Episode 16: Telling Your Preferred Story (The Benefits of Narrative Therapy)

In this episode,

Lizzie explores narrative therapy, externalizing, and learning how to identify the story you want to tell.

Listen now

Listen on Spotify

Post-pod questions to consider

What is an area of your life that involves a problem story? What would you prefer this story to look like? How does your preferred story reflect your values?

Episode Transcript

Hey, you're listening to The Midnight Philosopher with Lizzie. Thanks for tuning in. 

Today, I'm going to talk about telling your preferred story. So a preferred story is a concept and a type of therapy which is called narrative therapy. And narrative therapy is rooted in the concepts that you are not a problem, but you have relationships to a problem. And that society or authority or someone else has told a certain story about you, but that's not necessarily necessarily the story you want to live by. You get to tell your preferred story, and a narrative therapist will help you ask will help ask you the right questions to get you there. 

I have a certificate in narrative therapy, and I have a lot of practice asking people questions to help them open up about their preferred stories. And this is really helpful in my professional life, but it can also be helpful in my personal life with my friends and stuff. Not that I'm therapizing my friends, but it is nice for someone to ask you about your beliefs. 

So it's really hard, actually, to ask myself these questions, though. Sometimes I try to journal about it and talk to myself about these questions, but one area of my life that I needed to practice telling my own preferred story is my relationship to my weight. I'm overweight, and I'm on a lot of medications that cause weight gain. And it's unfortunate that society tells me the story that I should feel bad about myself because of that and that I'm somehow lesser because of my weight. 

So, uh, I'm going to give you an example of what a narrative therapy session might sound like. I'm gonna play both the client and the therapist. So when I'm asking questions, I'm playing myself as a therapist, and when I'm responding, I'm playing myself as a client. And I want you to be on the lookout for the types of questions I ask. And I'll explain a little bit more about them after the role play. 

What brings you into session today?

I feel bad about my body. 

That sounds tough. Where do you think that belief about your body came from? 

I think as a kid, I always watched these commercials with really skinny women and just thought that was the way I was supposed to look. 

It sounds like the outside influence of the commercials you watched as a kid influenced the way you view yourself now. Did I get that right? 

Yeah. 

Okay. And if you could tell this outside influence anything, what would you say to it? 

I'd tell it to leave me alone. 

And are there times when you feel like this outside influence is smaller? 

Yeah, I feel like it's smaller when I'm having fun or feeling comfortable with people.

 And when you're having fun or feeling comfortable with people, does this outside influence leave you alone entirely? 

No, not really entirely, but it definitely leaves me lone alone a lot more. 

That makes sense. And if this outside influence had a name, what would you call it? 

I'd call it society's messed up gaze. 

Does the messed up gaze feel helpful to you? 

No, not really, it's really mean. 

Are there times in your life when maybe you're having fun or feeling comfortable around others? Or other times when you feel that the presence of there's another feeling there besides the messed up gaze?

Yeah, sometimes I feel content. 

And when does this contentedness show up? 

It shows up when I realize I like my body and how much space it takes up in the world. 

And if you could give this experience name, what would you call it? 

I'd call it taking up space in a way that feels good to me. 

I see. So sometimes the messed up gaze is present, and sometimes taking up space is present. Is that correct? 

Yes. 

Okay, I'm gonna end the session there. So this is Lizzie the podcaster again, but that role play could have gone on so much longer. You know, most sessions are 45 minutes, but I just wanted to give you a little bit of a flavor of what a narrative therapy session about telling your preferred story might sound like. 

So, in that scenario, I was asking myself questions that were led by my curiosity. And you might have noticed that I was asking questions using this technique called externalizing. Externalizing is taking the problem outside of the person. So you have a relationship to a problem, you are not the problem. So, for example, in that role play I just did with myself, naming the problem - such as the messed up gaze or taking up space - is a way,  is a way to separate it from yourself. 

Externalizing can go even further than that. It can be visualizing. What what do you visualize when you see the messed up gaze? What does the messed up gaze look like? You know, I could go on to explain how the messed up gaze has, like, wires coming out of it and it's sharp and spirally, you know. And everyone's messed up gaze might look different, but that's how I would describe it and that is a way to externalize. 

So, in addition to externalizing, I asked questions about the origin of what's called the problem story. The problem story in this case is that my weight is an issue. So I asked about the origin of this problem story. Where did it start? Why? How? You know? And that get that got me to talk about the commercials I saw as a kid. 

And then once you ask enough questions about the problem story, then you can ask what's called an exception. And this question is, well, when is the problem story smaller? Or when is the problem story not there entirely? And that exception helps pivot from the problem story to the preferred story. So then this, when I asked myself that question in that example, it allowed me to create a preferred story, which was that I like my body because it takes up space in the world. 

So, imagine that you have a gumball machine and there's a bunch of red gumballs in there and there's some yellow gumballs. The red gumballs are your problem story. You've only been taught to look at those red gumballs. It doesn't matter that there's yellow gumballs in the machine. To you, you're only seeing those red gumballs. You're only seeing your problem story. And it's by asking questions about your beliefs and where that problem came from and is that problem not there. That helps you shift and be able to see those yellow gumballs, which are your preferred story. Both stories exist in the same bowl or dish or, you know, gumball machine. It's just trying to find out and highlight those yellow gumballs, your preferred story, instead of the red gumballs, the problem story. 

And you might be asking yourself, how can you get to your preferred story and how can you help someone else find their preferred story? 
And it's all about asking questions that are sparked by your curiosity. Become the most curious person you know and wonder why and what and how. And when you have a belief, question yourself. Why do I believe this? Is it truly coming from me, or is someone imposing this belief on me? Is it a belief that is helping me, or is it causing me harm? 

There's a lot of moments in your life and finding your preferred story is often linked to your values and what you cared about and what you care about. So, for example, if I were to go on further with my preferred story is taking up space, then as a therapist, I might ask, what is it you value or care about when you take up when taking up when taking up space is present? What is something you value? What is something that you care about when taking up spaces present? I know I just repeated it, but it's really important because those values and beliefs are really what drive your preferred story. So everyone has a preferred story, and you deserve to live by it. 

So in this episode, I talked about using a narrative therapy technique to discover your preferred story. I then kind of walked through what a small session with a client might sound like when I played both the therapist and the client, and then I talked about how your preferred story is really linked to your beliefs. So it's important to think about where your beliefs come from. And what's important to you? And what do you value? And what would you prefer to believe instead? 

Thanks so much for listening to my podcast. I'm going to go think about my own values and beliefs now. Follow me on Instagram at theMidnightPhilosopher. Have a good night.