Raviraj Shetty, a lead Therapist, Supervisor and Project Manager at Ummeed Child Development Center talks about his work using Narrative Psychology. He has published a paper in the Indian Journal of Occupational Therapy in the context of handwriting training using Narrative Therapy.
1. What is Narrative psychology?
Narrative therapy is a respectful and a non-blaming approach of counselling used for children, individuals, families, couples and communities. Narrative therapy is based on the philosophy that people are experts of their own lives. That people have the skills, know-how and understanding about their own lives and ways to manage the problem. It also believes that people are not the problem, but the problem is the problem.
Narrative practice is focused towards separating the person from the problem and defining the problem. It helps in creating a space between the person and the problem, thus creating a non-blaming safe space for the person to reflect and think about how to manage the problem.
2. How does the therapy work? What issues can it help with?
Narrative practices believe that ideas of comparison and effectiveness are some of the root causes of the problems in people’s lives. Hence practitioners and researchers from the Narrative Therapy space often don’t engage in conversation of proving its effectiveness but rather engage in sharing individual stories of people who found it to be useful in their lives. Personally I have found it to be a respectful way of working with people who consult with me and have seen developments in their lives which I could have never imagined of.
Narrative therapy is used in diverse settings and context like:
- Developmental disabilities like ADHD, Autism, Learning disability etc
- Anxiety disorders
- Relational and family distress
- Abuse and violence in any form
- Sexual abuse
- Effects of domestic violence
- Grief, loss and trauma
- Depression and other mental health concerns
- Chronic illness
- Neurological conditions like head injuries
- Drugs and alcohol
- Problem issues in childhood and adolescence
- Work related difficulties
- Organisational & team building
- Building communities
- Support groups
- Supervision
3. What group of patients is it most effective for?
It’s been effective on everyone who has come seeking help. There is no particular client set that benefit more than others with the narrative practices.
4. Can you list a few examples of techniques, exercises or interventions used?
One of the most commonly mentioned practices in Narrative Therapy is ‘Externalising Conversations’. Externalising conversations focuses on shifting the problems outside the person into the context and the dominant discourses. Dominantly people’s identities are labelled as spoiled identities with internalised problems which often leads people to blame themselves and see themselves as passive recipients of the abuse. The externalising ways of conversing helps people to see the problem in the context and thus allows them to respect themselves.
For e.g. often mothers of children with disabilities blame themselves for everything that goes wrong in their child’s life. And thus they never see themselves as having skills and are often experiencing helplessness, hopelessness and distress. But an externalising conversation separates the problem (THE MOTHER BLAME) from the mother and helps them to see that they are not the problem but it is the way mothers have been described dominantly in a patriarchal society. This allows them to see the skills, know-hows and the dreams they have in caring for their children, and their relationships.
In the example used in the published paper, giving a name, character, descriptors to bad handwriting helps separate bad handwriting problem from the child. So the child is not bad. He/she is affected by Mr. Bad Handwriting.
There are other practices like Re-authoring conversations, Re-membering, Outsider Witnessing, Ceremonies, Therapeutic letter writing, Failure conversations and absent but implicit.
5. How is it different from family therapy?
Narrative therapy forms one of the frameworks in the context of family therapy.
6. Who can practice narrative therapy?
Narrative therapy can be practiced by anybody who is in the helping work: community health workers, social workers, youth workers, occupational therapist, physiotherapists, paediatricians, developmental paediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors, physicians, parent advocates, activists, self-advocates etc.
7. How popular is this therapy in India? Is it easily accepted by all cultures?
In in recent years narrative therapy is getting popular in India. It fits in so beautifully within the diverse Indian cultures. Narrative practice draws strengths from the collective ways of thinking, celebrations of togetherness, the idea that identity is not isolated but it’s so much about the social context in the Indian cultures. And thus it gets easily accepted in the diverse cultures in India.
Raviraj Shetty is a mental health worker and an occupational therapist. He is a lead therapist, Supervisor and Project Manager at Ummeed Child Development Center. At Ummeed, he has initiated & facilitates diverse programs like The I’m-perfect Fathers group, The Pen-pal project and The Identity Project along with consulting young children and their families individually. He has also co-founded Happie World, a space for young people with diverse needs to express through arts.
Refer to the publication here:
