Narrative Therapy and Narrative Focused Trauma Care 101

What are the stories that have significantly shaped your life? When we think about our lives and how we’ve gotten to where we are today, I am willing to bet that, upon reflection, you would share stories of important or momentous events to explain how you’ve gotten to where you are.

Narrative Therapy

This is the essence of the therapeutic approach called Narrative Therapy. The important, tragic, significant, and painful events in our lives are not isolated. Rather, they are connected, intertwined, and most importantly, they form the story that is your life. Do you believe that you have a story to tell?

In every story, there are characters, side characters, and a plotline. Each character plays a role in the story. Each character has a specific purpose, and each leaves an impact, whether implicitly or explicitly. In the plotline of each story, it is often the implicit impact that does the most damage due to the initial invisibility of its mark.

The invisibility of the marks themselves is commonly the thing we are left trying to make sense of in the aftermath of an event in our lives. How we interpret the events in the story itself is equally a product of the stories that shape us.

In essence, we are not formed in isolation. How we think, how we act, and how we interpret certain feelings or things that happen to us are all informed by the stories we have.

The purpose of Narrative Therapy is to help a person take in the full scope of their life. It is designed as a non-pathologizing approach that helps individuals separate themselves from the problems they face, to reframe how they think about his or her life to develop new perspectives.

This therapeutic process understands a person’s life as a collection of stories, acknowledging the significance these narratives provide to our lives, including the dominant story that may shape their identity.

The Basics of Narrative Therapy

Some basic tenets of Narrative Therapy include the following: Externalizing and Deconstructing. Externalizing, in this context, can be understood as the process by which one separates their problems or behaviors from their internal character. Deconstructing can also be understood as the process of systematically breaking down one’s problems into smaller, more manageable parts.

Externalization can be a helpful tool for those who often assume that certain problems in their lives are a result of something being wrong with them. Sometimes we can bring life’s circumstances, which are external and outside of our control, into the realm of our character. When this happens, we begin to craft narratives about who we are through the lens of an event or circumstance that has nothing to do with our character.

Externalizing can help us gain a kinder, non-judgmental perspective of the problems we face through creating a sense of distance from our internal world. Often, we can get bogged down in the details of an issue or problem, causing it to become bigger in our minds than it is in reality.

In other words, the process of externalization brings to light issues or problems that would otherwise remain invisible, allowing us to see the issue more clearly and from a non-judgmental point of view.

Deconstruction in Narrative Therapy

Deconstruction, in the context of Narrative Therapy, is a technique that aims to break problematic narratives down into smaller parts to gain a deeper understanding of the issues an individual is experiencing. Similar to the process of externalization, the problems and stressors of life can feel overwhelming and daunting to address when not understood well.

The strategy of deconstruction is designed to address the things that feel daunting and big by taking them apart piece by piece. When we take things apart piece by piece, the reality of the problematic narrative becomes clearer. so far, in my experience working with clients, I have found that many internal narratives people carry today come from moments experienced in childhood and adolescence.

Developmentally, this makes sense as these are some of the most formative years of a person’s life. It is where identity is formed, it’s where we figure out our likes and dislikes, and begin to wrestle with things such as purpose or calling. In the midst of all of this, we are forming narratives about our lives, who we are, and who we want to become.

When a counselor is walking someone through this process, they may ask questions that prompt the individual to articulate the specifics of their distress, challenge the dominant narratives, invite alternative perspectives, or help create a sense of collaborative meaning-making.

In a metaphorical sense, we can think about the processes of externalization and deconstruction as a ball of yarn that’s been lying around the house. Externalization is stopping to make use of the yarn instead of letting it take up space. As you look at it holistically, you may notice the thread count, the colors, or even the texture of the yarn.

Now that your attention is on it, it is no longer collecting dust, and you work on deciding what to do with it. In keeping with the metaphor, deconstruction could be thought of as taking that same ball of yarn and carefully pulling out each thread. Now you’re getting into the details of the yarn itself. You’re getting up close to the particularities of the yarn itself, noticing how each thread fits together into the whole.

Narrative Focused Trauma Care

Another, perhaps more niche, kind of Narrative Therapy is an approach called Narrative Focused Trauma Care (NFTC). This methodology and approach were designed by Dr. Dan Allender. It is a model that seeks to integrate both theology and psychology to holistically engage the impact of trauma and abuse with compassion and care. It aims to bring together the strengths of theology and psychology to embrace the whole person, acknowledging body, mind, and soul.

It is also adaptive in order to explore an individual’s core narratives of relationships, family dynamics, sexual development, and experiences of abuse, addressing both personal and collective trauma. NFTC provides a framework for engaging and reclaiming traumatic experiences through a narrative process, with the goal of healing deep wounds and restoring what was lost.

The work of NFTC is to name both our deep woundedness and our deep goodness as image bearers of God through sharing our stories with trusted individuals. When we do this, we grow in capacity to know and live into our calling to be in life-giving relationships with God and others.

The NFTC framework anticipates that we have all experienced a level of trauma due to the reality of living in a world that is fallen, broken, and ravaged by sin. Trauma is defined as “the psychological, physical, and spiritual damage that occurs when an individual is subjected to overwhelming stress that exceeds their ability to cope or process the associated emotions.”

Using this definition as a foundation for the work, an assertion is made that trauma does not happen in isolation. Rather, it occurs in relationships or as the result of significant events. When the traumatic event is left unresolved, it can become embedded in the brain and body and can go unaddressed or unrecognized because of a lack of understanding, language, or care.

NFTC proposes that the traumatic events we experience become encoded in our brains and bodies as stories, becoming a part of our larger life story as fragments, sensations, or dissociated unconscious processes. As humans, we often make meaning through story. Because of this, the narrative process opens the door for true transformation in our bodies, minds, and souls.

This framework recognizes fragmentation, numbing, and isolation as three core or primary responses to a traumatic experience. In the work of naming, recognizing, and taking steps toward healing, these three responses must be considered for their effect on the individual as well as their broader implications.

Next Steps

As a counselor and as an individual on my own journey with therapy, I have come to know the power of taking my own story (and stories) more seriously. Often, we have to be convinced that the inner workings of our lives are worth being curious about. Counseling can be a place where curiosity is both given and received as the stories of our lives are engaged with attunement, kindness, and care.

If you are interested in engaging your own story more deeply, I would love to join you in that process. I currently have openings in both our Bothell and Green Lake locations. We have an excellent reception team who are ready and able to help you as you take your first steps into counseling.