Welcome!
So, what is narrative therapy and where did it come from?
Narrative therapy, otherwise known as narrative practice, is a form of psychotherapy developed by Michael White and David Epston during the 1970s and 1980s. It focuses on examining and analyzing how we construct stories about ourselves and others, and how these stories influence the ways that we experience and interact with the world around us.
In this post, I’ll discuss how our creativity and experience with RPGs can complement the principles of narrative therapy, allowing us to unearth highly nuanced understandings of ourselves and to challenge the influence of negative stories in our lives.
Our hope is that you will come to better understand the inherent strengths of your character and story, emerge with a greater sense of direction and motivation, and have fun while doing it!
Who says self-development can’t be fun and engaging?
Narrative Therapy: Core Concepts
Day by day, we all experience events to which we attribute meaning. This is a natural and inevitable process – we subconsciously learn something about ourselves through every event that we experience. These experiences form stories once they are linked in a particular sequence, across a period of time, and have been attributed meaning. It is through these stories that we understand and interact with the world around us. We simultaneously hold many stories that inform our sense of self, like our competencies, our weaknesses, our desires, our interests, our victories, and our failures.
Crucially, we must understand that the way we attribute meaning to our experiences is significantly influenced by our beliefs and values, which are largely the result of socialization by our families, friends, and broader cultural contexts. When closely examined, we may come to realize that we hold certain beliefs and values that are illogical, untrue, incomplete, or some combination of the three. A common example of this is the conflation of economic achievement with moral character.
Narrative therapy also emphasizes the careful use of language. We often find that we use deficit-oriented and pathologizing terms to describe the issues that we face, unwittingly conflating our identities with our issues (e.g., “I have anxiety”, or “I have a bad temper”). This view of the self is influenced by modernist and essentialist notions of a biologically rooted ‘true nature’.
Instead, narrative therapy draws on notions of social constructionism, emphasizing the power of language to shape reality, and through it, our infinite potential for self-transformation. It focuses on exploring and drawing out people’s strengths and values, as well as using ‘externalization’, a technique that separates the issue from our identity.
For instance, “I have anxiety” may be stated as “I am a person who experiences anxiety”. While this may sound strange and superfluous, externalizing a problem indicates that we are not defined by the problem but rather we are struggling against it. A minor but greatly empowering difference.
“The person is not the problem, the problem is the problem“
– Michael White, co-founder of Narrative Therapy
Now, considering that narratives are determined by how we link certain events together in a sequence across a period of time, and by how we attribute meaning to these events, we can posit that challenging, or re-authoring, stories can alter how we understand and interact with ourselves and the world around us.
As such, at its core, narrative therapy can be summarized as follows:
a) we construct stories about ourselves and others through our experiences
b) these stories dictate how we understand, experience, and interact with the world
c) these stories are often incomplete, unhelpful, and at times, untrue – particularly when we judge ourselves on an unwittingly internalized system of values that we may not agree with
d) exploring and re-authoring these stories using externalization and a strengths-based perspective can help us better understand ourselves and create a more empowering vantage point from which to address the issues at hand.
The Impact of Narrow Stories
The necessary nuance and complexity of a person’s identity is stifled once they see themselves, and become seen by others, through the lens of a narrow and dominant narrative. For instance, if we view ourselves through a narrative in which we are a ‘person with a bad temper’, there is little room for the articulation of the meanings behind our actions or the contexts in which they occur. That is, there is little analysis of the complex nuances of our character and the circumstances that might explain why we present as an angry person. Narrative therapists refer to these stories as narrow (or thin) stories. These narrow stories are particularly concerning as they are often expressed as an all-encompassing truth about a person’s identity, influencing not only how we view ourselves, but also how we are perceived by others – e.g., “don’t worry, he’s just an angry guy”, “he’s always angry”, “watch out for him, he has a crazy temper”.
As such, narrow stories are dismissive, often obscuring broader relations of power. For all we know, someone’s anger could be a completely understandable manifestation of resistance against an oppressive situation – were they subjected to unjust punishment by an authority figure? Might they be agitated due to working in a toxic, high-pressure work environment?
