{"id":681,"date":"2023-02-14T09:56:03","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T06:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.netosdimitris.gr\/2023\/02\/14\/viewing-and-dealing-with-trauma-from-the-perspective-of-narrative-therapy\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T13:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T10:10:15","slug":"viewing-and-dealing-with-trauma-from-the-perspective-of-narrative-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/netosdimitris.gr\/en\/viewing-and-dealing-with-trauma-from-the-perspective-of-narrative-therapy\/","title":{"rendered":"Viewing and dealing with trauma from the perspective of narrative therapy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Trauma, Narrative Therapy, Addressing<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n

In the current era, amidst increased mobilization and awareness regarding mental health, it is quite common for individuals to approach a psychologist or mental health professional to discuss a traumatic event or incident they have experienced or are still experiencing in their lives, along with its various negative consequences. Most often, they feel that these events have disconnected them from their sense of self, leading to feelings of emptiness, despair, and isolation, and fostering a state of helplessness and powerlessness to react and continue their lives in the ways they desire. Furthermore, the aforementioned situation is often accompanied by feelings of shame regarding the traumatic event and a tendency for the individual to internalize responsibility. Frequent exposure to such narratives served as the impetus for writing this article, aiming to clarify certain issues concerning trauma and how narrative therapy understands and examines it. <\/p>\n\n

Initially, to engage with the ideas of narrative therapy, it would be helpful to provide a \u201cdefinition\u201d of what narrative therapy considers trauma. The answer to this question is simple. For narrative therapy, there is no \u201cmap\u201d or blueprint of traumatic experiences or situations; instead, it deals exclusively with the individual’s personal experience, as they perceive and live it under specific circumstances. Trauma, therefore, is understood as any negative event or situation to which an individual has been exposed or has experienced, and which they feel deprives them of their sense of connection to the ways they wish to live their life and exist in the world. In other words, trauma shrinks the individual’s territory of life, which the founder of narrative therapy, Michael White, considered to be the individual’s sense of identity-self. This shrinkage in the individual’s territory of life is responsible for the aforementioned negative feelings of emptiness, despair, and isolation. The greater this shrinkage, the greater the negative impact on individuals’ lives. Thus, the goal of the narrative therapist is to help the individual regain and reconnect with their preferred ways of existing in this world and living their life, and therefore with their preferred sense of identity and self (White, 2004). Having clarified the \u201cdefinition\u201d and the goal of therapeutic conversations, we can now proceed to mention some key principles of narrative therapy and practice.<\/strong> Trauma, in essence, constricts the individual’s territory of life, which the founder of narrative therapy, Michael White, regarded as the individual’s sense of identity and self. This constriction in the individual’s territory of life is responsible for the aforementioned negative feelings of emptiness, despair, and isolation. The greater this constriction, the more severe the negative impacts on individuals’ lives. Thus, the narrative therapist’s goal is the re-acquisition and reconnection of the individual with their preferred ways of existing in this world and living their life, and consequently, with their preferred sense of identity and self (White, 2004). Having clarified the “definition” and the goal of therapeutic conversations, we can now proceed to outline some key principles of narrative therapy and practice. <\/p>\n\n

The two principles I will refer to today are: The first principle is that: No one is a passive recipient of their trauma<\/strong>, and the second principle is that: The ways in which people respond to trauma or traumatic events are based on their values<\/strong> (White, 2004). <\/p>\n\n

No one is a passive recipient of their trauma. <\/strong>All people, regardless of the degree, frequency, or even type of traumatic event they have been exposed to and experienced, have reacted in some way. This idea is the cornerstone for viewing trauma from the perspective of narrative therapy and practice. This reaction may seem quite small at first glance to people, such as when an individual who has been a victim of sexual abuse remembers closing their eyes tightly during the act by the perpetrator. However, these small acts prove to be of immense importance because they signify the individual’s resistance to the traumatic event and begin to illuminate an alternative narrative away from the story of trauma’s omnipotence in people’s lives and its negative effects. Questions such as \u201cWhat did you do at that moment? How did you react to what was happening to you? How exactly did you do it? What does this reaction say about you and what you value in your life?\u201d have proven particularly helpful in beginning to illuminate an alternative story away from the dominant, and often restrictive, narrative that trauma brings into people’s lives (Yuen, 2007).<\/p>\n\n

As can be easily inferred from the last question of the previous paragraph, \u201cWhat does this reaction say about you and what you value in your life?\u201d, we move on to the second fundamental principle of narrative therapy regarding trauma, which is that: the ways in which people respond to trauma or traumatic events are based on their values.<\/strong> All people react to traumatic events in ways that are consistent with the values they cherish and have chosen for their lives. For example, let’s assume for the purposes of this article that we have a child who is systematically subjected to physical abuse by peers at school (bullying). Through the therapeutic process, it is inferred that this child reacts to these incidents by clenching their hands every time their peers approach and harass them. Ultimately, it emerges that this way of reacting is connected to something else that is important to this child: the value of non-harm and not exercising physical violence under any circumstances. The emergence of this value, in turn, helps reconnect the individual with it and gradually regain their \u201cdamaged\u201d or \u201clost\u201d sense of identity, as the individual realizes that they are not a passive recipient of the traumatic event, which helps them focus on their own actions of resistance to it and the values these actions protected. <\/p>\n\n

In the aforementioned ways, the individual can re-signify their interpretation of trauma, moving away from the dominant pathological narrative of trauma’s omnipotence in their life, which promotes a discourse of weakness, disconnection, and futility among people. Instead, the individual focuses on their ways of reacting to it, as well as on the personal stories, meanings, and values that lie behind these ways, thus contributing to the individual’s reconnection with their preferred ways of being in the world, with their dreams, desires, hopes, and intentions (Yuen, 2007; White, 2004). <\/p>\n\n

Bibliography <\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

White, M. (2004). Working with People Who Are Suffering the Consequences of Multiple Trauma: A Narrative Perspective<\/em>, 1<\/em>, 46\u201350. <\/p>\n\n

Yuen , A. (2007). Discovering Children’s Responses to Trauma: a Response-Based Narrative Practice<\/em>, 4<\/em>, 4\u201316. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the current era, amidst increased mobilization and awareness regarding mental health, it is quite common for individuals to approach a psychologist or mental health professional to discuss a traumatic event or incident they have experienced or are still experiencing in their lives, along with its various negative consequences. Most often, they feel that these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[33,28,34],"class_list":["post-681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-abuse","tag-narrative-therapy","tag-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/netosdimitris.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/netosdimitris.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/netosdimitris.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/netosdimitris.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/netosdimitris.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/netosdimitris.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":683,"href":"https:\/\/netosdimitris.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions\/683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/netosdimitris.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/netosdimitris.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/netosdimitris.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/netosdimitris.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}