My Story: The Use of Narrative Therapy in Individual and Group Counseling

Abstract

Clients reach an impasse in therapy sessions when they experience difficulty expressing their thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Counselors using narrative therapy assist clients in finding an alternate solution by externalizing oppressive experiences. This facilitates a revised narration of their maladaptive perspective, which they have internalized. Using narrative therapy, a counselor works with clients to externalize their oppressive experiences and help them rewrite their life story removed from their problem-saturated perspective. Clients’ exploration of their life story in individual and group therapy can be enhanced using narrative therapy techniques in conjunction with creative art and writing techniques. Several techniques described in this article give examples of how to use narrative therapy in conjunction with creative techniques to increase clients’ exploration.