Once established, narrow stories tend to grow and grow, further obscuring when we display behaviors that aren’t typical of the narrative. On the other hand, a more nuanced story – one that integrates understandings of our strengths, motivations, and values – may open the door to a more balanced and holistic view of ourselves.
Case Study: The Dysregulated Child
Imagine a child who enters a fit of rage, becoming extremely violent towards his younger brother’s bullies. Now, he could be characterized as an emotionally dysregulated child – sure. However, if this story is to be accepted, we must ask ourselves, how would being viewed as an emotionally dysregulated kid impact his sense of self? and how would it impact how other people view him?
Contrast this with a more complete and nuanced story that includes a description of his passionate spirit, that he is fueled by a deep love for his family, takes his responsibility as an older brother very seriously, and understandably, experiences overwhelming emotions when his younger brother is victimized. The former is a limiting story, while the latter is empowering – contextualizing his challenging behaviors and clearly exhibiting his strengths and values.
The point of this process isn’t to absolve us of our responsibilities, but to help us better understand ourselves and create an empowering starting point from which we can better address the issues at hand. For this child, we aren’t saying that there is nothing wrong with what he did. Rather, the narrative has moved from him being inherently flawed, to being able to use his family-oriented values as motivation for learning how to productively channel his anger.
Case Study: The Alcoholic
I’ve worked with many clients who identify as ‘alcoholic’. When encountering these clients, a narrative therapy perspective points us towards understanding that they hold a narrow story in which their identity is characterized through a deficit-oriented lens – the inability to meaningfully curb their drinking habits, and the devastation that it has caused. They will often list, as evidence, the times that they’ve tried to ban themselves from bars, have attended support groups intoxicated, and how their drinking has destroyed their health, livelihood, and relationships. As they gather and integrate more and more events into this plot, the story increases in richness, depth, and influence, gaining dominance over, and obscuring, the other events in their life that don’t fit that narrative.
For example, they don’t talk positively about the optimism, resilience and perseverance embedded within their innumerable attempts to quit, of their values and goals which make them desperate to quit, or of the unique wisdom and insights into suffering and the human condition that they’ve gained along the way. These strengths aren’t being elevated and remembered as they are dominated by a deficits-oriented story.
Surely, then, it would be more accurate to describe this person as a uniquely resilient, hopeful, and perceptive person experiencing alcohol dependency.
Now, there are many reasons as to why we tend to elevate and string together certain events over others. In many cases, it may be the result of internalizing the reflections of those around us. The reasons are wide and varied as stories are never forged in a vacuum, isolated from the broader world. Regardless, we know that while we subconsciously privilege certain events over others in forming dominant stories, we also have the capacity to re-author these stories.
Entering the World of RPGs
In narrative therapy, we are interested in generating alternative stories. Particularly, we’re interested in stories where our identities are rooted in our strengths, abilities, and the infinite ways that we could live – extremely rich stories that integrate events in our life that are robust enough to challenge the oppressive narrow narrative. Here is where your creativity and years of reading fantasy novels or playing RPGs confer massive advantages.
As an exercise, imagine a character that will serve as your avatar. If you’ve ever played Dungeons and Dragons, this process may come as second nature. Regardless, create a character, write about their backstory and what they are currently struggling with. While the character is based on you, I encourage you to get the creative juices running here. Place them in a fantasy world, an alternate universe – any setting you’d like.
The goal here is to employ a form of ‘playful detachment’. That is, creating a layer of separation between ourselves and the character in order to free ourselves from the imposition of unhelpful expectations, limitations, and judgements – whether they’ve been imposed upon us by our loved ones, ourselves, or our society. It can be hard for some of us (definitely me) to directly acknowledge parts of ourselves that we’ve deemed negative and shameful. With a layer of separation, and an appropriate amount of detachment, we may be more open and honest about how we feel and where we are in our journeys. With this layer of separation, the hope is that we can better visualize our capacity for transformation and alternate ways of being.
Another technique that we will employ here is known as ‘Deconstruction’. It involves examining the issue and breaking it down into its basic components. In doing so, we clarify it and make it more approachable.
