Narrative Therapy

I believe we all story our lives against the backdrop of our personal discourse, family discourse, and societal discourse. Some of the stories we identify with have been beneficial yet others have been less helpful or even hinder us to reach the goals and contentment we seek. I work from a strengths-based approach to work collaboratively with clients to create change and to coauthor their stories and strive for the change they are seeking.

Together we can look at the stories and myths you learned to believe about yourself and the world and unlearn, unpack, and rewrite them! You get to be in charge of how you think and feel about yourself and the world around you.

The idea that we develop stories about our own lives has always resonated with me. I enjoy identifying our own internal narratives and challenge those which may not be congruent with our current self or journey. The idea that people are separate from their problems resonates with me as in our most trying times we can feel entangled with those which most challenge us. Narrative Therapy allows for the externalization of problems through creative mediums.

This therapy approach helps clients identify their values and use them to confront present and future problems. I believe that clients are the experts in their own lives and the problem is the problem (not the person). For example, instead of someone being “a depressed person” I see it as someone who “lives with depression”. Narrative therapy is especially empowering for BIPOC communities and LGBTQIA+ because it navigates systems steeped in racism, homophobia, white supremacy, and patriarchy.

I love Narrative Therapy because it can help you to explore the stories you have about yourself, others, relationships, food, your body, etc. I will support you in exploring where these stories come from and if they really serve you. Sometimes the stories we've internalized come from unhelpful family messaging and societal oppression. When you can deconstruct those stories, you get to have the power to decide what is right for you & live from that place of empowerment.

Narrative therapy helps people look at their concerns and realize that they can overcome them or not be affected by them as much as they used to be. It's a matter of shifting perspectives and thoughts into a healthier frame that we can then use to guide our mental health journey onto a more positive path.

I use a narrative approach to help you explore stories you tell themselves about your life, where those stories come from, and whether they are serving you. Our work may also include journaling, tracking expereinces, reading, and other ways of exploring narrative if those seem like a good fit for you.

Narrative therapy talks about the stories we tell ourselves. A key concept from this approach is that "the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem." If you replaced your broken, problem-saturated narrative with a strengths-focused one, what would be the result? This is not to say that you need to focus on the positives in your past and your problems will disappear. It just allows for a reframe and shows the inherent good in each narrative.

Narrative Therapy is interested in the stories we tell ourselves. Every moment of our lives we are constructing stories and living according to them. Some of the stories we learned as kids (play it safe, calm down, smile!) while others we adopted from society (this is what sexy looks like, work harder, everyone for themselves!). But what is really going on? What is the story you want to live without all those external ones? Together we can write a new one.

writing can be a cathartic/therapeutic process by releasing thoughts and feelings onto paper. I often provide written prompts/exercises (upon clients' requests) to help motivate them to explore and process their inner thoughts both inside and outside of their sessions.

Narrative Therapy embraces the idea that stories actually shape our behaviors and our lives and that we become the stories we tell about ourselves. There are helpful narratives we can choose to embrace as well as unhelpful ones.

Engaged in narrative therapy training, facilitating experiential groups, and working towards certification.

Society, our families of origin, and negative relationships can create narratives that people can inadvertently retain as self-talk and otherwise truth. Narrative therapy helps to look at other ways people can write the stories of their lives -- those they tell themselves and share with others. There are fun insightful and empowering activities (not all written) to encourage people to see their strengths and positive experiences in life, so they can make decisions to lead the lives they desire.

The story of who we are and what our life is and means has a significant impact on how we feel and experience the world. Unfortunately, so many of the stories told by the larger culture have negative impact on our mental health and well-being. I seek to unpack the stories to push back against oppressive dominant narratives that are unhealthy and unhelpful to create new stories that bring joy, freedom, and comfort and allow one to live fuller and truer life.

I have studied extensively through this lens which prizes the client's experience of their own world over the therapist's, offering the client maximum respect and agency. Narrative therapy is particularly helpful at not pathologizing or labeling a client as the problem, rather, the problem is simply the problem. Narrative therapy lets the client develop new stories about their lives and discard stories that no longer serve them.

I use Narrative Therapy to learn about the stories that a client tells about their life. Throughout the therapeutic process, we will "thicken the narrative" and discuss the ways that we may "re-story" our lives.

I help my clients explore the stories of their lives, the stories they are telling themselves about their lives and how these all go together to affect our mental health, our self worth and how we see ourselves and the world. Sometimes we've developed stories that are based on fears and anxieties, not on how our life actually is. Taking time to look at these stories and transform these narratives can help improve overall mental health and wellness.