Narrative Therapy
The person is not the problem. The problem is the problem.
Understanding Narrative Therapy
Narrative therapy is a collaborative, respectful way of working that treats people as the experts of their own lives. It was initially developed through the work of Michael White and David Epston, and it rests on a few simple ideas: people are not their problems, meaning is made through story, and every person’s context, culture, and relationships matter. Rather than diagnosing or labelling a person, narrative therapy makes room to examine the problem’s influence, notice what the problem story leaves out, and strengthen richer, preferred stories about identity, values, and possibility.
We All Live Inside Stories
People make sense of their lives through stories, stories about who we are, what has happened to us, what our relationships mean, and what may be possible. These stories are shaped by family, culture, systems, difficult experiences, and the labels that get attached to us along the way. Most of the time, many stories are true at once. A person can be struggling and still be caring, funny, determined, and deeply loved.
Sometimes one story grows so loud it drowns out the rest. A generalized story like “I am never enough” can gather evidence from many moments (a hard day at work, a conflict at home, a comparison on social media) until it starts to feel like the whole truth. When a problem story becomes dominant, it can hide the complexity of a person’s actual life.
The Person Is Not the Problem
Narrative therapy uses a practice called externalizing. In plain language, it means talking about a problem as something a person is experiencing, rather than something they are. Someone may live with anxiety, perfectionism, anger, grief, shame, overwhelm, or conflict without any of those becoming their identity. “I am experiencing anxiety” opens a different conversation than “I am an anxious person.”
Language follows the client. A narrative therapist does not force playful names onto a problem, erase a person’s responsibility for their actions, or minimize real harm. Externalizing simply creates room to examine the problem’s influence with curiosity rather than blame: to ask what the problem wants, what it relies on, and what it costs, instead of asking what is wrong with the person.
Looking for What the Problem Story Leaves Out
Problem-saturated stories rarely contain every moment. They tend to gather the times the problem won and quietly set aside the rest. Narrative conversations look for what the problem story leaves out: overlooked actions, values, relationships, hopes, knowledge, survival, resistance, and the times the problem had less influence. A person who feels “never enough” may also have moments of steadiness, generosity, or quiet courage that the dominant story has no room for.
This is not forced positivity. The goal is not to replace a painful story with a cheerful one, but to develop a fuller, more accurate account of a person’s life, one that holds both the hard parts and the parts the problem tried to hide.
Strengthening a Preferred Story
Once the overlooked moments are visible, narrative therapy explores what a person stands for, the relationships and life they want, and the times that already point that way. This is sometimes called re-authoring. A preferred story is built from a person’s own values, skills, and hopes, not handed to them by the therapist.
Re-authoring does not mean rewriting facts, erasing trauma, or thinking one’s way out of real barriers. Structural realities, grief, and harm are not story problems to be edited away. Narrative therapy holds those truths seriously while making room for the parts of a person’s life the problem story could not contain.
What a Narrative Therapy Conversation May Feel Like
A narrative conversation tends to feel collaborative and unhurried. The counsellor asks curious questions, follows the client’s own language, and pays attention to culture, context, and relationships. There is reflection, and there is pacing: no pressure to arrive at a tidy insight on a schedule. When it fits, the conversation may include diagrams, timelines, letters, art, or other creative methods that help a story take shape.
The client remains the expert on their own life. A narrative therapist does not arrive with a prewritten interpretation or a single right way to understand what has happened. The work is shaped around each person, and what gets strengthened is chosen by the person, not for them.
What Narrative Therapy Is — and Is Not
Narrative therapy is
- Collaborative and non-blaming
- Curious about meaning, identity, and values
- Attentive to culture, context, and relationships
- Interested in what the problem story leaves out
- Grounded in the person’s own knowledge of their life
Narrative therapy is not
- Forced positivity or pretending pain did not happen
- A way to avoid accountability for real harm
- Inventing a fictional life story
- Labelling or diagnosing the person
- A single approach assumed to fit everyone
A Simple Four-Step Flow
Narrative conversations often move through a gentle sequence. It is not a rigid formula, but a way of thinking alongside someone.
Notice the problem story
Listen for the story that has grown loud: the one that says who someone is, what always happens, and what is possible.
Separate the person from the problem
Use language that puts the problem outside the person, so it can be examined with curiosity instead of shame.
Find what the problem leaves out
Look for the moments, values, skills, and relationships the problem story crowded out, not to be positive, but to be more accurate.
Strengthen the preferred story
Build on what a person stands for and the life they want, gathering the moments that already point that way.
A Story Can Get Very Loud
This is a fictional example, not a real client or a promised outcome.
Imagine someone living inside the “I-Have-to-Hold-Everything-Together Story.” This story asks them to stay calm at all times, anticipate every need, never ask for help, and keep their own exhaustion out of sight. It demands a version of strength that has no room for tiredness, doubt, or tenderness.
The story costs a lot. Sleep gets thin. Joy gets quiet. Relationships become performances of being fine. The person starts to feel like a function rather than a person, and the story insists that needing anything is the same as failing.
