Narrative Therapy

Making Meaning, Making Lives

Catrina Brown, Tod Augusta-Scott

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9781412909884, 9781412909877
• eBook ISBN: 9781452237794
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

"This volume is especially useful in demonstrating the effects of placing social discourses at the center of therapy. It gores many sacred cows of the larger modernist therapeutic community, but in doing so it offers new ideas for mental health professionals attempting to help their clients with common and serious life problems."  —PSYCRITIQUES

"This compilation is an insightful read for practitioners who have not taken the opportunity to use narrative therapy in practice...Experienced practitioners will certainly appreciate the theoretical analysis offered by the writers as well as the opportunity for reflective practice. Narrative Therapy is a meaningful contribution to a Canadian book market lacking in clinical literature for social workers"  —CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL WORKERS

Narrative Therapy: Making Meaning, Making Lives offers a comprehensive introduction to and critique of narrative therapy and its theories. This edited volume introduces students to the history and theory of narrative therapy. Authors Catrina Brown and Tod Augusta-Scott situate this approach to theory and practice within the context of various feminist, post-modern and critical theories. Through the presentation of case studies, Narrative Therapy: Making Meaning, Making Lives shows how this narrative-oriented theory can be applied in the client-therapist experience. Many important therapeutic situations (abuse, addictions, eating disorders, and more) are addressed from the narrative perspective.  

Rooted in social constructionism, and emerging initially from family therapy, narrative therapy emphasizes the idea that we live storied lives. Within this approach, the editors and contributors seek to show how we make sense of our lives and experiences by ascribing meaning through stories which themselves arise within social conversations and culturally available discourses. Our stories don't simply represent us or mirror lived events; they actually constitute us—shaping our lives as well as our relationships.   

Narrative Therapy will be a valuable supplemental textbook for theory and practice courses in departments of Counseling and Psychotherapy and of Social Work as well as for courses in Gender and Women Studies. 

PART I

Writing in the Social

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1

Situating Knowledge and Power in the Therapeutic Alliance

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Catrina Brown

The narrative process of re-authoring identities requires moving beyond simply telling and retelling stories to an active deconstruction of oppressive and unhelpful discourses. Unpacking unhelpful stories and creating alternative preferred stories involves recognizing the relationship between knowledge and power, as knowledge and power are joined through discourse (Foucault, 1980a). The postmodern sensibility of narrative therapy is contingent upon Foucault’s insistence on the inseparability of power and knowledge and his efforts to study the way humans govern and regulate themselves and others through the production of truth. Narratives then, are “not only structures of meaning but structures of power as well” (Bruner, 1986, p. 144). Rethinking modernist approaches to knowledge and power challenges the ways in which both practitioners and clients may inadvertently keep oppressive stories alive.

Drawing upon Foucault’s understanding of the inseparability of knowledge and power, I adopt the therapeutic stance that knowledge is never innocent and power is never just constraining. This therapeutic stance moves away from the binary idea that either one has knowledge or one does not and either one has power or one does not. Disrupting modernist binary constructions of knowledge and power recognizes both the therapist and client as active embodied subjects in the therapeutic process of coauthoring identities.

Rather than the traditional position of the expert, all-knowing therapist or its mirror twin, the “not-knowing therapist,” I will argue that both the therapist and the client are “partial knowers.” As such, both bring knowledge and agency to the conversation. While I agree with abandoning the idea of the “all-knowing” therapist and minimizing power differences in the therapeutic alliance, I argue that a “not-knowing” stance is not effective for challenging oppressive social discourses or, subsequently, for deconstructing negative identity conclusions or rewriting alternative identities.

I will argue for a conceptualization of power that moves away from the modernist formulation of power as simply negative, constraining, and repressive (Foucault, 1980a). From this position, I argue that narrative therapy acknowledges both the social constraints on subjective life and the individual agency and power within these constraints. In addition to illustrating the significance of Foucault’s approach to knowledge and power for the process of unpacking the dominant social discourse evident in clients’ stories and the creation of less oppressive, more helpful alternative stories, I will emphasize the importance of recognizing individuals’ agency and power in the re-storying and living of their lives.

I begin by discussing the importance of narrative therapy in deconstructing dominant discourse and, in the process, challenge the normalizing truths of culture that often structure people’s narratives. I then question the idea that either the therapist or client can be an expert knower and suggest that both are partial knowers. Next, I argue that therapists must be positioned, or take a stance in, their interpretation of clients’ stories if they are to challenge internalized oppressive social discourses within clients’ stories and be helpful in the creation of alternative stories. I explore the limiting conceptualization of knowledge and power in the therapeutic alliance and argue for a collaborative therapeutic relationship, in which both the therapist and client are seen as active embodied subjects who offer (partial) knowledge and power to the therapeutic conversation, through a conceptualization of power as both constraining (negative) and constituting (positive). This chapter emphasizes that people’s narratives are both shaped socially and creations of their own agency. This view allows therapy to see humans not as simply social products, but as active subjects.

