Narrative Therapy
Reframe your story to reclaim your identity
Therapy that separates the problem from your identity by retelling your own story.
What Is Narrative Therapy?
The goal: change the story, change what is possible. Narrative therapy works with the accounts we carry about who we are. When the dominant story is "I am the anxious one" or "I always ruin things," it quietly rules out options. The goal is to loosen that story enough for other true ones to be told.
The idea: the person is not the problem. Narrative therapy separates you from the difficulty — the anxiety, the shame, the depression — so it becomes something you are in relationship with rather than something you are. That shift alone often restores a sense of agency.
The method: find the exceptions and build them out. Your therapist listens for the moments the dominant story cannot explain — the time you did speak up, the day it did not overwhelm you — and helps you thicken those threads into a fuller account of yourself.
How Perspective Counseling Services Delivers Narrative Therapy
Especially useful for identity and transition work. Our narrative-trained clinicians most often use this approach with faith transitions, identity exploration, complex trauma, and the self-blame that follows difficult experiences.
Blended with trauma-focused approaches. Narrative work is frequently combined here with EMDR and trauma-focused CBT — reprocessing changes how a memory feels, and narrative work changes what you conclude about yourself because of it. Available at both offices and by telehealth.
Key Benefits of Narrative Therapy
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Separates you from the problem. Externalising the difficulty reduces shame and makes it something you can address rather than something you are.
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Restores a sense of agency. Recognising the moments you already resisted the pattern is more convincing than being told you are capable.
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Respects your context. Narrative work takes culture, faith, family, and community seriously rather than treating distress as purely individual.
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Well suited to identity questions. Particularly useful during faith transitions, coming out, career change, and other periods of redefinition.
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Collaborative by nature. You remain the author. Your therapist is a curious editor, not the one deciding what your story means.
Ready to Retell Your Story?
Get in touch to work with a narrative-trained therapist.
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