Praxical.Psych
Constructivist & narrative

Narrative Therapy

Identity is constituted by the stories told about a life, dominant problem-saturated stories are shaped by cultural discourses of power, and therapy separates the person from the problem and thickens an alternative story that was always there but went unnoticed.

1980s – presentNTEvidence: Limited evidence
The claim, in one line

The person is not the problem. The problem is the problem.

Who built it

  • Michael White

    1948–2008

    Social worker, Adelaide

    Co-founded narrative therapy; externalising conversations, re-authoring, definitional ceremony, and the application of Foucault’s analysis of power to clinical practice.

    Narrative

  • David Epston

    Family therapist, Auckland

    Co-founder; therapeutic letter writing, and the practice of documenting and circulating alternative stories.

    Narrative

Theory of personality

Narrative therapy takes a post-structuralist position: there is no essential self to be uncovered, only identities constituted in language, in relationship and within cultural discourses. A person’s life contains far more events than any story can hold, so a dominant story is always a selection — and the events it leaves out are the raw material of an alternative.

Theory of psychopathology

There is no pathology, only problem-saturated dominant stories that recruit evidence for themselves and obscure everything inconsistent with them. "I am a failure" is not a distortion to be corrected but a story to be thinned, alongside a competing story to be thickened.

Theory of change

  1. 1Externalise: separate the person from the problem linguistically. "The Anxiety" rather than "your anxiety".
  2. 2Map the problem’s influence on the person’s life and relationships.
  3. 3Map the person’s influence on the problem — where they have resisted it, however slightly.
  4. 4Identify unique outcomes: moments inconsistent with the dominant story.
  5. 5Re-author: thicken the alternative story through detailed questioning across the landscape of action and the landscape of identity.
  6. 6Recruit an audience: witnesses, letters, documents, and definitional ceremonies that make the new story socially real.

Key concepts

The vocabulary you need to read the literature and to be understood in supervision.

Where it sits in the transtheoretical grid

Which change processes the system leans on, and at what level of content it aims.

Change processes emphasised
  • Consciousness raising

    Increasing information about oneself and the problem - feedback, interpretation, education, observation.

  • Self-reevaluation

    Appraising how one thinks and feels about oneself with respect to the problem; values clarification.

  • Social liberation

    Increasing the alternatives available in the social environment; advocacy, empowerment, changing conditions rather than persons.

  • Helping relationship

    Being open and trusting about problems with someone who cares; the relationship as vehicle, and as medicine in its own right.

Content levels targeted
  • Maladaptive cognitions
  • Current interpersonal conflicts
  • Family / systems conflicts
Compare against other systems

Your notes

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Educational use only

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Before you begin

What Praxical.Psych is, and is not

Praxical.Psych is an educational tool. It teaches the theory, evidence base and clinical method of psychotherapy at the level of an advanced survey course, and it lets you rehearse a complete session in a simulator.

It is not medical, clinical, psychological or legal advice. It cannot diagnose or treat anyone, and it does not state the law where you practise — requirements differ by jurisdiction and change. Nothing here creates a clinician–patient or solicitor–client relationship.

  • Every patient, transcript and case in this app is fictional — a composite written for teaching. None depicts a real person.
  • Praxical.Psych is not therapy, not a substitute for supervision, and not a credential. Competence to practise comes from training, supervised hours and licensure.
  • Scores from the instruments here are for learning how they behave. They are not a diagnosis and not a risk assessment, and must not inform a decision about a real person.
  • Do not enter real patient information. Everything you type stays in this browser, but that is not the same as a compliant clinical record system.
If you are in crisis

In the US and Canada, call or text 988. In the UK and Ireland, call 116 123 (Samaritans). Elsewhere, find a local line at findahelpline.com. In immediate danger, use your local emergency number.

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