Narrative therapy is a type of therapy that helps people become experts in their own lives and embrace that role.
Narrative therapy aspires to be a respectful, non-blaming approach to counselling and community work that places people at the centre of their own lives as experts. It separates problems from people and assumes that people have a wide range of skills, competencies, beliefs, values, commitments, and abilities that will help them reduce the impact of problems in their lives.
These therapists employ stories in two key ways: first, to deconstruct—or separate—issues from the people who experience them, and second, to re-construct—or assist families in rewriting—the stories they tell about their lives. The therapist works to pinpoint the dominant narratives that restrict the family's options before amplifying more minor or obscure stories that offer more hope for change.