Narrative Therapy

Making the problem - less personal.

What is Narrative Therapy?

Narrative therapy is an evidence-based approach that helps people create positive and healthy narratives about themselves. The story we tell about ourselves, to ourselves, is the most important one out there. Narrative therapy helps people break away from negative beliefs and redefine their stories. It considers people as experts on their own lives.

Conditions Narrative Therapy Can Help With

Narrative therapy can be used as a method of counselling for several conditions. These include:

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Techniques Used in Narrative Therapy

Narrative therapy uses several techniques that can help people change their negative stories to positive ones. 

Narrative construction

You will first identify important events in your life and how they have shaped the way you think and feel. By exploring the meanings you have attached to these stories, your counsellor can help you find new meanings and perspectives in the narrative.

Externalization

Narrative therapy helps people see their problems as separate entities from themselves. Too often, we forget that we are ‘people with problems’ and start to see ourselves as ‘the problem’. Externalization teaches us to see the problem as an outside force, and as something that’s not an inherent part of us. 

This helps people create a distance between themselves and the problem, allowing them to feel in control of their life again. It also empowers and gives them hope for change.

Deconstruction

If you tell yourself a story repeatedly, it will eventually become a belief. Deconstruction helps people overcome inaccurate generalizations by exploring the core beliefs that lead to such stories. We start to see these beliefs as reality, viewing ourselves and others through that lens. 

Your counsellor can help you to identify the underlying thoughts, emotions, and experiences that led to the creation of a distorted and negative self-narrative. 

Unique outcomes

Here, your counsellor will ask you to imagine different outcomes from the ones you initially expected. You can also be asked to remember times when things turned out differently from how you expected. This helps to reinforce the confidence that things aren’t static and can change. It also empowers you to imagine and narrate your story in a new way.

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Reach Out To Us

Located at 206 Ontario Street Stratford, we are local to Tavistock, New Hamburg, and the Kitchener-Waterloo area. Our clinicians also offer remote therapy across Ontario so that you can access the support you need - no matter where you are!

To get started you can fill out a contact form, call (226) 215-4244, or book an appointment online with one of our counsellors by clicking below.

We’re looking forward to supporting you!