Thickening the Narrative: A Definition

I have borrowed the terminology from Narrative Therapy, a discipline that centers the stories people tell about themselves, and facilitates seeking new stories when the old stories no longer serve them.

Narrative therapists are interested in working with people to bring forth and thicken stories that do not support or sustain problems. As people begin to inhabit and live out the alternative stories, the results are beyond solving problems. Within the new stories, people live out new self images, new possibilities for relationships and new futures. To be freed from the influence of problematic stories, it is not enough to simply re-author an alternative story.

A “thick” story is one that is one that is complex, one that looks at the world around the individual and asks, “what are all the things that impact this person’s actions and ways of being?” When I talk about thickening the narrative I want to study cultural norms that a society presumes to abide by; and clashes that make society interesting, complex, difficult for some people to navigate. I want to look into spaces where you wouldn’t think of to explore your family roots (like somatics, neuroscience and mythology). I want to look the growing literature of nonwhite narratives and histories that add to our knowledge.

As I build this resource, I invite you to think of what other forces act upon our family stories.

Prompt: What atypical source are you interested in exploring, or has been useful already to you?