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Talking about our life, we pay attention to what seems to us the main thing, leaving many episodes “outside the brackets”. But at a meeting with a narrative consultant, it turns out that it is these details that help to tell a new story about yourself – and become different, while remaining yourself. Psychotherapist Ekaterina Zhornyak talks about the method of narrative therapy.
We are born into the world without information about ourselves. Then we learn from those around us our name and gender, advantages and disadvantages, step by step, together with other people, creating, “constructing” ourselves. Creating yourself means writing the story of your life. And it continues, and we give different events a certain meaning: we take into account the facts that coincide with our formed ideas about ourselves, and do not notice others. We seem to strive to ensure that all the storylines of our life history are coordinated with each other.
Andrei and Igor were detained on the bus by the controller and fined both of them. Andrei gloomily thought about the fact that he had never been lucky in anything. Igor looked pleased: “The only controller for three whole months!” It would seem that the young men found themselves in the same situation, but Andrei considered himself a victim of circumstances, and Igor – the winner. The meaning of the same event for them turned out to be different.
Igor grew up in a poor family and was sick a lot as a child. But then he won an international scholarship, entered a prestigious university, and today everyone considers him a successful person. Remembering childhood illnesses, loneliness and failures, Igor says: “I’m used to coping with difficulties.”
Andrei was also ill as a child. Grandmother often called him “our gorushka”, mother – “poor child”, father – “misunderstanding”. In kindergarten, school, the boy was also criticized. Already knowing a lot of bad things about himself, he remembered the negative, because he believed that it was true. Andrei also received an international scholarship, but he considers this an accident against the background of the previous chain of events, which he calls failures.
In the life story of Andrei, written by himself with the help of others, all events indicate that he is a victim. But a young man could stop feeling like a failure by turning to a narrative therapist and changing his own idea of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbhimself.
Who needs it
The narrative method appeared in the early 80s of the last century in Australia. Narrative consultants have been working in Russia since the 2000s. Narrative in translation from English means “story”, “narration”. Everyone is able to tell about their life in one way or another: any person or group of people can turn to a narrative consultant, no matter what their problems are. Counselors work with both patients with psychiatric diagnoses and very young children, using drawings or toys. The narrative approach is actively used in family therapy – today it is the leading direction in this area.
Rewrite your history
Our lives are made up of many events, but we usually pay attention to those events that confirm the stories we have already constructed—narrative consultants call them “dominant.” And the episodes that contradict them, we consider accidental.
13-year-old Galina has already developed a dominant story that she is a shy and withdrawn girl. She well remembered the day when the roles in the school play were distributed: Galya really wanted to play in it, but did not dare to say so. A few months earlier, she applied for participation in a television competition, and in the summer she met a group of guys. But these episodes had no place in the main story of Galya about herself being shy, and the girl did not pay attention to them.
A few years later, Galina told a narrative consultant that she had problems at work and in her personal life, and all because she had always been withdrawn. The consultant, by asking questions, helped her to recall in detail, to give new meaning to the episodes that do not fit into the story that is familiar and no longer suits the girl (in the language of the narrative method – “problem-saturated”). The usual view of myself “I am closed and I can’t communicate” was replaced by the alternative “I am interesting to other people, and they are interesting to me.”
Essay instead of dictation
We write the history of our life ourselves, but there are those who constantly teach us to write it: those close and those around us, who, in turn, are influenced by social attitudes. The creators of the narrative approach in psychotherapy, Australian psychologists Michael White and David Epston, used the ideas of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, who drew attention to the fact that in different communities at different times people’s ideas about what is “normal” differ from each other.
In every society there are social institutions (science, church, council of elders), and in many respects it depends on them what kind of knowledge will become dominant at this moment. For example: “every person strives for happiness” or “happiness can only wait for us in the afterlife”, “decent people should work” or “a respected person is someone who can afford not to work” …
Following Foucault, psychologists have suggested that we tend to easily accept the dominant stories of our culture, believing that they contain the truth about who we are and what we should be. This limits our freedom of choice.
In the course of a narrative conversation, the repertoire of knowledge that a person uses to interpret his experience changes.
38-year-old Anna undergoes one plastic surgery after another: any “imperfection” of her body tells Anna about her “abnormality”. A woman is under the influence of beliefs popular in modern society: “a person should be happy”, “happiness can only be achieved by having a beautiful body”, and the mass media explain how it should be.
During the conversation with the narrative consultant, the social stereotypes that support the problem story become clear. After meeting with him, Anna will be able to discuss their impact on herself, decide how useful they are for her, and perhaps turn to some other knowledge. As a result of the work, the fold of fat will mean for Anna what she herself chooses, for example: “I am able to take care of myself”, “I am ready for motherhood”.
In the course of a narrative conversation, the repertoire of knowledge that a person uses to interpret his experience changes, and therefore the experience itself and the dominant story change. We have an endless source of experience that has already happened, we can draw on it in order to change – stop writing a dictation and start writing an essay.
Separate yourself from the problem
When we hear: “You’re selfish!” – or we say to ourselves: “How inattentive I am!”, It sounds like the problems of “selfishness” or “inattention” are an integral part of us. We begin to think of ourselves as “a person with problems,” and a visit to a psychotherapist becomes a huge undertaking to change ourselves. It seems to us that therapy must be long and painful and may require serious effort.
Michael White and David Epston believe that by talking to a person as if something is wrong with him, psychotherapists can increase his sense of his own “problem”. Narrative counselors don’t talk to the “problem person” but talk to the person about their problem. During the meeting, we are not talking about an alcoholic, but about “alcoholism”, not about a perfectionist, but about “perfectionism”. A person explores how the problem affects his life, what his experience and methods of confronting it are, how his plans and dreams differ from the scheme that his problem prepares for him – and thus separates himself from it.
Stages of work
Narrative consultants do not consider themselves experts in other people’s stories. The person himself becomes the author of his story and an expert in his life. Only he can decide what is best for him. At the appointment with a narrative consultant, you do not have to painfully change, transforming your “I”. A person is helped to independently choose the stories and events of his life, to give them meaning in order to “design” himself the way he wants to be. The course of the conversation can go as follows (for example, we are talking about family conflicts).
- If you wanted to give the problem we are discussing a name, what would you call it?
- Is it possible to describe how you live when you are relatively free from the problem?
- In those moments when your family relationships are not clouded, not overshadowed by a problem, what can you see again more clearly? What do you know about yourself and relationships with other people in these free moments?
- What would happen if your family members united against the problem instead of submitting to it?
- How does this problem prevent you from trusting each other?
A conversation with a consultant is structured in such a way that a person begins to see an alternative, understands what he has not thought about before, feels that he can be different, can always choose how to live and who to be.
The criterion of effectiveness in narrative practice is the decision of the people themselves that they have achieved their goals. Therefore, at the end of each meeting, the therapist asks if people need the next one and when, in their opinion, it would be useful to organize it. Sometimes one conversation is enough. But more often – from 3 to 10 meetings once a week, 1-2 hours each.