Narrative Therapy is a postmodern approach to therapy developed by Michael White and David Epston (Madigan, 2011; Nichols, 2010). This model of therapy can be used to give voice to the story of adolescents (Dickerson & Zimmerman, 1993). Adolescence is typically divided into three stages: early (11-13 years), middle (14-18 years) and late (19-21 years) (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2008). The stories about adolescents are often narrated by parents, and the more subjugated these stories are, the less room they leave for adolescents to develop stories for themselves. Adolescents demonstrate their rejection of the subjugated stories told about them through acting out. Through the medium of acting out, adolescents want to learn how to make their own choices and take care of their lives (Dickerson & Zimmerman, 1993) because of their increasing need for more independence and flexibility in their family.
The process of voice giving
The process of giving voice to the stories of adolescents comprises two phases: deconstruction and restorying (Dickerson & Zimmerman, 1993). Unique outcome is essential to the deconstruction process and it is the first step towards giving voice to the stories of adolescents. It identifies events, actions, thoughts, and experiences that do not fit into the problem story told by parents (Dickerson & Zimmerman, 1993). Unique outcomes generally serve as entry points to adolescents’’ alternative stories. As these conversations proceed, therapists build a scaffold around the emerging subordinate story. The unique outcomes are plotted into an alternative story line about adolescents’ lived experience. Therapists will generate questions to produce, locate, and bring to light the alternative stories (Madigan, 2011) that make more sense of adolescents’ stories of unique outcomes.
Deconstruction of problem story
Deconstruction of the problem story told by parents is the first step in the process of giving voice to the stories of adolescents (Dickerson & Zimmerman, 1993). Identifying unique outcomes play a vital role in the deconstruction of the problem stories. Deconstruction helps adolescents to unpack their stories or see them from different perspectives, so that how they have been made up become visible (Gehart & Tuttle, 2003). Deconstruction often encourages adolescents to situate their narratives in broader contexts, such as personal background, family traditions, or social history, and then allows them to recognize the influence of these contexts on their current life story (Gehart & Tuttle, 2003). The next step in the deconstruction process is to externalize the problem or help adolescents see their problems as things that are outside of them. In other words, the problem is seeing as a personality living outside of adolescents. Externalization affords adolescents the ability to look past the restraints that made their story stagnant and help them to identify the previously neglected aspects of their lived experience and thus provide a platform for alternative stories (Madigan, 2011). The process of deconstruction creates the context by which adolescents alternative stories are highlighted.
Restorying
The second step in giving voice to the story of adolescents is restorying (Dickerson & Zimmerman, 1993). Restorying involves bringing forth and making meaning of the unique outcomes. Restorying invites adolescents to link the events of their lives in sequences through time-according to a theme or a specific plot. It is through the telling of their story that adolescents are assisted by the therapist to identify the more neglected events of their lives in narrative therapy as unique outcomes (Madigan, 2011). Adolescents are then encouraged to capture these unique outcomes into alternative story lines referred to as restorying.
We hope the process of deconstruction and restorying will help you to better able to work with adolescents and bring to light their alternative stories.
