Narrative Therapy Case Study Essay

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Case Study: “Martha” As the counselor I will use an insight-oriented approach to help Martha. I feel that Narrative therapy will help her to deal with her issues by separating herself from her problems. The Narrative approach will allow her to look at her life and her future from new perspectives and allow her to be the expert of her own life. I will work alongside Martha in resisting the effects and influences of her problem story. White and Epston developed the central premises of narrative therapy built around the concept of “story”: (1) the meaning people give to their lives is shaped by the stories they tell; (2) the stories can constrict and are often influenced by the dominant culture in which they live; (3) counseling should help the …show more content…

With narrative therapy, externalizing conversations is used as a way to talk about the problem not being a part of the person. This will help Martha to separate herself from the problems she is having. Martha feels indecisive and anxious about what may happen if she makes some changes in her life. She must separate herself from these feelings. Once she has externalized these feelings, the re-authoring process can begin. The focus instead is on helping the clients to deal with the problem as an enemy to be defeated (Kottler & Shepard, 2015). During our externalizing converstations I will try to get Martha to see that she is a normal person with an indecisive and anxious difficulties. The next step to help Martha with her problem is to name the problem, she may use one word or a short phrase to do this. We will explore other factors that may play a role with her problems, like, where her children fit into the equation, her social life, the time she has to devote to school and economic issues. These will help Martha to not blame herself for her problems. As the counselor I will listen for instances when Martha did not have her issues and try to build on these. Narrative therapy also utilizes the use of therapeutic documents with clients as a way to

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