As described above, we will also use ‘Externalization’, through which we view the problem as an external force, rather than an integrated element of our identity.
Interestingly, Winston Churchill famously characterized episodes of manic depression as being visited by the ‘black dog’.
Upon hearing that an acquaintance had received help for her depression, Winston wrote to his wife:
I think this man might be useful to me – if my black dog returns. He seems quite away from me now – it is such a relief. All the colors come back into the picture.
Winston Churchill
Preparing for the Story
Let’s think about writing a story about a girl who struggles with social anxiety, hoping to make friends to accompany her in life. She often feels self-conscious, becoming overwhelmed in social settings as her mind races, thinking about the thousands of ways that she can respond to a question and the thousands of ways that people might react. This causes her to become paralyzed, second-guessing every sentence that she might say, thus resolving to say nothing at all. Best be thought of as a fool, than to open her mouth and remove all doubt, right?…
To apply ‘deconstruction’ to Sal’s case, we can see when anxiety emerges – during social situations with unfamiliar people, how it manifests – as self-doubt and a racing mind, and the result – social paralysis.
To apply ‘externalization’, we can introduce a force that causes her to experience social anxiety. In doing so, we’ll see that every time Sal chooses to go into a social situation, she also chooses to engage the anxiety in combat, facing her foe head-on! Undeniable courage. This courage remains whether or not she’s able to conquer the anxiety. We can see that she is courageous solely for showing up, knowing that she will face the anxiety and its overwhelming power.
We know that exposure therapy is the most tried and true method for battling anxiety. So, the more she engages in battle, the more she diminishes its influence. Another consequence of putting herself out there, is finding people like her who she can connect with and learn from.
Along the way, she will be levelling up in charisma! An undeniable parallel between our lives and that of a character in an RPG is that gaining proficiency in a skill requires constant work and progression in difficulty. The more that Sal resists the influence of anxiety in her life and engages it in battle, the more she gains experience points, levelling up and, eventually, becoming powerful enough to defeat anxiety.
Let’s give it a go!
The Tale of Sal
Sal, a young dwarven girl, stood at the entrance to her father’s forge. The fire was dwindling, the embers no longer flickering with the intensity they once had. The hammer, her father’s battle-hammer, was missing – taken by raiders from the North when they invaded the village. It was a symbol of her family’s honor and pride.
As she grieved for her father, Sal began to feel the presence of a mysterious and ancient being, The Mist. It whispered thoughts into her mind, filling her with feelings of shame, self-doubt and overwhelming dread. The Mist seemed to be targeting her specifically, determined to break her spirit and keep her in isolation.
But Sal was resolute, determined not to let The Mist defeat her. She knew that to reclaim her father’s hammer, she would have to face The Mist.
She donned her armor, the metal gleaming in the light of the forge. She grabbed her shield and her axe, the weight of them familiar in her hands. She took one last look at the forge, the place where her father had crafted so many beautiful and deadly weapons.
And thus, Sal set out on her journey, determined to make allies that would accompany her on her quest. She knew she could not do it alone.
As she traveled, Sal encountered many obstacles, but also many kind souls who offered a helping hand. However, every time she set out to make an ally, The Mist would emerge, filling her mind with doubts and fears. She would question whether she was worthy of their help, whether she could trust them, and whether she could really restore her family’s pride and honor.
Despite the mist’s constant presence, Sal pushed on. She sought out those who had also been plagued by The Mist, and they taught her how to push through it and emerge victorious.
With their help, Sal was able to form strong alliances and gather a group of warriors who would accompany her on her quest. Together they fought and defeated the raiders who had taken her father’s hammer.
Sal emerged victorious, hammer in her hand. She held it up to the sky, the fire in her heart burning bright. She had completed her quest and reclaimed her family’s honor.
Sal returned home, her father’s hammer in hand. The forge once again roared to life, and the sound of hammer on anvil filled the air.
The End
What a ride! Through the power of creative story-telling, deconstruction, and externalization, we can see a more nuanced and empowering version of Sal. One in which she is courageous and driven.
Although I didn’t go into depth in many areas of this story, you could expand on your own story through deep worldbuilding and lore. The juicier the story, the more powerful it will be.