis.
- Navigating active addiction, and may need additional support.
- Looking for a more practical, skills-based approach.
Is narrative therapy evidence-based?
Yes, there’s plenty of evidence to support the effectiveness of narrative therapy.
But it’s not as well-researched as some other modalities, such as CBT.
The Dulwich Centre – the training centre founded by Michael White, one of the originators of narrative therapy – has a collected list of academic papers that measure how narrative therapy works in different settings and for different groups of people.
One 2011 study, for example, found that narrative therapy effectively reduces symptoms in people with depression.
Another study, in 2013, found that narrative therapy could have significant benefits for young autistic people.
Narrative therapy for LGBTQ+ people
As queer and trans people, we are constantly told negative stories about ourselves by the outside world.
We might absorb homophobic or transphobic ideas from family, our culture or faith, or the media, where LGBTQIA+ people are often represented in a distorted way.
All of this means that narrative therapy can be especially helpful for LGBTQIA+ folks.
LGBTQ-affirmative therapy is all about recognising minority stress: the stigma and discrimination we face from the outside world, and how this shapes our inner world.
Narrative therapy is naturally well-suited to this, because it involves unpacking how the stories we’re told by the world around us might influence our own stories about ourselves.
With the support of a narrative therapist, you can try re-authoring those negative stories, and work towards building a life that feels authentically your own.
Try LGBTQ-affirmative narrative therapy skills with Voda
Voda is the LGBTQ-affirming mental wellbeing app that's built by us, for us.
If you’re interested in trying out queer-affirming self-care practices informed by narrative therapy, our app has plenty to choose from.
Discover self-led techniques for writing compassionate letters to yourself, re-authoring your story, and externalising your problems – all written by queer therapists.
