Ask Gail About Coherent Narrative Therapy

After listening to a lecture or reading and article about Coherent Narrative Therapy, or as you are attempting to practice it, you are welcome to submit a question you might have and Gail will post the question, (anonymously if you wish), as well as an answer, here. You will be emailed a notice when it has been posted.

Q: "My client is taking forever to tell their story, we've been at it for weeks! Should I cut it off?" —David T, LCSW

A: "If you are only going to meet a client one time, as a stand-alone intervention, it is, of course, essential to keep them tightly on track, moving through the highlights of the decades of their life, (what stands out). If not, the time it takes can be dependent upon the length of the life lived, and the telling style of the client, (detailed, or broad). You want to keep returning them to the story if they jump around, but for a client with a disorganized life/mind, or one who has dissociated through much of their young lives and who therefore remembers little, the creation of the coherent narrative is the work...and can take months. Just be sure to keep connecting everything you learn to the presenting problem.”

Q: “My client’s Earliest Most Defining Thing was when they were a teen, and I didn’t see the connection to the presenting problem”. —Karen D, LCSW

A: “Something that happened in adolescence does not qualify as ‘earliest’! The character is formed in the first five years of emotional learning. There may have been a significant or traumatic event in their teens, but how they coped with it was predicted by what happened earlier on. If a client offers a later experience, like this, ask them to go earlier, and then you can eventually connect how the later one went, to that.”