Narrative Therapy

"I haven't read its predecessor, but I found this second edition to provide a sound and comprehensive introduction to the practice and foundations of narrative therapy, suitable for counsellors and clinical psychologists alike. What I particularly liked about this book was where it differed from other introductory texts on narrative therapy.

For example, it adheres unusually closely to the work of Michael White, the founder of the approach, replicating his concern with linguistic precision, and consequently rewards the reader with an account of the approach that is both thorough and undiluted. However, whilst undoubtedly broadly endorsing White's approach, Payne maintains a critical stance, taking issue with some of White's ideas and avoiding the proselytising tone of some narrative therapy writing.

I liked Payne's tentativeness in applying narrative therapy techniques too, and his concern for acknowledging and taking seriously people's "problem-saturated" stories, rather than launching too prematurely (and perhaps unempathically) into alternative stories. He includes with disarming honesty transcripts of sessions that have not gone well, as well as the more customary success stories, both of which enrich a sometimes deeply academic book.

I also enjoyed the narrative running throughout of Payne's own gradual exploration and adoption of this approach, following a professional socialisation within the person-centred tradition, with that approach's fundamentally different ideas about therapy in general and the self in particular. The post-structuralist and social-constructionist philosophies which are such major influences on narrative therapy, mark a radical departure from "mainstream", modernist psychological therapies, and there is an excellent and thought-provoking chapter on the profound implications of this for many of the assumptions of therapy culture.

This book is unsettling and inspiring in equal measure; to be recommended to all those interested in the practice and implications of this most intriguing, non-pathologising, politically-aware and hopeful approach to therapy.

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~ Written on 2006-09-02