How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching Families | Page 173

Punctuation:
“The selective description of a transaction in accordance with a therapist’s goals”. Therefore, it is
verbalizing appropriate behaviour when it happens.
Rules:
Expectations that govern the system on many levels. Can be covert or overt. Good rules maintain stability
while allowing some adaptive changes; rigid ones block even modest attempts to adapt. A therapeutic task is
to make the covert rules overt.

Criticisms of Narrative Therapy
To date, there have been several formal criticisms of Narrative Therapy over what are viewed as its
theoretical and methodological inconsistencies, among various other concerns.
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Narrative therapy has been criticised as holding to a social constructionist belief that there are no
absolute truths, but only socially sanctioned points of view, and that Narrative therapists therefore
privilege their client's concerns over and above "dominating" cultural narratives.



Several critics have posed concerns that Narrative Therapy has made gurus of its leaders,
particularly in the light that its leading proponents tend to be overly harsh about most other kinds of
therapy. Others have criticized Narrative Therapy for failing to acknowledge that the individual
Narrative therapist may bring personal opinions and biases into the therapy session.



Narrative therapy is also criticized for the lack of clinical and empirical studies to validate its many
claims. Etchison & Kleist (2000) state that Narrative Therapy's focus on qualitative outcomes is not
congruent with larger quantitative research and findings which the majority of respected empirical
studies employ today. This has led to a lack of research material which can support its claims of
efficacy.

See also
Theoretical foundations
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Constructivist epistemology
Feminism
Hermeneutics
Postmodernism
Poststructuralism

Related types of therapy
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Family therapy
Response based therapy
Solution focused brief therapy

Other related concepts
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Dialogical self
Lucid dream
Questioning

Brief therapy

References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

White, M. & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York: WW Norton.
White, M. (2007). Maps of narrative practice. NY: W.W. Norton.
Dulwich Centre, 1997, 2000
Winslade, John & Monk, Gerald. (2000) Narrative Mediation: A New Approach to Conflict
Resolution. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 0-7879-4192-1
(Lewis & Chesire, 1998)
(Nylund and Tilsen, 2006).
Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends; Maps of Narrative Practice; White, M. (2000). Reflections on
Narrative Practice Adelaide, South Australia: Dulwich Centre Publications
White, M. (2005). Narrative practice and exotic lives: Resurrecting diversity in everyday life.
Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. pp 15.

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