Narrative Play Therapy

Theory and Practice

Aideen Taylor de Taylor de Faoite

• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780857003331
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Narrative Play Therapy is a highly effective play-based psychological intervention that enables therapists to help children communicate difficult experiences and complex emotions through co-constructed stories. This is the definitive guide to the approach, offering both a coherent theoretical outline and a clear explanation of its practical applications.

Beginning with detailed accounts of the theory and history that has shaped the approach, this book provides necessary background knowledge for the successful application of Narrative Play Therapy. It looks at different client circumstances, including children experiencing adoption, parental separation or abuse, and demonstrates how the approach can be used in practice to support each client group therapeutically. The professional expertise of leading practitioners in the field is brought together to present a comprehensive framework for Narrative Play Therapy drawn from theory, understanding and practice.

This is an essential resource for students of play therapy, play therapy practitioners, and all other professionals working with children therapeutically.

PART I

Theory and Background

Chapter 1

An Introduction to Social Construction and Narrative Theories

Aideen Taylor de Faoite and Ann Marie John

Introduction

This chapter aims to set Narrative Play Therapy in the context of post-modern and social constructionist thought. We will explore the foundations of the philosophy on which social constructionist thinking was built and make reference to the different ways it has influenced thinking in therapy and research. We will trace how the premise has been interpreted by family therapists and psychotherapy in general.

The issue of power is central to social constructionist thinking in the context of therapy research and philosophy. As our journey through the theory will take us to various landscapes; they all have in common the theme of power. Power is a common path that takes us from Foucault’s concept of the influence of social discourse to the mutual influence of therapist and child making a story together. For the sake of beginning our journey with a good map we will begin with some of the early terminology and the basic philosophical ideas that are embedded in the theory.

Foundations

Narrative Play Therapy has developed in the context of a new paradigm of psychotherapy which is often described as ‘post modern’. The term post modern has been used in different contexts: art, theatre, research and psychotherapy but fundamentally in philosophy. The modern aspect refers to the scientific Age of the Enlightenment, sometimes called the Age of Reason. At this time the scientific method was developed and, of course, Darwinism, which led ultimately to the questioning of God as the creator and regulator of nature. Descartes’ system, often referred to as ‘Cartesian dualism’, suggested that there was a metaphysical relationship between mind and body that allowed us to take an observer position in our observation of the natural world. Post-modern and constructionist thinkers questioned this ability to separate the observer from the self (Descartes 1983). Van Foerster’s (1981) studies into the natural word demonstrated that perception is not an act where the object presents itself to the senses but where the brain constructs images of objects based on past experience. This had a fundamental impact on thinking about the philosophy of knowledge and how we come to know things. The idea that knowing or experiencing something is an objective process was challenged. This development in theoretical thinking was referred to as constructivism. Social constructionism takes this further in suggesting that the way we know things is not only constructed by our brain but by the social contexts in which we operate. The creation of knowledge then is socially constructed by social processes. The philosophy of knowledge inevitably leads us to thinking about the development of social constructionist research.

Social constructionist research

At the time one of the authors (AMJ) was at college the term ‘social sciences’ was popular as sociology struggled to replicate the scientific method to attain the ‘credibility’ of the traditional sciences. It emerged that the process of measuring within these sciences did not fit with trying to understand social phenomena and sociology began to develop its own methods. Memorable studies such as the exciting participant observation study of drug taking that Jock Young carried out in the 1960s began this process of developing new methods of research, suitable to the study of social phenomena (Young 1971). The approach in these studies recognised that the achievement of objectivity was neither possible nor desirable when studying the social world. One could not be purely an observer in any context because one’s experience colours one’s view of what one is seeing. Later this critique of social research was extended to a critique of the natural sciences. For example Jungk (1958) researched the ethical position and personal accounts of the workers involved with the splitting of the first atom. His work begs the question of how the notion of objectivity allowed scientists to split the atom despite the potential consequences.

‘What has all this to do with Narrative Play Therapy?’, you may well ask. Allow me one more reference from my past and all will be revealed. Thomas Kuhn questioned the whole idea of science ‘as set in stone’, suggesting that scientific theory develops in cycles. He gives as his main example the story of Copernicus, who was persecuted for suggesting that the planets move around the sun. Kuhn (1962) suggests that science changes as new evidence emerges to disprove previous theories. This led to Karl Popper’s (1959) work paving the way for the null hypothesis: theories cannot be proved, only disproved, and that good science should be the process of trying to disprove one’s hypothesis, for if one tries to do so and fails one can find some credence in the original idea. These examples of critique of the notion of western science are included as they are an important element in the development of social constructionist thinking.

Deconstruction of research and knowledge is very important in social constructionist thought. The knowledge created is only one story. This deconstruction tells us a great deal about the processes by which the knowledge is created. Controlled trials, for example, show us that a medicine or treatment works, but they do not tell us how it works, how the people experiencing the treatment feel or what they understand about how it works, or how they feel about the treatment. The research method one uses determines the kind of knowledge one produces. Social constructionist research favours a hermeneutic approach where layers of meaning are uncovered in a reflexive loop like a double helix. The researcher, of course, is part of the layers of meaning and the research process moves between researcher and research participant. A researcher would therefore make no attempt to be objective as this is neither positive nor desirable. This has implications for the choices we make in researching Narrative Play Therapy and indeed for the position we take as therapists.

