Publication details
From Stories of Experts to Expertise on Storytelling
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2006 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Over the last decade, narrative and story in psychotherapy became a major interest for many practitioners and researchers from various disciplines. Diverse range of both narrative ideas and interventions enriched all the existing individual psychotherapies and also family therapy field. Enthusiastic proponents of narrative therapy, the seemingly novel psychotherapy approach, drew attention of many psychotherapists to client narratives and story reconstruction as important vehicles of positive change. Stories dominating a client’s life and his/her relationships, which developed around an intractable problem, became a central focus of narrative-informed psychotherapy. In family therapy, narrating the experience and multiple perspectives of family members may enhance the understanding and reflection upon different meanings of behaviour of a person with mental illness. Unlike the prevailing trend of categorization and medicalisation in mental health that sustains a monological ways of treatment, the narrative approach, particularly when based on social constructionist perspective, may promote the dialogical interaction and collaboration between the therapist and a client or a family. The presentation consists of two parts. First, some starting points from systemic family therapy and narrative approach are overviewed. Second, the integration of narrative approach to certain family therapy concept is demonstrated in a case study. The main objective is to validate the usefulness of such integration for clinical work with an individual or a family, whose member is diagnosed with a mental illness. Significant perspective, the individual/family experience of the therapy process, is part of the study. The presentation was supported by the grant No.406/06/0035 GA CR. |