Almost without thinking of it, we tell stories about ourselves. We tell stories about what “kind” of person we are. We tell stories about the moments that shaped us. We look into the future, and imagine how our life will unfold. Stories “make us up.”

 I gravitated to the story metaphor in the mid-1990s, when I began to study the version of Narrative Therapy developed by Michael White and David Epston. Perhaps as a former English major, the attention to “plots,” action, intentions and the creation of meaning simply made sense. I am also drawn to the ways language can be made vivid and fresh, and to the use of metaphors to represent our existence.

Of course we don’t create our individual stories in a vacuum. They are shaped by the stories that are available in the wider culture, and I find it important to make these influences visible and assist clients to decide which of these “meta-narratives” to retain, and which to question.

In addition to the lure of the story metaphor, I was drawn to the way I found Narrative Therapy attentive to power, and to dis-empowering contexts that support problems. This seemed different to me than therapy as the delivery of “treatment” to cure a “disorder.” Instead, it positioned therapy as a collaborative act where client and therapist evolved knowledge together to address problems. Therapists, I think, should bring expertise to this exchange, but clients contribute the wealth of what they’ve lived.