The impact of a critique of the manner in which knowledge is created, and what is considered to be ‘true’, leads to further critiques, determining who has the power to create knowledge and to sanction what is regarded as ‘true or useful’, and who is to be regarded as expert in that knowledge.

Philosophy and therapy as ‘confession’

Philosopher Michel Foucault (1975) took the idea that knowledge is socially constructed further by suggesting that some groups in any society have the power to decide what kind of knowledge is valuable and who is qualified to disseminate such knowledge. He termed the ideas created by powerful groups in society as ‘social discourses’. Foucault refers to the most powerful ideas as dominant discourses. Conventional medical discourses are much more powerful than those of, say, homeopathy and are an example of a dominant discourse. Others have suggested that the construction of ideas or discourses is intentionally directed in order to subjugate (Gramsci 1971). In Foucault’s view social discourses are inevitable because they are the stories of more powerful groups in society. Foucault was particularly interested in the process of professionalisation and how the role of an expert in medicine, for example, discounted the knowledge that a patient might have about getting well, in favour of their own expertise. Foucault also refers to the discourses concerning psychotherapy as pertaining to confession and disputes the idea that the key to psychological recovery lies in revisiting the past to disclose a trauma that needs to be cathartically reworked. This development is key in understanding the processes in Narrative Play Therapy, as the process to recovery in this model is through co-construction of more satisfactory stories.

Kenneth Gergen (1992) and Lynn Hoffman (1992) began to apply these ideas to thinking about family therapy. We now refer to this as a social constructionist approach. A social constructionist approach to therapy acknowledges that problems are socially constructed, in other words, people come to therapy with stories about a problem and referrers may have similar or different stories about the problems. Key to this is that discourses are often created around a problem that involves blaming the clients. The essence of working within a social constructionist frame is that the process of therapy is a process of finding a story that fits the family rather than one that fits with the therapist. Michael White’s (White and Epston 1990) work on narrative therapy is key in that he suggests that families often come with ‘problem saturated stories’ rather than stories of resilience. The process of narrative therapy is therefore to uncover new stories or to co-construct with the therapist non-blaming stories. The issue of power is central to narrative therapy because the client is considered to have expertise rather than be in a ‘one down’ position (a situation whereby both client and therapist behave in a way that assumes the therapist is the expert and therefore has more power in terms of ‘prescribing’ a solution).

Social construction stance

Gergen, in his Invitation to Social Construction (2009), identified five assumptions that form the backbone of social constructionism. These are as follows:

1.The way in which we understand the world is not required by ‘what there is’. We use language to construct a range of concepts that explain our experiences. ‘There is nothing about “what there is” that demands these particular accounts’ (Gergen 2009, p.5). He goes on to suggest that there is ‘no truth – words that truly map the world’ (p.5). We have lots of different ways of talking about our experiences with different possible outcomes. Traditional truths can become some of the possible ways of talking and as such these don’t have to be abandoned but can be seen as options instead.

2.The ways in which we describe and explain the world are the outcomes of relationship. We understand and describe our experiences in the context of the relationships we have experienced in the past, the present and into the future. Think of the question ‘How are you?’ The respondent will reply to this question in different ways depending on the context of the relationship. For example, if it is a nurse or a doctor who is asking the question following surgery, your response to this may include a consideration of the physical pain you are experiencing, your feelings about successfulness of the operation, etc. This same question asked by a therapist, shop assistant or a family member will be responded to in a different way, depending on the relationship and when the question is asked in the context of the relationship.

3.Constructions gain their significance from their social utility. We interact with each other in a relatively co-ordinated way and follow a rough set of conventions of what is acceptable or not. It is socially useful for children to interact with their teacher in a certain predictable fashion. How children interact with their teacher will be different depending on the cultural construction of the role of teacher but the roles that both child and teacher take are relatively consistent across that culture, whether it is the culture of the school or the wider social and political environment in which the child lives.

4.As we describe and explain, so do we fashion our future. The language we use is bound up in our relationships and this in turn has a wider impact on our practice. Consider a recession with all the associated cutbacks. These can be described as devastating for a society and be blamed on a group or groups within that society. This can lead to a ‘them and us’ mentality, social derision and chaos. Alternatively a recession can be described as a time of change, a time to reflect on the environment that one wishes to create and cutbacks can be described as the changing landscape of this environment. The choice of language, the descriptions and the explanations offered impact on the future.

5.A reflection on our taken-for-granted worlds is vital to our future well-being. This challenges the social constructionist to reflect on what is taken for granted, to begin to listen to alternatives and to grapple with comparing multiple perspectives. It requires the person to question what is known and to see traditional values and truths as one of the multiple options to be considered.

These five assumptions influence the stance taken by the social constructionist. In the practice of therapy, these influence the role of the therapist, challenging him or her to consider taken for granted knowledge and also challenging the client’s perception of the role of the therapist in facilitating change. Clients may come to therapy with an understanding of a professional relationship, into which they have come with a problem or an i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Of Related Interest
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Part I: Theory and Background
• Part II: Narrative Play Therapy Practice
• Afterword
• The Contributors
• Subject Index
• Author Index