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Don Browning contends that most of the modern psychotherapeutic psychologies have a particular religio-ethical culture.  He defines the term ‘culture’ as a ‘system of symbols and norms which guides a society or group by providing general images of the nature of the world, the purpose of life, and at least some of the basic principles by which life should be lived’.

Select one of psychotherapeutic approaches covered in the course, outline its basic theory, and then proceed to describe what you conceive its religio-ethical culture to be.  

        The choice of the narrative therapy as the psychotherapeutic approach to be discussed in this essay may seem rather odd given the task of discovering the religio-culture within it.  The narrative therapy, after all, makes definite claims for its objective to set individuals free from the social constructs.  In this sense, its ethico-religious culture does not appear existent at all.  In its postmodernist attitude, this form of therapy attempts to escape the reigns of the culture and not to deliver another one.  It presupposes that ethical identities are nothing but socially designed and imposed narratives and it tries to release its patients from them.  It strives to achieve this through the process of deconstructing the clients’ problems and letting go of anything that emerges as the socially created matter.  It uses various techniques of narratives, externalizing conversations, mapping the influences of the problems, creating communities of concern, and finally discovering the unique outcomes as the basis for reconstructing, or re-authoring the patients’ life.  This form of therapy is the co-exploration of the patient’s reality in order to bring out to life his or her hidden potential suppressed by the socially created and imposed narratives.  To search for the religio-ethical culture seems, then, rather futile since it is that that the narrative therapy aspires to expose and cut off.  For the narrative therapy an autonomously functioning individual does not exist.  The problems that patients come to the therapy with do not represent the internally originated complexes but constitute the result of the external factors.  They are the products of civilization.  Patients are not the ones to carry the blame.  Ironically, then, the ethical culture of this “culture escaping” therapy seems to be the belief in the sociality of the entire existence making the individuals, in consequence, free from experiencing responsibility as the potential sources of their “problems.”

        The field of psychotherapy is remarkably rich in numerous attitudes to the human nature.  Wampold distinguishes over 250 psychotherapeutic approaches, some of them described in more than 10,000 books. [1]   All the techniques develop out of sincere compassion to alleviate the human suffering and to bring harmony back into the patients’ lives.  They do differ, however, in terms of belonging to the certain type of the psychological “culture.”  Browning categorizes psychotherapeutic approaches according to their inherent system of values and principles that enable its adherents to perceive life in one way rather than the other.  He regards Freud’s tradition, for instance, as the culture of detachment whereas Jung’s one as that of joy. [2]

         Narrative therapy represents merely one of the ways to better understand the human predicament and help the entangled in it “victims” to cope with it.  It too, according to Browning’s theory of “cultures”, operates within the range of certain psychological tendencies that shape those who follow it in their approach to the nature of human life.  Or does it?

        Analyzing the concepts and theories of the narrative therapy it seems hard to discern a form of “culture” within which it might function.  It aspires, after all, to separate the individuals from any identity shaping bonds that they might experience with the concepts imposed on them from the outside.  Its ambition is to release the patients of the externally created “norms that guide the societies and groups”, something that Browning’s “cultures”, according to their definition, are meant to provide.  The narrative approach teaches the “relativeness” of life phenomena where so-called “norms” do not intrinsically exist.  The narrative approach takes pride in having the courage to break the “norms” and expose their falseness.  It would seemingly appear, then, that its “culture” is the defiance against any form of culture.  To see how precisely this might may be it seems necessary to look a bit closer at some of its major concepts.

        The narrative therapy originated from the work of Michael White and David Epston. [3]   Its bases itself on the idea that human lives are shaped around the stories and narratives that the societies and groups generate in order to give meaning to their experiences.  Those stories, Monk explains, determine the kind of experiences that individuals choose to acknowledge and express. [4]   Foucalt, one of the major influences on the development of the narrative therapy thought, demonstrates how the society constructs the “true” modes of thinking and acting, the “true” narratives, and how the individuals feel largely compelled to act according to them. [5]

        Narrative therapy sides with the postmodernist philosophy that questions such “true” facts of the existence and taken for granted manners of being and action. [6]   White identifies this form of approach as poststructuralist or non-structuralist understanding of self and identity.  He argues that most of the therapies of the present days display the structuralist attitude toward their clients’ life making assumptions about it according to whatever modes of behaviour play the dominant, and hence “normal”, role.  White’s goal in his narrative therapy is to openly question those ingrained motives of “norms” and show that they represent nothing but the artificial product of social conventions. [7]

