Applying Narrative Therapy to Family Counseling: Narrative Family Therapy

This study explains narrative family therapy, which is considered one of the postmodern approaches. The change experienced with the transition from modernism to postmodernism has also shown itself in the field of psychology. Psychological counseling approaches have undergone numerous changes and developments from Freud to the present day. Psychological counseling practices that started with the individual have evolved towards a direction where family members are included in the counseling process with the recognition of the importance of the family in the individual’s life. Narrative therapy emerged as a product of postmodern approaches. One of the important developments in the field of family therapy at the end of the 1980s was the application of Narrative Therapy to family counseling. Narrative therapy emerged as the third wave in family therapy with the contributions of various therapists and research. The strengths of Narrative Therapy are that it emphasizes the individual’s life, includes social and cultural differences, and does not have a diagnostic approach. Narrative therapy’s techniques of using questions, externalization, letters and re-storying are also techniques used in family therapy practices. Narrative therapy is a highly applicable model that helps families understand existing problems and find solutions to them, as well as allowing work in other areas such as the individual and the community.