The Effectiveness of Narrative Therapy in Psychological Counseling

This essay examines narrative therapy as a potent method in psychological counseling. It delves into the dual purpose of storytelling, emphasizing cognitive and affective engagement to help clients organize their experiences and find healing. The essay explores cultural competence, highlighting its importance in addressing issues like racial bias and promoting understanding in diverse workplaces. It further discusses the application of narrative therapy in treating various conditions, including PTSD and substance abuse, illustrating how storytelling helps patients process trauma and manage cravings. The essay also includes examples of narrative therapy used in crisis situations. Narrative therapy is presented as a supportive approach that helps clients confront vulnerabilities and accept truths, leading to a healthier psychological state.

Running Head: NARRATIVE THERAPY
NARRATIVE THERAPY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Narrative therapy or storytelling, is adapted by psychologists and counsellors for
launching the client into a healing process after being exposed to motivational stories which
are based on people in relatable circumstances, making it out of trouble that they encountered
simply due to different contexts and not because of who they are. This therapy works to
reveal the person’s positive aspects that can be honed as a weapon against the problems that
have occurred. Story telling has been effective because of the high degree of relatability it
provides that helps people realize and understand that they are not alone. This essay will
explore storytelling as an effective way of psychological counselling based on various
theories for candidates belonging to different personal and work backgrounds.
Storytelling has two sides to it in psychological counselling working towards the
resolution of countless issues through reflection and correction. A counsellor often uses
storytelling, because of the inherent ability to provide ample imagery, with narratives
involving psychological cases that might present the patient with any sense of familiarity.
Story telling also involves the patient creating a narrative by explaining his story in a way
that firstly, looks into his internal complications; secondly, helps analyze the external
circumstances beyond his reach that acted as a catalyst for the issue; thirdly, tries to analyze
any wrongdoing on his part while dwelling on the moral implications; and lastly, poses
questions for the self that help in removing trauma (Ingemark, 2013).
Storytelling in counselling is considered as a method that helps people organize their
personal experiences. It is considered fundamental in both education and psychological
counselling because they help in providing contexts of any kind, be it social, historical or
cultural. This method has been used by both educationists and counsellors alike to
communicate messages and ideas that help people in developing a standpoint of their own to
help bring out positive changes in their lives and society. Storytelling is preferred because it
is engaging and provides a more relatable presentation of the issues at hand.

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Storytelling as a method of psychological counselling, serves dual purpose of
cognitive engagement and affective engagement. Cognitive engagement helps in capturing
the attention of the client because of the imaginative experience it provides. The client
concocts the description, graphically, paints mental images that helps recall the information
later when required. This gives meaning to the contexts and reinforces smoother
understanding. This is further explored in the affective domain, because it helps in engaging
the client’s emotions. This helps reflection, thought pattern, empathy and an understanding of
different cultures as well (Myers, Tollerud & Jeon, 2013).
This is when cultural competency theories come in related to empathy, in which the
client grasps the idea of every individual, retaining what they have been conditioned to
believe as the foundation for their future. Counselling must be culturally competent. It must
promote diversity and a world that in inherently multicultural since the beginning of time.
Both the counsellor and client must accept the various cultural, religious, ethnic, sexual and
socioeconomic dimensions that exist in order to face problems without personal biases.
With the rise of cosmopolitan workplaces, cross cultural management is receiving
enormous highlight for the effective management of workplaces with people belonging to
different cultural backgrounds. Based on the cultural competence theory, the organization has
to undertake various counselling programs for the employees to inculcate adaptability within
the workplace to ensure free flowing operations (Sue, Neville & Smith, 2019). However,
various problems like racial biases, difference in perspectives and ethnocentrism keep
occurring that leads to dispute (Eliott & Dweck, 2013). For this, personal counselling is
required. Counsellors take up various stories related to the nature of the problem, to help by
example.