Then a small moment reveals another story. Maybe they finally say to someone they trust, “I am not okay today,” and the world does not end. Maybe they let a task wait, and notice that care — honest, human care — was always part of who they are, even when the loud story said it was not. That moment does not erase the hard parts. It simply shows that another story was there all along, waiting for room to breathe.
Skip ahead to what fits
Narrative Therapy for Children
Children often internalize their struggles, believing “I am bad” or “I am anxious.” Narrative Therapy externalizes the issue, so a child can look at a problem alongside a trusted adult instead of feeling like they are the problem.
A child might talk about “the Worry Monster” or “the Anger Volcano”, names that create a little comfortable distance from big feelings. These names always come from the child and are never imposed by the counsellor. When a child chooses their own words for a problem, it becomes something they can face, question, and team up against with the adults who care about them.
Because children communicate through play, narrative work with younger children is often woven through play therapy, with stories, art, sand, miniatures, and metaphor that invite curiosity about skills, values, and connection without requiring a child to sit and explain. A child might draw what “the Worry Monster” looks like, then draw the people and strengths that help them face it. This gentle distance makes big feelings more approachable and keeps the child’s dignity at the centre.
Narrative therapy is woven through child counselling at Sunny Spot, and it pairs naturally with support for anxiety and emotional regulation. If you are wondering how to talk with your child about starting counselling, our gentle parent and caregiver guide offers age-appropriate language and simple scripts.
Narrative Therapy for Teens
Adolescence can bring a wave of identity questions, and teens often arrive carrying labels from peers, family, school, social media, or diagnoses. A teen may be known as “the anxious one,” “the lazy one,” or “the difficult one” until the label starts to feel like the whole story.
Narrative therapy invites a teen to explore stories like “the Not-Good-Enough Story” or “the Pressure Story” without being reduced to them. A teen can examine how a story developed, what it demands, and what it leaves out, while keeping hold of their voice, dignity, values, and boundaries. The work never sounds childish, because it meets a teen as the expert on their own life.
This approach is part of youth and teen counselling at Sunny Spot, and it supports teens working through self-esteem and confidence, bullying and social challenges, ADHD, and anxiety, always with the understanding that the teen is not the problem, and not a label. You may also find our articles on when your teen says “I’m fine” and ADHD in teens and executive functioning helpful.
Narrative Therapy for Mothers & Caregivers
Mothers and caregivers often live inside demanding stories: the “perfect mother” story, the “I should be able to do it all” story, the “good parents never need help” story, the “always stay calm” story, the “put everyone first” story. These stories can gather so much weight that a caregiver loses touch with their own needs, values, and identity beyond the role.
Narrative therapy can examine the guilt, invisible labour, burnout, identity shifts, relationship pressure, and cultural or family expectations that shape these stories, without defining a mother or caregiver by their struggle. Together, we can look at whose expectations a story serves, what it costs, and what it leaves out, then reconnect to values, care, boundaries, and a sense of self that exists beyond caregiving. This is individual counselling for mothers and caregivers, not a group.
Narrative-informed support also pairs well with parent coaching and family counselling. If you are carrying a lot right now, you may also find our articles on the overstimulated caregiver pause, repair after raising your voice, and the gentle Sunday reset for busy families a gentle place to start.
Narrative Therapy for Women
Women often carry stories shaped by relationships, family, culture, gender expectations, trauma, grief, perfectionism, people-pleasing, and the roles they hold: partner, daughter, friend, professional, caregiver. Over time, a story about what a woman “should” be can grow so familiar that it feels like fact, even when it quietly costs her peace, voice, or sense of self.
Narrative therapy offers a way to explore how these stories developed, whose expectations they serve, what they leave out, and which values or preferred identities a woman wants more room to live by. A woman can separate her identity from anxiety, perfectionism, people-pleasing, grief, or self-criticism without minimizing what she has been through, and reconnect with her strengths, agency, and the story she wants her life to tell. There is no guaranteed empowerment or healing claim here; the work is collaborative, paced, and shaped entirely around her.
This approach is part of women’s counselling at Sunny Spot, and it connects naturally with trauma-informed therapy, anxiety counselling, support for grief and loss, and self-esteem and confidence. Our article on listening before advising shares a related idea in a family context.
Professional Collaboration
A child's growth is supported best when their whole village works together. Sheila actively collaborates with multidisciplinary teams to ensure consistent, wrap-around support across all environments. We partner closely with:
Bridging the Gap: To ensure that therapeutic strategies translate into real-world success, Sheila is available to attend school meetings (including IEPs), conduct school and daycare observations, and help develop cohesive, evidence-based behaviour and emotional regulation plans that work seamlessly between home, school, and clinic.
Not Sure How to Introduce Counselling to Your Child or Teen?
The way counselling is introduced can shape how safe, respectful and open it feels. Our gentle parent and caregiver guide includes age-appropriate language for children and teens, simple scripts, what to avoid, and what the first sessions may look like.
Read the Parent & Caregiver GuideReady to find your Sunny Spot?
Reach out today to schedule a free 15-minute consultation or book an initial intake session to get started!