Therapy Toronto Psychotherapy Definitions

Therapist Match:

Beth Stevenson (midtown Toronto)

Zoe Pepler (the Annex)

Narrative Therapy

Narrative therapy is a respectful and collaborative approach to therapy. It focuses on the stories of people's lives and is based on the idea that problems are manufactured in social, cultural and political contexts.

Often by the time a person has come to therapy the stories they have for themselves and their lives become completely dominated by problems that work to oppress them.

These narratives are sometimes called 'problem-saturated' stories.

Problem-saturated stories can also become identities (for example, seeing someone as a sex offender rather than as a person who has sexually offended.

These kinds of stories can invite a powerful negative influence in the way people see their lives and capabilities (e.g. I'm hopeless). Counsellors and therapists interested in narrative ideas and practices collaborate with people in stepping away from problem-saturated and oppressive stories to discovering the 'untold' story which includes the preferred accounts of people's lives (their intentions, hopes, commitments, values, desires and dreams).

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