Narrative Therapy: Making Meaning, Making Lives

369 Pages·2007·1.783 MB·English

by  Catrina Brown, Tod Augusta-Scott

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NARRATIVE
THERAPY
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NARRATIVE
THERAPY
Making Meaning,
Making Lives
Catrina Brown
Dalhousie University
Tod Augusta-Scott
Bridges-A Domestic Violence, Counseling,
Research, and Training Institute
Editors
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Copyright © 2007 by Sage Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by
any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher.
For information:
Sage Publications, Inc.
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E-mail: [email protected]
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Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Narrative Therapy: Making Meaning, Making Lives/[editied by] Cartina Brown,
Tod Augusta-Scott.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-4129-0987-2 (cloth)—ISBN 1-4129-0988-0 (pbk.)
1. Narrative therapy. I. Brown, Cartina. II. Augusta-Scott, Tod.
RC489.S74N42 2007
616.89′165—dc22 2006008435
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
06 07 08 09 10 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Acquiring Editor: Kassie Graves
Editorial Assistant: Veronica Novak
Production Editor: Beth A. Bernstein
Copy Editor: Carla Freeman
Typesetter: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd.
Indexer: Rick Hurd
Cover Designer: Candice Harman
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Postmodernism, Reflexivity, and Narrative Therapy ix
Catrina Brown and Tod Augusta-Scott
Part I: Writing in the Social
1. Situating Knowledge and Power in the Therapeutic Alliance 3
Catrina Brown
2. Re-Storying Women’s Depression:
A Material-Discursive Approach 23
Michelle N. Lafrance and Janet M. Stoppard
3. The Blinding Power of Genetics: Manufacturing and
Privatizing Stories of Eating Disorders 39
Karin Jasper
4. A Poetics of Resistance: Compassionate Practice in
Substance Misuse Therapy 59
Colin James Sanders
5. Practicing Psychiatry Through a Narrative Lens: Working
With Children, Youth, and Families 77
Normand Carrey
Part II: Self-Surveillance: Normalizing Practices of Self
6. Discipline and Desire: Regulating the Body/Self 105
Catrina Brown
7. Watching the Other Watch: A Social Location of Problems 133
Stephen Madigan
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8. Internalized Homophobia: Lessons From the Mobius Strip 151
Glenda M. Russell
Part III: Challenging Essentialism
9. Dethroning the Suppressed Voice: Unpacking
Experience as Story 177
Catrina Brown
10. Conversations With Men About Women’s Violence:
Ending Men’s Violence by Challenging Gender Essentialism 197
Tod Augusta-Scott
11. Challenging Essentialist Anti-Oppressive Discourse:
Uniting Against Racism and Sexism 211
Tod Augusta-Scott
Part IV: Re-Authoring Preferred Identities
12. Movement of Identities: A Map for Therapeutic
Conversations About Trauma 229
Jim Duvall and Laura Béres
13. Letters From Prison: Re-Authoring Identity With
Men Who Have Perpetrated Sexual Violence 251
Tod Augusta-Scott
14. Talking Body Talk: Merging Feminist
and Narrative Approaches to Practice 269
Catrina Brown
Index 303
About the Editors 321
About the Contributors 323
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Acknowledgments
W
e would like to thank all of the contributing authors in this project
for their thoughtful work. We also appreciate all that we have
learned and continue to learn from our clients.
I (Catrina) want to thank Sarah Larsen, Shauna Melanson, and Elizabeth
Stephen for the child care and support they offered during the work on this
book. I want to acknowledge Zoe for her willingness to relinquish her
mummy, however ambivalently, to this project. Special thanks to Tod for
our many engaging conversations. Tod’s graciousness, generosity, and flexi-
bility allowed for the tremendous ease with which we were able to work
together. Finally, I am thankful to my parents, who both demonstrated and
encouraged thoughtful critical engagement with the world.
I (Tod) want to thank the many readers who reviewed my work for this
project. Specifically, I appreciate the thoughtful feedback of Chris Augusta-
Scott, Tionda Cain, Alan Jenkins, and Penny Moore. I especially want to
thank Catrina for inspiring me with her intellect, rigor, and bravery, with
which she disrupts dominant discourses.
I also want to extend my appreciation for those who have worked with
Bridges, a domestic violence counseling, research, and training institute.
Specifically, I want to extend my appreciation to my colleagues Marilee
Burwash-Brennan, Art Fisher, and Sara Lamb, for their creativity and inno-
vations in developing narrative ideas and practices in our work. Finally,
I want to express my sincere gratitude to the volunteer board of directors at
Bridges: Blanchard Atkinson, Dan Criss, Jeff Hunt, Nathalie Jamieson, Eric
Johnson, Mark Scales, and Debbie Walker, for their vision and courage to
support narrative ideas and practices in the field of domestic violence.
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Introduction
Postmodernism, Reflexivity, and
Narrative Therapy
Catrina Brown and Tod Augusta-Scott
R
ooted in social constructionism and emerging initially from family ther-
apy, narrative therapy emphasizes the idea that we live storied lives
(White, 1995). Within this approach, we seek to make sense of our lives and
experiences by ascribing meaning through stories, which themselves arise
within social conversations and culturally available discourses. From this
view, our stories do not simply represent us or mirror lived events—they
constitute us, shaping our lives and our relationships. The narrative
metaphor conveys the idea that stories organize, structure, and give meaning
to events in our lives and help us make sense of our experiences. Stories are
transmitted largely through socially mediated language and social interac-
tion within specific cultural and historical contexts. The meanings that we
attach to events are thus never singular, individual, or simply subjective,
never outside the social, but have shared or intersubjective meaning within
a cultural nexus of power and knowledge.
Influenced by feminist, postmodern, and critical theory, this book con-
tributes to the field of narrative therapy by offering a critical discussion
of the often unexamined epistemological contradictions evident in therapeu-
tic work that remains, however ambivalently, positioned in modernism.
Michael White’s (1995, 2000a, 2000b, 2001; White & Epston, 1990) view
that stories must not only be told and retold, but reconstructed, has shaped
our approach to narrative therapy. A creator of narrative therapy, White
(1994) isclear that there are no neutral stories. Not only are there no neutral
stories, there is no neutral hearing of stories. He advocates a therapeutic
ix