        According to the poststructuralist, and narrative also, approach, the identity of self as the autonomous being does not exist.  It functions solely as the creation of the public identity creation process.  This process is marked by the numerous stories, or narratives, that the society “emanates” shaping and molding the individual’s sense of relation to it and to the world around them. [8] This form of considering the self as nothing but the product of civilization does not represent the attitude shared only by the narrative therapists.  A large number of scientists, anthropologists, psychologists as well as sociologists regard the culture as the extremely powerful force that dictates the modes of behaviour and standars of thinking.  The stories, or “discourses”, [9] that cultures generate about what the things are and how they should be embody an important factor in people’s lives.  As McLeod explains, they place individuals in the temporal and spatial context, which gives them meaning. [10]   However, they do not leave much room for the independent self to realize his or her own individual identity.  Some researchers claim that such a room for the core self to emerge does not exist at all.  “There is no alternative port of entry to life than through some culture.” [11]   There seems to be no other option for us who are born into a specific society but to adopt its ways.

          The “press” of culture is such that the average individual is stamped

          with ways of perceiving, thinking, and acting which are characteristic of his

          society and predictable. [12]

The society, the narrative therapists believe, hands us the “cultural scripts” [13] the day we appear in this world and we unknowingly conform oblivious to the nature within.  Some even say we never possess the inherent identity to begin with.  According to Kantor, there is no such a thing as the original nature and personality denotes merely a process of developing the already existing in the society reactions systems. [14]   Marx stated it clearly as well,  

          The essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual.

          In its actuality it is the ensemble of social relationships. [15]

        The effect of this belief looks rather gloomy.  The humans, the “mind injured” [16] victims of the civilization, we find ourselves forever locked into the prescribed and unpredictable sets of responses, expressions, aesthetic tastes, ideas about life, and concepts regarding what constitutes the psycho-mental “norms.” [17]   

        It is precisely here that the narrative therapy enters to free us.  It strongly believes that the society secures the individuals into the fixed and routine modes of being.  However, it reaches to unlock the culture’s clutch by making the patients aware that the majority of the problems they feel they have stem from the socially impressed conceptions of “norms” and “problems”.  Narrative therapists seek to liberate their clients of these so-called “problems” by exposing them as culturally own. 

        They attempt to achieve this through the process called “deconstruction”.  First, they wishes to make the patients begin to reflect on themselves outside of the social conceptions of what is wrong, or abnormal, and what is right.  The deconstruction of the problem involves the persistent exploration of the story around it to discover any unspoken and taken for granted assumptions and social influences imbued to it. [18]   By listening to the problem narrative the therapist deals with the whole culture speaking to him or her through the patient and it takes a keen mind to separate the two.  The therapist does this by engaging in the “externalizing” conversations where the source of the problem is the problem itself and never the client.  If, for instance, the client feels inadequate in marriage, the psychotherapist addresses the notion of inadequacy in itself and tries to locate its origin within the culturally created standards for adequacy.  At the same time, he or she maps the range of influences that the problem has on the patient. [19]

        Once the deconstruction process begins, the narrative therapist begins to ask “landscape-of-action” questions looking for clues within the patient’s story that have the potential of originating the reconstruction, or re-authoring process. [20]   These are called the “unique outcomes”, the parts of the narrative that reveal the patient’s inner potential, built-in strengths and virtues.  According to the narrative therapy theory, a human being is never a still entity.  Even “microscopical shifts in thinking or behavior” [21] may become the seed for the potential new identity narrative.  After separating the social influences on the self-image, it is around those “sparkling” moments that the client’s new life narrative is reconstructed.

        Having understood some of the basic methods and theories in the narrative therapy, Browning’s assumption that all psychotherapies manifest themselves through the specific religio-ethical “culture” seems not to apply here.  How, after all, can one demand the recognition of the sets of norms that guide the narrative therapists’ environment if the very premise of their philosophy is the detachment from such commitments?

        Maybe, perhaps, the notion of the sociality of human beings itself, as they assume it, represents the narrative therapy’s “culture” that dictates further its ethical views?  Given no other alternative competing for the title of the religio-ethical “culture” moves forward, here it is officially stated that this is precisely the case.  The narrative therapists in their desperate flight from the socially created routines of perceiving life must undeniably assume, which they, of course, do, that the human existence and the emerging psychological problems have nothing to do with the patients’ inner distortions but originate solely in the civilization and its artificially created expectations of what is “normal”.  The “culture” that the narrative therapy, then, establishes itself as is, quite ironically, the culture of sociality. 

