Healing Therapeutic Services, LLC

Narrative Approaches

 I use Narrative ideas and approaches as the foundation of my work at Healing Therapeutic Services, LLC. Sometimes called Narrative Therapy, they are a growing set of ethically based and innovative therapy ideas that recognize people use narrative, or story, to make meaning of their lives and identity and as such can re-author them.

I will ask you questions about your life and concerns to facilitate what I hope is a meaningful conversation of re-authoring your life according to your intentions, purposes, values, beliefs, hopes, dreams, visions and commitments to ways of living.

Some Ideas and Practices I Find Helpful In My Work

 
You Are the Expert

 I see people as the experts in their own lives and view problems as separate from people. Narrative therapy assumes that people have many skills, competencies, beliefs, values, commitments and abilities that will assist them to reduce the influence of problems in their lives.

The Person is Not the Problem

I avoid thinking or speaking of those I consult with or their loved ones as the “Problem.” Rather, the Problem is the Problem, and I strive, with compassion and understanding, to ally with people to help them stand up to or change their relationship with problems and reclaim their lives from the problems influence.

Externalized Conversation

As someone consulting me, you might notice that if you say, “I am depressed,” I might ask “How did you notice Depression first influencing your life?” This is an example of how we separate the person from the problem. This helps us move from problem-saturated identities toward more rich and full descriptions of life and can help put problems in their broader contexts.

Life is Multi-storied

Just as one’s preferred identity may be rendered invisible by problems, so also one may look back at life and only see a problem saturated, hopeless history. I may ask unusual, exceptional and curious questions that may help you put in word the often thinly described, hidden stories of richer understanding, strength, possibility and hope. In this way, we find people can often creatively reclaim or construct, with the help/support of others, what we called preferred realities and identity.

Therapist: Influential, But De-centered

I strive to be “influential but de-centered”, striving to keep central you and your ideas and preferences. I strive to be a responsible collaborator and co-author with those I work with, rather than pretending to be the all knowing expert telling you how to live your life. While I may share some of my ideas, resources and experiences regarding some ways a problem can influence a life, based on what others have told me, I prefer to first acknowledge and build on your unique story, wisdom and resources. I view the “therapist as an anthropologist or archeologist” respecting and making more visible your own preferred words, ideas, theories and practices of life.

Collaborative: The Particular Context

I have found that problems can isolate us and make it hard to find options, possibilities and connections in our lives. I may ask you, with your full approval and understanding, to sign release forms to allow me to collaborate with key family members, relatives, friends, associates, and involved professionals, who may be helpful or concerned. Any requested assessment, report, diagnosis, letter or test is fully reviewed with you. I strive to collaborate in sensitive, responsible, ethical, legal, diplomatic and creative ways.

The Background Context

In the background of many problems can be a history or experience of injustice and cultural difficulty. I may spend some of our time considering such socially constructed, taken for granted stories of family, gender, culture, ethnicity, sexuality, economics, faith, etc., and their influences in your life and identity. This can help make such influences more visible and may help you decide more clearly if those ideas and practices may fit with what you want in your life and relationships.