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The general problems are analyzed according to the cultural competence theories
based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, focusing on cultural awareness, knowledge
acquisition through communication for understanding various practices and skill
development (Frey, 2013). Interactive sessions can be planned based on stories, like the
management of Japanese employees in Germany. The immense culture gap can be explored,
through stereotypes and prevalent practices, like the Japanese being considered as people
who prefer seclusion and the German employees maintaining personal distance that gave rise
to misunderstandings. The story should contain the methods of resolution, like the Japanese
people learning to mingle with their coworkers freely, indulging in a more informal
relationship. They hold festivals of each culture and every employee actively participates.
Storytelling can be given a humorous edge to make employees realize the humanity within
such situations and to help them understand, that they are not the only ones overcoming
cultural stereotypes.
Victims of Racial Bias however, require special assistance through narrative therapy
in which they are allowed to divulge details of incidents. They are asked to follow a step by
step qualitative and mixed methods in which they begin with the onset of the problem and try
to identify the clauses that might have triggered such an incident with both the internal ideas
of the client and the external racial forces in focus. Stories of a similar nature can be told to
the client to help them overcome the sense of being singled out. Various cases can be
discussed for the client to gain a fresh perspective on the issues for to help devise methods
that can be utilized to overcome problems (Nadal et. al., 2014). The perpetrators of Racial
Bias must be asked to apologize and must be counseled against such adverse stances that
might land them in particularly difficult situations. Positive stories of people with immense
cultural differences being able to keep their differences aside and flourish hand in hand can
be narrated as a positive examples.

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Similar research using qualitative and mixed methods, was conducted on the subject
of transnationalism in a group of Somali refugees, who in their impoverished state clung on
to their ethnic community instead of seeking active help, after assuming that their condition
had a spiritual background (Markova & Sandal, 2016).
Narrative therapy can also be used in the context of Cognitive concept of Alcohol or
Drug (AOD) cravings. Clients afflicted with substance abuse and alcoholism require special
assistance, which is often physical in nature. So, the psychological counselling can be
undertaken in the form of storytelling that focuses on positive comebacks by people who
went through the same problems and the methods they adapted to get over addiction and
cravings. Rehabilitation centers are difficult experiences as they suffer from withdrawal
symptoms that can cause stress. This in turn increases cravings, causing them to be stuck in a
loop, until the patient learns to control their cravings (Bates, Buckman & Nguyen, 2013). In
residential AOD treatments, series of narratives are created by the counsellors for providing
the people insight into conceptual understanding of their treatment. These narratives contain
the participant’s understanding of the circumstances to help them come to terms after clear
comprehension of the situation (Wilson, Saggers & Wildy, 2013).
Various people with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) shift to abuse to cope
with stress. Narrative therapy can be presented as a part of Cognitive Processing therapy that
helps reduce symptoms of PTSD. This form of therapy can be inculcated within storytelling
to help the patients become more aware of the connection in between thoughts and emotions.
Stories that help them question negative thoughts that cause stress and then go on to trigger
alcoholism or substance abuse. This helps the patient address problem areas and modify
distorted thinking (Kaysen et al., 2019).

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Narrative therapy has been prevalent for the treatment of various kinds of clients.
Counselling the grief-stricken people during the 2010 Haiti earthquake that resulted in
316,000 deaths, 300,000 injuries and displaced over 1.5 million people, was done through
storytelling, as they talked of their previous patients who suffered amputations, deaths and
loss but went on to live and love life, with renewed vigor after accepting the truth and
realizing that life goes on (Roysircar, 2013). We see that storytelling gives counselling a
personal edge in which the client understands, that the counsellor is human as well, and
capable of feeling various degrees of pain that helps create a bond on an intimate level. PTSD
is prevalent amongst students who have been witnesses to campus shootings as well as they
face deaths and become anxious about school. They fear the institution and try to refrain from
education and schooling on a whole and they require counselling. This is also done via
narrative therapy that focuses on risks being involved at every point in live and letting fear
grow will finally engulf the student’s existence, so it must be curbed. Anxiety is not treated as
weakness and is proved as normal reaction to abnormal circumstances. (Boffa et al., 2016).
The effectiveness of narrative therapy and storytelling helps in the complete
engagement of thoughts as well as emotions. It takes into account the discomfort zones of
people and the works at overcoming it which can only be done after acceptance of
vulnerability. Counselling is both the provider of support and truth because it is both neutral
during the presentation of facts and firm when it comes to helping the client accept the truth
of the situation, which is the only way of applying fresher perspectives to overcome
situations that come in the way of a normal lifestyle with a healthy psychological state of
being. It should be effectively utilized during counselling practices spanning across various
kinds of clients with varied grievances, belonging to different age groups.

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References
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