> This session, you will be seeing narrative therapy with Stan [assumed spelling] and we'll assume that he's had nine sessions and we're going to primarily be looking at how Stan can rewrite his life story, how the way he's been living his life so far, doesn't mean he has to continue living this way in the future.
[ Pause ]
> You know, we've been together for quite a few sessions now Stan.
> Uh-hum.
> We've been talking a lot about, what term I used, problem-saturated stories, sometimes, you really got into a story that's just laden with problems and you know, I've asked you to kind of see how you're not necessarily just a problem, that you know problems don't always get the best of you. And you know I think what I want to do more in this session is talk about a different kind of story. We've been doing some of that, but if you could almost think of how you would like to rewrite your life story. You've talked quite a bit in the past sessions about the way your story has been.
> Uh-huh. I'm not really sure kind of how to do that [inaudible].
> Yeah, I know. Well, I have an idea.
> Okay.
> You know, books need to be revised often.
> Uh-huh.
> And I have a thought. What if I ask you to kind of think of your life as a book and we're going to revise it, at least you'll revise it. I asked you come up with a different, let's say, chapter title.
> Yeah. Nothing really--I don't know. It doesn't really--
> Well, how about--
> I'm not really coming up with anything.
> Okay, how about the title of your book? If you had to give your life a title so far, what would your title of the book say?
> Yeah, I don't know, it doesn't really--I'm just blanking for whatever reason. It doesn't really kind of connect with me. I don't know--
> So, maybe this is a stretch to ask you to think about.
> Yeah, I don't know, I don't really think in those terms.
> You don't.
> No.
> So, you don't think in terms of book revisions.
> No.
> As it applies to your life. You've talked some about your being in construction, so maybe we can use that kind of metaphor. You told me you've remodeled houses.
> Yeah, uh-huh.
> Okay, is that any different than building a house from scratch?
> Yeah. It's a lot diff--I mean, to remodel a house, you don't tear the whole house down to remodel it. You keep, you know, a lot of the structures there, you just kind of change things around a little bit.
> Okay.
> Make things better, you fix what's might not be broken or you fix what might be broken.
> Okay. Well, how about using that for a time, how about if you're--
> Okay, I think--
> Going to remodel your--
> Yeah, I could try that.
> Yeah, you could remodel your life. Okay, what would you want to remodel, what rooms would you want to change?
> Oh that's okay. Well, I mean, I think I've already started on some of the stuff, but I think about the floor, the found--like, you know, having a firmer foundation to stand on would be, that would be good.
> Yeah.
> That would be good.
> So, the foundation would be firmer.
> Yeah.
> And the floor would be--
> Feel more solid, yeah.
> More solid, more support.
> Right.
> What other rooms would you want to change?
> Well, I think that maybe fix the roof a bit.
> Uh-hum.
> Fix the roof a bit, got some leaks up here I think occasionally.
> Leak?
> Yeah.
> Uh-huh.
> Some bad stuff leaks in. I'd like to kind of maybe show that up a bit.
> Okay, so what would that roof look like if you would have remodeled it?
> It would just be nothing fancy. It would just be, you know, functional, like it would give me, you know, when the storms come, I'm not going to get wet.
> Okay, so it serves its purpose.
> Yeah, exactly, like I could count on it. I wouldn't be worried about where the next leak was going to come.
> Right, any other parts of your house that you would want to restructure?
> Ha-ha, I also want the plumbing better. Maybe I could use a little paint job maybe.
> Uh-hum.
> Kind of make it look a little newer, a little more taken care of.
> Uh-hum and how would that fit for your life?
> Well, I think I'm starting to do some exercise and to kind of I think coming here helps that too, to kind of looking at myself and seeing, you know, what things I can do to succeed.
> Right. Now, when you work on a house on a remodeling job, do you actually have a plan before you go in?
> Generally, yes.
> So, you have a pretty good plan on what you want to do and how you're going to do it and you have some drawings and you know how you would like it to look?
> Right. Yeah, you know, want to find out how much it's going to cost to get all the materials together and have them all there, so you're not running back and forth all the time.
> Uh-hum, yeah.
> Doing double work.
> I wonder if you could apply that to your life too.
> Yeah.
> Having a plan for how you'd like to have a different life, different life story.
> Yeah, that sounds good.
> Uh-hum.
> I haven't started that, but I kind of have some ideas.
