Narrative Therapy: The Case of J.J.

Abstract

This chapter explores the application of narrative theory and the narrative therapy approach in addressing issues of trauma for individuals who have had significant traumatic events over the course of their lifetime, particularly in childhood and adolescence. This chapter considers how the client might leverage narrative therapy to reconstruct his/her/their life story, and further, how best to work with the client to re-evaluate perceptions of one’s experiences, sense of self, perceived power differentials in the environment, and alternative actions the client can take through the re-storying of his/her/their experiences or traumatic events and the yielding effects of those experiences or traumatic events. Madigan (Narrative therapy. American Psychological Association, New York, NY, 2019) recognizes that narrative therapy developers, White and Epston (Narrative means to therapeutic ends. W. W. Norton & Company, New York, NY, 1990), assert that narrative theory is a “therapeutic theory founded on the idea that people have many interacting narratives that go into making up their sense of who they are, and that the issues they bring to therapy are not restricted to (or located) within the clients themselves, but rather are influenced and shaped by cultural discourses about identity and power (p. 3).” Madigan (Narrative therapy. American Psychological Association, New York, NY, 2019) further postulates that narrative theory supports “Narrative therapy in a way that centers around a rich engagement in re-storying a client’s narrative by re-considering, re-appreciating, and re-authoring the client’s preferred lives and relationships” (p. 3).