Deconstructing Dominant Discourse:
Joining Knowledge and Power

In his work, Foucault (1980b) engages in the possibility of a new politics of truth and a new politics of power. Central to the practice of narrative therapy and the deconstruction of stories is Foucault’s (1980a) idea that “it is in discourse that power and knowledge are joined together” (p. 100). In Power/Knowledge, Foucault (1980b) argues,

There can be no possible exercise of power without a certain economy of discourses of truth which operates through and on the basis of this association. We are subjected to the production of truth through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth. (p. 93)

It is Foucault’s (1995) view that “truth is no doubt a form of power” (p. 45); power is thus constituting of knowledge (Tanesini, 1999, p. 188). Influenced by Foucault, White and Epston (1990) similarly suggest that we are “always participating simultaneously in domains of power and knowledge” (p. 29) and thus therapy practices are never benign. White (1992) maintains that “A domain of knowledge is a domain of power, and that a domain of power is a domain of knowledge” (p. 122). At the same time that Foucault and White argue that knowledge and power are always “mutually implicated” (Tanesini, 1999, p. 195), they do not suggest that one is “reducible to the other” (p. 195) or that knowledge claims are at all moments a means for masking power.

However, as our lived experiences exist within a field or web of power and knowledge, no story is outside power (White & Epston, 1990). Therefore, no telling or hearing of a story is neutral (White, 1989). Yet according to Foucault (1980a), “Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power.… These points of resistance are everywhere in the power network” (p. 95). While this does not suggest that we are engaged in unconstrained choice, or “free play” (Butler, 1993; Foucault, 1991), it does leave space for agency, space for counterdiscourses. Foucault (1980a) suggests that “discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance and a starting point for opposing strategy” (p. 101). Discourses, then, like power, can be seen as both constituting and constraining.

Postmodernism has called into question how it is we know what we know; as such, objectivity has been exposed as a fiction (Flax, 1990). Through a postmodern lens, knowledge is multiple and only ever partial. Knowledge is understood to be socially and historically specific and inseparable from social relations of power. From a postmodern perspective, there are always competing stories of truth. For Bruner (1991), “Knowledge is never pointof-viewless” (p. 3).

A postmodern influence on narrative therapy is evident in its view that power and knowledge are inseparable and that humans govern and regulate themselves and others through the production of truth. In contrast, the modernist quest for objective knowledge has separated knowledge and power. To move beyond bias, interest, and power, modernist therapy has often upheld the need to be neutral or objective. Against neutrality, I argue for the necessity of being positioned, or of taking a stance. Reflecting White (White, 1995, 2001; White & Epston, 1990), I argue that we need to unpack and reconstruct clients’ stories, rather than leaving them intact, as frequently the stories brought to therapy reflect dominant social discourses and relations of power (Brown, 2003). Thus, while modernists argue that the way out of bias is to be more objective, I argue that we will always be biased and thus we need to acknowledge our own biases and be clear and up-front about the positions we adopt. Rather than cloaking interest and/or power under the veil of objectivity and science, we need to examine how clients’ stories have been put together, what ideas predominate, and what alternatives are rendered invisible within these stories. Narrative externalizing practices will shift unhelpful discourses and enable the creation of alternative or preferred stories.

Above and beyond recognizing power differentials between therapists and clients in therapeutic conversations, it is critical that we not censor power from the stories told or our interpretations of them (Flaskas & Humphreys, 1993). If therapists wish to challenge oppression, they must challenge those stories that are grounded in dominant discourse. Power cannot be left out of an approach to narrative therapy if it is to be accountable. In politicized work, practitioners are positioned in making sense of clients’ stories. Practitioners on the side of social justice cannot take a neutral stance with regard to power (Brown, 2003; White, 1994; White & Epston, 1990). Thus, practitioners must actively deconstruct and re-author oppressive stories and, in turn, the power and power relations embedded within them (Brown, 2003; Fook, 2002; White, 2001; White & Epston, 1990). This means that we cannot adopt a neutral stance to these stories, but must help unpack them in order to create less oppressive stories. We will then interpret clients’ stories through our own positioned narratives. Narrative therapy in this sense involves the deliberate shifting of oppressive, and often dominant, discourses and the reconstruction of counterdiscourses that are themselves sites of social resistance. This does not, however, involve simply erasing clients’ stories and replacing them with narrative therapists’ reconstructed accounts.

White describes therapy as a political process that recognizes that stories are constructed socially and historically within culturally available discourses. Narrative therapy, then, is interested in the construction of stories, rather than inherent truths. Clients’ stories are multiple, shifting, discontinuous—not inherently real, true, or immutable. Within social life, people tell stories about themselves, which they tend to both experience as and treat as truths. Not only is the story experienced as truth, it is shaped by larger discourses also presumed to be truth. These stories are wrapped in layers of socially constructed truths, which are taken up as inherently real in and of themselves.