> Well, maybe just say a few things about some things you'd like to change about your life story.
> Well, I think, one of the key things is I would really, I want to kind of coast things out with my ex-wife.
> Uh-hum.
> And feel good--be able to feel good about where I stand with her and where we are even though we're divorced and we're not going to get back together. I would still like to be able to feel good about where we stand with each other and I think maybe talking with her about some of the stuff I'm learning here with you would help.
> Okay, that's an important one.
> Yeah.
> Another one?
> Felling more--feeling generally more confident especially in school and with women, asking women out, being able to be okay if they say no and not be crushed by it.
> Uh-hum, yeah. And are there any other ways you'd like to alter your life story, like if you--
> I like to have a better relationship with my parents.
> Okay.
> I don't know how that one is going to work out, but it'd be nice to be able to go to Thanksgiving dinner and not feel under the gun.
> Uh-hum, yeah. So, if we go on with this more, but I'm wondering now even in the sessions we've had, have you made any of those changes in having a different kind of life than you had when you started?
> Yes.
> You have?
> I think especially around the confidence area. I mean, I feel even just being able to talk to you now is different than whenever we first started I feel like I can kind of just speak openly and not have to worry so much about what you're going to think or how it's going to turn out.
> Right. You know, sometimes I think it helps to have an audience out there.
> Uh-huh.
> That can support us, particularly to get a life story to take root, you know.
> Sure.
> A new life story. Who in your life out there could support you? Who would be least surprised by your changes?
> Well, I think the person would be the least surprised is, I had a high school math teacher who really for whatever reason really encouraged me to you know, go to school and thought that could do well. I don't think that she would be too surprised that I'm moving in that direction now.
> Yeah, so maybe you could think more of what you want to tell her and have conversations with her about your changes. And what do you think she would say to you about the changes in your life?
> I think she would just keep encouraging me to tell me, you know, good job, keep going, keep going, don't stop.
> Yeah.
> Yeah, yeah.
> So, it's possible to rewrite your life story in some ways. So, I hope you will give it more thought to that about particularly the notion that you could redesign your life and your future much like you remodel a house. You know, I'd like to give you a piece of feedbacks then. I suggest that an exercise of thinking about your life as a book and revising the book and revising your life and somehow it didn't fit for you.
> Sorry about that, I tried, it just didn't work for me, yeah.
> But that wasn't a problem with you, maybe it was just more my exercise didn't fit, but what I liked about that is that is that you didn't just try to go along with it and please me. You said, this doesn't seem to fit, which is new. That's different and you didn't take--
> Thank you.
> The blame for it. You didn't say, well, I'm not a good client because I didn't go along with your exercise.
> Huh, yeah, I didn't think about that.
> Yeah, well, those are important differences that I'm noticing, so I'll be looking forward to seeing those blueprints.
> Okay.
[ Pause ]
> In this narrative therapy session, you've seen how Stan is really looking at alternative stories and other ways of describing his life other than problem saturated life stories. When he first came in, he was so wedded to his problems that he couldn't see anything other than he was his problem. And I think as Stan progressed in narrative therapy our conversations began to take a different form and he was no longer dominated by some of these different problems. Now, I had one technique that I thought was an interesting one, but it didn't quite materialize. I wanted Stan to think about creating a vision of a different kind of like story, so I proposed as you heard the idea, if you're going to revise a book, what chapters would you revise, what would be the title of the chapters. And also, what's the title of your book if you had a title for a life story and somehow that just didn't seem to click with Stan. What I think was important and I wanted to recognize it is that Stan didn't just go along with it. He said, this doesn't seem to fit, and I think that registers growth. So, it occurred to me that Stan in under construction work and part of his work is remodeling houses, so if that technique didn't work another exercise might be. If you wanted to think about your life and rewriting your life story, why don't you think about remodeling a house, what rooms would you want to change. And what I liked about that in particular was that Stan said, you know, I don't have to tear the whole house down. He can just reshape certain parts of the house like the flooring and I was particularly taken by the roof, you know, that there were a lot of leaks coming in and he could patch that up. So, I think part of what narrative therapy is about and we were trying to demonstrate here is how you can get clients to think about a new vision of their lives and how to recruit somebody outside who would support those changes. And Stan came up with a, you know, a teacher who would really be a rallying force for him to continue in a positive direction he is moving.