        The narrative therapists function in the “culture” of assumed sociality of the human existence based on several factors.  First, they insist on separating the problems from their patients.  McLeod categorizes their approach such as externalizing conversations as postpsychology where the problem to be cured does not dwell within the patient’s psyche but in his or her relation with the society. [22]   Secondly, despite its persistent search for the autonomous being with inner strength and the resources, the narrative therapy insists on the importance of the affirming audience, or communities of concern in the identity reconstruction phase of the therapy.  The friends of the patients, for instance, are asked to write the support letters with counter-stories to the one that constitutes the problem. [23]   Additionally, in order to facilitate the client’s departure from the previously maintained identity, the narrative therapist creates the third party audience to witness and affirm the emergence of the new one. [24]   The discovery of the authenticity, states Behan, represents in this form of therapy a communal effort and, ironically, the effect of the social process. [25]

        This assumption of sociality in the narrative psychotherapy purges the patients’ minds of the large amount of the ethical responsibility they otherwise feel for the problems affecting their mental condition.  The therapists release them of the necessity to feel any shame, guilt, or self-criticism about the variety of issues that plague their lives.  The clients coming to seek help within the paradigm of the narrative therapy learn to recognize a lot of who they think they are, expect, and fear as merely a phantom imposed on them by the society to believe and accept.  From the very beginning of the first session, the therapists treat them not as social misfits or losers but as preys to the predator-civilization and, what is more, as heroes of their own life script; carriers of the great and untapped “hidden expertise.” [26]   The “method” that the practitioners use to reinforce the patients’ sense of authority over their own lives is the so-called “deliberate ignorance” [27] .  According to its principles, this practice involves the therapist not engaging in any technical jargon and him or her not expressing the professional knowledge of psychotherapy so that the clients’ own resourcefulness can manifest.  Patients are even welcomed to name their own ailments [28] and attend the “history sharing” meetings. [29]   Their unique insights are completely accepted and even encouraged.

        In conclusion, the narrative therapy represents undeniably a different approach to the psychotherapeutic practice.  Unlike other traditions and systems it does not seem to easily fall into the category of one of those psychotherapies that definitely have a certain religio-ethical “culture”.  The examination of its theories and principles reveals that the very premise on which the narrative therapy bases itself is the need to detach from any externally created dogmas, stereotypes, modes of belief and action.  It strongly believes that there exists no such a thing as the psychological problem that has not been created or at least reinforced by the society the patient lives in.  The culture of the present day, as of any day, forms the assumptions of “norms” and “abnormalities” that have no autonomous and inherent to life validity outside of its influence range.  The narrative therapists target those culturally produced elements and dispose of them as suppressive.  For them no such things as “norms” ever exist.  In such circumstances to establish the “culture” within which the narrative therapy might operate appears absurd.  However, as the essay demonstrated, the very concept of sociality of life and human identity becomes the pursued “culture.”  According to this form of the philosophy of sociality, no human being can feel responsible for the emergence of psychological symptoms that he or she perceives as the problem.  The narrative therapy considers the civilization as the producer and the director of these so-called “problems” and unburdens, as a result, the patient’s mind of guilt or shame.  The “culture” of sociality, contrary to what its name’s associations might be, promotes the emergence and growth of the individual as the pure entity deprived of any externally generated influences.  Its recognition of the sociality of human existence leads to the renewed verve to bring out its uniqueness and distinctiveness.  The acknowledgement of the demon enables the revealing of the beauty within.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Barnouw, V., Culture and Personality, The Dorsey Press, Inc., Homewood, Illinois, 1963

Browning, D., Religious Thought and the Modern Psychologies, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1987

Goodman, M. E., The Individual and Culture, The Dorsey Press, Homewood, Illinois, 1967

Holland, R., Self and Social Context, The MacMillan Press Ltd., London, 1977

Kantor, J. R., Cultural Psychology, The Principia Press, Chicago, 1982

Laudin, H., Victims of Culture, Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, Columbus, 1973

Ed. By Lieblich, A. et al., Healing Plots; The Narrative Basis of Psychotherapy, American Psychological Association, Washington, 2004

Monk, G. et al., Narrative Therapy in Practice, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, 1997

Ed. By Strong, T. and Pare, D., Furthering Talk; Advances in the Discursive Therapies, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 2004

Wampold, B. E., The Great Psychotherapy Debate; Models, Methods, and Findings, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, London, 2001

Gecko, vol. 2, Dulwich Centre Publications, Adelaide, 1999

Also consulted:

Frank, J. D., Psychotherapy and the Human Predicament; A Psychosocial Approach, Schocken Books, New York, 1978

Ed. by Morgan, A., Once Upon a Time…Narrative Therapy with Children and their Families, Dulwich Centre Publications, Adelaide, 1999