"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Narrative Therapy provides a comfortable model in which to do counselling. The underlying belief is that our lives is a compilation of stories. People sometimes feel “stuck” in a problem-saturated story. However, people also have many preferred stories in which they feel loved, accomplished, respected, acknowledged, and inspired to touch the stars. Using this approach, David Denborough of the Dulwich Centre Foundation developed a Charter of Story-Telling Rights that we believe is key to providing ethical and compassionate services at Larose Counselling Services.
Article 1: Everyone has the right to define their experiences and problems in their own words and terms.
Article 2: Everyone has the right for their life to be understood in the context of what they have been through and in the context of their relationship with others.
Article 3: Everyone has the right to invite others who are important to them to be involved in the process of reclaiming their life from the effects of a problem (e.g., trauma/injustice).
Article 4: Everyone has the right to be free from having problems located inside them, internally, as if there is some deficit in them and/or their identity. The person is not the problem, the problem is the problem, and the solution is not only personal.
Article 5: Everyone has the right for their responses to the problem to be acknowledged. No one is a passive recipient of the problem they are suffering. People always respond. People always protest against a problem.
Article 6: Everyone has the right to have their skills and knowledges of survival respected, honoured and acknowledged.
Article 7: Everyone has the right to know and experience that what they have learned through hardship can make a contribution to others in similar situations.
We would like to acknowledge the works and efforts made by so many colleagues around the world to legitimize, build, teach, and sustain the practice of Narrative Therapy, Social Constructivism, and Brief Solution Focused Therapy. For additional information, please visit the following sites:
Dulwich Centre
www.dulwichcentre.com.au
Narrative Therapy Initiative
http://www.narrativetherapyinitiative.org
The Halifax Brief Therapy Centre
http://www.hbtc.ca
What are strength-based practices (SBP)?
- SBP assess the inherent strengths of a person and/or family, then builds on them;
- SBP use people’s personal strengths to aid in recovery and growth;
- SBP find the good even in the worst situations;
- SBP avoid the use of stigmatizing language or terminology which families use on themselves and eventually identify with, accept, and feel helpless to change;
- SBP foster hope by focusing on what is or has been historically successful for the person, thereby exposing precedent successes as the groundwork for realistic expectations;
- SBP inventory (often for the first time in the person's experience) the positive building blocks that already exist in his/her environment that can serve as the foundation for growth and change;
- SBP reduce the power and authority barriers between the person and therapist by promoting the person to the level of expert in regards to what has worked, what does not work, and what might work in their situation;
- SBP reduce the power and authority barriers between person and therapist by placing the therapist in the role of witness or guide;
- Families are more invested in any process where they feel they are an integral part.