The Children's Group Therapy Association: Newsletter

Having led groups using more traditional approaches, we have often found that although participants have benefited from their group experience, they often find themselves experiencing setbacks unless they receive continued group support. We began to think that one of the reasons for this is that the participants were seeing the leaders as the "experts" rather than themselves as "agents of change."

In using a narrative approach, we externalize the problem to help them to see themselves in relationship to the problem, rather than looking at the problem as part of their personality. In doing this, we create distance between the person and their problem, helping them to view it more objectively. This separateness removes from the person the guilt and shame which often accompany the problem without relieving the person of the responsibility for his or her actions. This externalization gives the problem a "personality" of its own, with its own ways of coercing, harassing, etc. and its own agenda of what it would want for the person's life. By having the group members see the problem from this vantage point, they can then begin to see themselves in a relationship with the problem. As in any relationship, they can choose to oppose the control the relationship currently has over them by negotiating, compromising or often choosing to refuse to allow the problem to influence them to act in ways which they would prefer not to act.

The group dynamic enhances the narrative model by providing support from others who also find themselves in undesirable relations with a similar problem; as well as by providing an audience to witness their changing relationship with the problem and to encourage and support them in the development of their preferred relationship with the problem. The group provides a setting where they can be inspired and encouraged by the success of others who share ways in which living their preferred relationship with the problem has positively impacted their life and self esteem, and how it has opened up new possibilities for their life that were not previously believed to be possible.

In feedback we have received from group members, we have found that using the narrative model has helped group members notice their own abilities and strengths, and to believe that they can be in control of their relationship with the problem. Seeing themselves as the agents of change within the relationship, they leave the group with a belief that they can continue to define not only their relationship with this problem, but with others as well.