Narrative Therapy

Narrative Therapy is a collaborative approach that sees the individual as separate from or more than their challenges, working to form a more rich and complex picture of ourselves and our social context.

Narrative Therapy Year-Long Intensive, 2018 -Evanston Family Therapy Center: Evanston, IL 5 Day Foundations Level Narrative Therapy Intensive Certificate Program, 2017 -Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy - Vancouver, BC

With narrative therapy, clients have the opportunity to explore difficult situations and trauma through stories. It allows clients to explore the narrative through which they view what has occurred. Narrative therapy aids clients with rewriting their story in a way that allows them to externalize issues instead of internalizing them.

Explores significant events/"stories" that occur over time in one's life. Acknowledges how these "stories" may have shaped a person's identity. Challenges 'problematic stories/narratives' one carries of self which inhibit growth and limit one's sense of internal peace. Focuses on not labeling or viewing oneself as "broken". Aims to allow one to get some distance from their preconceived narratives in order to re-assess their perspective and messaging surrounding it.

Narrative therapy seeks to be a respectful, non-blaming approach to counselling and community work, which centers people as the experts in their own lives. In narrative therapy, there is an emphasis on the stories that you develop and carry with you through your life. As you experience events and interactions, you give meaning to those experiences and they, in turn, influence how you see yourself and the world.

I am a huge fan of letter writing. Sometimes it's writing a letter to someone you are having conflict with and never sending it. Or maybe burning it in the fireplace. Or it's a letter to your dad, who died 10 years ago. Or your younger self, letting her know that she did the best you could. Or maybe to your future self, letting her know that she is doing her best and that it's worth it to keep going. I think it can be so cathartic to get our thoughts and feelings out on paper.

You are the master of your own story and how you perceive the world around you. Narrative Therapy is all about reshaping and recontextualizing how you view the story of your life. Together we will go on a journey through your life to deconstruct the negative views you have about yourself. It’s my hope that we will be able to empower you by rebuilding how you see your life.

I look at narrative as figuring out the how and why behind things. It helps paint a holistic picture for me to best proceed in therapy treatments.

Narrative Therapy allows room for the client's full life in the therapy room. Narrative therapy realizes that the client is the expert on their own life, and it is the therapists job to ask good questions that help thicken the story line and increase the client's own agency. Narrative therapy was my introduction to trauma therapy and I weave the principels of it into all the work I do.

Sometimes a little perspective helps. It is easy to get wrapped up in your experiences & feelings. Narrative therapy encourages folx to examine their stories & effect change when the story does not match goals or desires. Part of this is externalizing things like Anxiety, so it feels less like a character flaw & more like what it is - an emotion that can be a jerk sometimes. It isn't you as a person that is causing all these problems, it is the Anxiety, so what can we do to kick its butt?

This therapy approach helps clients identify their values and use them to confront present and future problems. I believe that clients are the experts in their own lives and the problem is the problem (not the person). For example, instead of someone being “a depressed person” I see it as someone who “lives with depression”. Narrative therapy is especially empowering for BIPOC communities and LGBTQIA+ because it navigates systems steeped in racism, homophobia, white supremacy, and patriarchy.

The foundation of Dr. Inez's psychotherapy worldview is narrative therapy. Some suppositions of the narrative worldview as defined by Michael White: Everyone has meaning-making skills. Everyone tells stories. The meanings we give these stories shape our lives. Life is multi-storied, not single-storied. Therapists listen for these storylines, and we support people to develop the preferred storylines richly.

I utilize narrative therapy in combination with multicultural intersectional feminist theory to examine my clients' life stories with the new context of their adult lives. Reexamining and reframing stories from our lives, and discovering how they have contributed to our current negative self beliefs can help us to gain confidence and self-compassion for who we are today.

Through Narrative Therapy we use the story of your own life to find the pathway to healing. You are the expert in your own life. The stories of how you have handled challenges and obstacles are the key to what has shaped you into the person you are. We will use your strengths to develop skills to help you better navigate the challenges you currently face.

"The problem is the problem, the person is not the problem:" Michael White and David Epston, psychotherapists, founders of Narrative Therapy Narrative Therapy is a postmodern approach to therapy. It helps the client reframe their difficulties as primarily social and outside of themselves, which gives them more options for personal agency and effective change.

Narrative therapy is a form of counseling that views people as separate from their problems. This allows clients to get some distance from the issue to see how it might actually be helping them, or protecting them, more than it is hurting them. With this new perspective, individuals feel more empowered to make changes in their thought patterns and behavior and “rewrite” their life story for a future that reflects who they are, what they are capable of, and what their purpose is.