The Virtues of Narrative Therapy

People Rewrite Their Story

Mar 6, 2024 Reviewed by 

Nicholette Leanza, LPCC-S-

see below my commentary.

I’ve often wondered, eight or 10 session hours in with a patient, vividly and exquisitely describing their history from birth in another country, journeying  to this country. Cleaning houses across the states, with interludes for the same detailed history of their multiple siblings, their parents and great grandparents— before they wanted to get into the nitty-gritty of “therapy”, which quite often never happened. After several patients launching into this type of therapy without my suggestion occasionally rejecting my attempts to help them solve problems or do a form of didactic therapy, I realized that there was something very unique and special in what these patients were craving, and could not be written off as avoidance. And furthermore, that the kind of discourse they wanted to engage me in was therapeutic in of it itself, for a multitude of reasons.

As one of my patients retold her story in little vignettes, she often repeated her memories of disturbing events several times over as she ostensibly wanted to make sure I got all the details down. And yet I could hear her as she took pause to try and determine where she was sitting in the playgroup with the babysitter who had molested her once. This episode had been haunting her for years as she was afraid that she had given the babysitter signals and that she was a willing participant. After thinking about the playgroup set up and realizing that she was nowhere near the babysitter, the patient was able to realize that her whole interpretation of events may have been distorted;, the babysitter had to make go to great lengths to find the patient and bring her upstairs, and this was only after her parents returned (and was under their eye). The patient in no way shape or form was even in communication with the babysitter prior to the incident. The patient felt freed from a lifetime of guilt.

The patient was able to revisit many such episodes  from the perspective of the four-year-old. she was then, not the teenager she was when she came to America or even as the struggling immigrant working to get her green card. This new perspective allowed the patient to see situations more clearly, have greater understanding of the family dynamics, take blame off of herself for things that happened as a child, things which she has been blaming herself her entire life and rework the narrative.

This re-examination of life events in the form of a story, also allowed a patient to recognize and honor herself for her achievements, strengths and victories, ultimately boosting  her resilience; retell the story in the presence of another person and feeling completely heard; displaying a level of trust and vulnerability which showed a relational maturity that the patient would be able to take with her wherever she went next and in connection with her six siblings.

This was lexactly the therapy she needed

#narrativetherapy #deconstruction #rewriting

#resilience #reinventiyourself