Narrative Therapy as an Ethical Practice

Abstract

This article explores the ethical aspects of narrative therapy, looking to its basic models and assumptions. Proposing that the counter-practices of narrative therapy entail an implicit ethos, I attempt to turn narrative therapy in on itself to reveal and elaborate such an ethos, and to re-interpret certain narrative practices as ethical practices aimed at the therapist. This follows the structure of ethics outlined by Michel Foucault as taken up by Michael White in relation to personal failure. I propose that the “ethical substance” of such an ethic is power, and I go on to elaborate why and how narrative therapy encourages the therapist to manage this in therapy. Such elaboration may be important as a means to make visible the non-neutrality of narrative therapy, to serve as a way of anchoring narrative therapy in relation to de-radicalizing effects of dominant psychotherapy research discourse and its demand for a particular kind of evidence, and to underline the ethical and political aspects of narrati...