Clients often bring problem stories to therapy about themselves, their identities, and their lives. These stories often involve the internalization of dominant social stories, and, importantly, the stories themselves are often unhelpful. Thus, while we can study the real effects of stories, it is critical that we not treat the story itself as “real.” Virtually every story told about oneself and one’s experiences involves identity conclusions. Fixing stories as real and self-legitimizing forecloses the possibility of rupturing limiting identity conclusions. One must allow the story in all its layers, complexity, and contradiction to emerge. The story’s fluidity, multiplicity, and changing shape are entry points to explore alternative understandings and to begin to develop stories that the storyteller prefers.

The narrative process of externalizing the story begins to unpack and socially locate the origins and history of the story being told. As such, stories cannot be separated from power and need to be situated as fully social. This process allows the client to see that the story itself is not fixed, or absolute, and that other possibilities exist. The problem story is deconstructed with an eye toward reconstructing more effective and less damaging, pathologizing, blaming, or oppressive accounts. Externalizing conversations will shift unhelpful discourses and enable the creation of alternative or preferred stories by examining how clients’ stories have been put together, what ideas predominate, and what alternatives are rendered invisible within these stories. In White’s (2001) language, re-authoring identities often involve “ resurrecting” the disqualified or marginalized voice. The counterhegemonic and deconstructive process of externalizing internalized problem stories and the subsequent re-authoring of identity are political practices in therapy.

Knowing, Not Knowing, and Partial Knowing

Within collaborative-based therapies, therapists often adopt a “not-knowing” stance (Anderson 1997; Malinen & Anderson, 2004).¹ From this view, it is suggested that the client is the expert on content and the therapist is the expert on process (Anderson, 1997). Anderson (1997) argues as follows:

A client brings expertise in the area of content: a client is the expert on his or her life experiences and what has brought that client into the therapy relationship. When clients are narrators of their stories, they are able to experience and recognize their own voices, power, and authority. A therapist brings expertise in the area of process: a therapist is the expert in engaging and participating with a client in a dialogical process of first-person story-telling. It is as if the roles of therapist and client were reversed. The client becomes the teacher. (p. 95, emphasis in original)

This construction reveals an effort to grapple with the problem of therapists holding too much knowledge and authority in therapeutic conversations, while simultaneously recognizing the fiction of objectivity. The route out of this dilemma has been to adopt a not-knowing position, which seems to enable one to avoid problematic power imbalances between the therapist and client, as well as to avoid making false truth claims under the guise of objectivity. This strategy intends to decenter the therapist’s knowledge and center the client’s knowledge and experience. This “not-knowing” stance is described by Anderson (1992):

The therapist does not “know” a priori, the intent of any action, but rather must rely on the explanations made by the client. By learning, by curiosity, and by taking the client’s story seriously, the therapist joins with the client in a mutual exploration of the client’s understanding and experience.… To “not know” is not to have an unfounded or unexperienced judgement, but refers more widely to the set of assumptions, the meanings, that the therapist must bring to the clinical interview. The excitement for the therapist is in learning the uniqueness of each individual client’s narrative truth, the coherent truths in their storied lives. This means that therapists are always prejudiced by their experience, but that they must listen in such a way that their pre-experience does not close them to the full meaning of the client’s description of their experience. This can only happen if the therapist approaches each clinical experience from the position of not knowing. To do otherwise is to search for regularities and common meaning that may validate the therapist’s theory, but invalidate the uniqueness of client’s stories and thus their very identity. (p. 30, emphasis in original)

Well-known and influential among narrative practitioners, Anderson’s work is located within a postmodern stance of “not knowing” and “multipartiality.” It advances a binary construction that accords expert status to clients over content and practitioners over process (Brown, 2003). While these binary constructions seek to maximize clients’ power through positioning the client as “expert,” they often implicitly require practitioners to abdicate their own knowledge and power. For example, Anderson (1997) admonishes that we must not involve ourselves in rewriting or editing clients’ stories, as we are not “master storytellers.”

The concept of clients as experts about their own lives leans heavily on the treatment of “experience” as uncontestable truth. Postmodern feminists have criticized this approach, as it separates experience from its social construction. When experience is separated from its social construction, it is not only decontextualized, but the focus of experience shifts to the individual. This subjectivist view often takes up experience as natural, individual, and apolitical (Alcoff, 1988; Fuss, 1989; Haug, 1992; Scott, 1992; Smith, 1990, 1999). Postmodern feminists argue, instead, that clients’ stories about their experiences are always social, ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Postmodernism, Reflexivity, and Narrative Therapy
• Part I: Writing in the Social
• Part II: Self-Surveillance: Normalizing Practices of Self
• Part III: Challenging Essentialism
• Part IV: Re-Authoring Preferred Identities
• Index
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors