Novice Counselor's blog

The integration of expressive arts, narrative, and symbolism with counseling and psychotherapy theory is fundamental to the effective use of these approaches. Inclusion of integrative approaches in counseling enhances the therapeutic milieu and in turn fosters sound theoretical practice.(Capuzzi and Gross, 2007);

An integrative approach combining Narrative integration with Adlerian theory will be used in the case of a client who presents with issues of chronic depression. The client is a 46-year old white male who is currently unemployed and separated from his wife.

The narrative approaches will involve writing by the client in the form of poetry, and storytelling. Narratives will be used to make sense of the client’s seemingly disordered inner and outer life. The narratives will facilitate the growth of the client through a reauthoring of his perception of his life.

Narrative therapy is based on the belief that if clients label a dysfunction, they begin to accept the problem as an integrated part of who they are, not an inherent characteristic. By using narratives with the client, the client will begin to see that his depression is a temporal state and not a characteristic of his personality. This will empower him to change his life narrative.
Another belief about narrative therapy is that therapeutic change occurs when the client accepts his role as an author of his life and begins to create a life narrative that is congruent with his hopes, dreams, and aspirations. It is the role of the counselor to empower the client to accept responsibility for authoring his life (Capuzzi and Gross, 2007).

Combining the narrative approach with Adlerian theory means that the counselor will help the client share his life narrative and then look for themes centered on the life tasks of work, friendship, and love. The therapist may for example ask the client to write a poem about love, ask him to share three adjectives about his work, and tell a story about friendship.

McAdams, (2001) asserts that people living in modern societies provide their lives with unity and purpose by constructing internalized and evolving narratives of the self. Today, psychologists investigate stories of individual lives, stories of intimate relationships, and family stories, and they are
newly sensitized to the power of societal myths and cultural narratives in shaping human behavior
in social contexts. Life stories are based on biographical facts, but they go considerably beyond the facts as people selectively appropriate aspects of their experience and imaginatively construe both past and future to construct stories that make sense to them and to their audiences, that vivify and integrate life and make it more or less meaningful. Life stories are psychosocial constructions, coauthored by the person himself or herself and the cultural context within which that person’s life is embedded and given meaning. As such, individual life stories reflect cultural values and norms, including assumptions about
gender, race, and class. Life stories are intelligible within a particular cultural frame, and yet they also differentiate one person from the next.

References:

Capuzzi, D., Gross, D. R. (2007). Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN: 0131987372.

McAdams, D. P., (2001); The Psychology of Life Stories; Review of General Psychology. Vol. 5. No. 2, 100-122