| Narrative Therapy views the problems people face as residing within a larger cultural context shaped by media, professional disciplines and institutions that wield power. This not only has determining effects on what we perceive as normal, but provide the lenses through which we see ourselves and each other. Michel Foucault makes the case that modern power operates in a way that is insidious. Within the conditions of modern power, institutionalized ‘truths’ are internalized in ways that make us self-regulating. We become at once the victims and producers of a narrow range of controlled behaviors that fit within the bounds of what is sanctioned as normal. We must practice self-esteem, get our anger out, learn proper communication, learn to grieve, forgive, trust and achieve intimacy, all while maintaining proper boundaries. In Narrative practice, the therapist works to help people separate from these kinds of internalized ‘truths.’ Through deconstructing conversations people arrive at clearer intentions for their lives. This is not to say that conventional wisdom is dismissed out of hand. A critique of modern power is not a wholesale rejection. Rather, these and other ‘truths’ are put back into circulation and seen for what they once were; ideas and metaphors, rather than “what everybody knows” (Kenneth Gergen). |
