Thoughts on Narrative Therapy

Narrative ideas intrigue me because within them, I see a push to identify my values and agendas as a therapist. When I share my understanding and the lens through which I have obtained it, a boundary falls between me and the person in my office. There is still a power difference and we are also just a little bit closer to being 2 people in a room having a conversation about creating a better story for them to embody.

The idea of the Absent but Implicit seems at once simple and also complex to me. It is a big part of Narrative Therapy. People often discuss their values in contradictory ways. Within these contradictory ideas, there lies implications about where a person stands within their experience. For example, if I talk about my fear for family members becoming sick, the Absent but Implicit idea being communicated could be I value my family’s health. We all experience conflicting ideas, when we communicate with each other through the lens of the Absent but Implicit, maybe we can notice shared fears that actually represent our shared values. By adding details to create rich descriptions of our experiences the Absent but Implicit can be made more clear.

I changed the expression of the Absent but Implicit to Being Absent and Implicit for this project. The but within Absent but Implicit, immediately makes me think about qualifying or justifying my expression. I changed the wording because when I express ideas like fear that suggest an unsaid implicit value of safety, it feels active and ongoing for me. In morphing the expression, with the addition of being as well as and dropping the but, the idea seems more present, active, and allowed.