Introduction: Narrative in psychotherapy: The emerging metaphor

Abstract

For the last decade a new metaphor has been progressively, but securely, penetrating the domains of academic and professional psychology. The "narrative" metaphor began to be widely diffused in books, journal articles, and conference papers.Even though some ancient roots of the narrative metaphor can be traced back (c.f., Polkinghorne, 1988), we are indebted to Theodore Sarbin (1986) for introducing narrative as the alternative "root metaphor" for psychology. It is interesting to note that Sarbin acknowledged the centrality of narrative on both his academic and clinical life:In my teaching of abnormal psychology, I had found it more useful to report on and analyze life histories, that is, stories about concrete individuals, than to overview the experiments done on nameless, faceless subjects, the results of which were expressed as probabilities. Further, in my role as clinician, I could not carry out my work unless I located the clients and their significant others in a narrative plot (p. IX-X).Sarbin's statement introduces two themes that are going to be central in the development of the narrative metaphor: narrative as a way of understanding human experience and narrative as a clinical tool. After decades of separation, some academics and practitioners are finally finding a common metaphor for understanding and promoting human change.Jerome Bruner ( 1986) is credited for claiming that human beings need to be understood as creators of meanings, and that narrative thought is the process by which this meaning is originated, developed, and changed. Language, in general, and narrative, in particular, finally were accessing the status of psychological phenomena in its own right. Harré and Gillet (1994, p. 26) referred to this movement as the "second cognitive revolution" to illustrate the idea that the "subject is discursive in that he or she uses symbols whose meaning is a function of their use in discourse."Psychotherapy was not only affected by the narrative movement but became a central vehicle for the diffusion of the narrative metaphor. Clinicians soon realized that narrative

Mindfulness‐based Narrative Therapy for Depression in Cancer Patients

“…Self‐narratives (narratives about oneself) can become problematic when they restrict cognitive and affective diversity, thereby limiting behavioral possibilities. For instance, depressive clients often organize their self‐narratives around themes of loss, helplessness, and hopelessness, preventing other possible themes from being constructed (Machado & Gonçalves, ; Ribeiro, Bento, Salgado, Stiles, & Gonçalves, ). Therapy can be construed as a process of “story repair” in which problematic self‐narratives are reconstructed to become more coherent, complex, and inclusive (Avdi & Georgaca, , ).…”

The patient's Voice in a Problem-Based Learning Case

“…Machado and Goncalves see narrative as 'a way of understanding human experience and as a clinical tool', and posit narrative as a common ground for academics and clinicians to understand and promote change. 15 We assert that, in addition, narrative can be used as a teaching tool, and that medical educators can also take advantage of this. Narratives have an authenticity and credibility that an academic textbook cannot impart.…”

Autobiographical memory narratives in treatment for bulimia nervosa

“…However, Boritz and colleagues did not investigate possible client factors that might contribute to this difference in therapy process. Indeed based on theory and research on the role of attachment in narrative-emotional integration, one candidate for such a client difference might be attachment patterns (Gini, Oppenheim, & Sagi Schwartz, 2007;Holmes, 1999;Main, 2000;Oppenheim & Waters, 1995).…”