There are numerous modalities and therapies to help individuals face grief and loss in a healthy way. Most psychotherapies share equal positive results in helping individuals deal with anxiety, grief, or other mental problems. In the case of depression, as well as prolonged grief disorders, they also share in efficacy but many counselors prefer integrated approaches sharing from one discipline and incorporated another. One type of therapy that many grief counselors find effective for grief and loss is Narrative Therapy. While Narrative Therapy may not be for everyone, nor the sole answer, it can play a part in helping individuals understand their loss in a more constructive and adaptive way.
Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification Program and see if it meets your academic and professional goals.
What is Narrative Therapy?
Narrative Therapy is a type of constructivist therapy with postmodern philosophies developed by Michael Kingsley White and David Epston (Tan, 2022). According to Tan, postmodernism is a world view that truth is not objective or tied to merely observation or within the systems of language in which is described and hence is open to subjective experience (2022). Social Constructionism applies this principle that the client is the expert on what one experiences and understands one’s own subjective truth best without judgement of others (Tan, 2022). Narrative Therapy falls under this type of philosophy, albeit, many of its techniques can be applied outside its rigid definitions.
Narrative Therapy is closely tied to meaning making and in that regards in some ways to Existentialist Therapy and the importance of finding subjective meaning to one’s issues. Meaning is then created through social relationships, especially in one’s use of language in stories or narratives one shares. Due to this, meaning and subjective reality can be rewritten or reframe or re-understood by the client through Narrative Therapy (Tan, 2022). Narrative Therapy views human nature as basically positive and able to form new and better constructive directions through formulating healthier meanings about the past and present. This is especially true regarding grief, trauma and loss. Narrative Therapy opens the door for others to rewrite the story and replace past narratives that are saturated in negative and oppressive overtones.
Narrative Therapy finds many of its uses in David Neimeyer and his work utilizing meaning making and meaning reconstruction in grief counseling and loss.
Narrative Therapy at Work
A strong therapeutic relationship between client and counselor is required in Narrative Therapy. It borrows this from many Rogerian concepts that utilize empathy and understanding and a true connection. This type of connection is key in any type of grief counseling regardless of therapy and should be a fundamental concept for any one hoping to console the bereaved. Due to the fluid nature of grief, Narrative Therapy does not propose a guide book of handling grief or emphasizing one technique over another. It instead teaches that there is no true right or wrong way to conduct the therapy again applying to Rogerian person centered theories, as well as its social constructivist ideals (Tan, 2022).
Still, there are tools that are generally applied to individuals to help them move beyond their oppressive past narratives. The attempt is to better understand the past or loss or whatever narrative, reframe it with new meaning, and incorporate it into the overall life of the person. Much like any meaning reconstruction, where a person’s life is a likened to a book with various chapters, some good, some bad, but all delivering a theme and message of the wholeness of the person.
First, question is key in Narrative Therapy. The therapist or grief counselor will ask a variety of questions to help assist the person in understanding oneself. The attempt is to help identify past oppressive narratives and to help the person become unstuck from those perceptions. The second tool is externalization and deconstruction. In this, the therapist hopes to help the person realize that he or she is not the problem, but the problem is the problem (Tan, 2022). The problem or attribute is detached from the individual and seen as an independent and external parasite in itself. This externalization serves as the starting point in facilitating deconstruction from the oppressive narrative (Tan, 2022). Narrative Therapy will help the client map the problem and its influence on one’s life and how profoundly or deeply it has negatively altered one’s life. Many times when mapping, the counselor will look to label the problem and again externalize it from the person during the deconstruction phase. A third tool is searching for unique outcomes. This is more solution based and the therapist helps the client identify times the client dealt successfully with the issue and how this can be incorporated again and at a more efficacious result. Fourth, therapists help clients reauthor their story and find different future outcomes from what they feel by the past oppressive narrative. They are also aided in reframing that story and taking control of it and finding meaning in that story. Finally, documenting the evidence of client’s progress is key. Therapist will include letters that the client later re-read that reinforces and summarizes the therapy when they are feeling less or discouraged.
Highly involved also in healing is writing. Clients are encouraged to journal, write letters to oneself or unsent letters to others, similar to Gestalt Therapy. Journaling is key to identifying oppressive feelings and themes, as well as controlling the narrative through the power of the subjective reality of the person writing their story. This is not to dismiss the event, or even to dismiss facts, but to reinterpret these events and meanings in a more conducive way to healing which sometimes means looking at the loss, event, or problem in a different light.
Ultimately the therapy looks to help clients to control their own narrative through cognitive processes and writing processes to form a new narrative. The client names the problem, explores how the problem has adversely affected him/her and explores new ways to interpret the the issue or find different meanings. In addition, the counselor helps the client identify times when he/she successfully dealt with said issues, as well providing the client with encouragement on imagining a sound and healthy future beyond the problem (Tan, 2022).
Conclusion
One can see the useful elements of Narrative Therapy and some of its independent tools in helping individuals, especially with grief. Individuals suffering from loss, or in some cases, pathological and traumatic loss need a therapeutic relationship that is filled with patience and empathy but they also need ways to face the past loss. They need to remove the negative narrative that haunts them regarding the loss and find new meaning about the loss and how to incorporate it into one’s life. This type of Meaning Reconstruction is a key element in Narrative Therapy and helps the person not only understand the past and find new meaning and authority over it, but also how to cope and develop a meaningful future that respects the past loss but also adjusts to it in a healthy and secure way.
Grief Counselors who are clinically licensed can utilize this therapy for those suffering from prolonged grief disorder, while in some cases, elements of it can be used for those not suffering from pathological or complicated grief reactions. Journaling is a healthy element of Narrative Therapy for any case in understanding a loss and finding meaning in it.
Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification Program which is applicable for both non-clinical professionals as well as clinical professionals. Of course, only clinical professionals can utilize Narrative Therapy with those suffering from complicated, traumatic or prolonged grief disorders.
Reference
Tan, S-Y. (2022). Counseling and psychology: A Christian perspective (2nd Edition). Baker Academic.
AIHCP Blogs
Honoring Endings-Access here
Grief Journaling- Access here
Additional Resources
Ackerman, C. (2026). “What Is Narrative Therapy? Techniques & Worksheets”. PositivePsychology.com. Access here
Clark, J. (2025). “How Narrative Therapy Works”. VeryWellMind. Access here
Guy-Evans, O. (2025). “Narrative Therapy: Definition, Techniques & Interventions”. Simple Psychology. Access here
Narrative Therapy. Psychology Today. Access here