The ethics at the heart of my counselling practice
Ethics
In my narrative therapy practice, ethics centre around honouring and prioritizing a person’s knowledge based on the meaning they have derived from their lived experiences. The stories people tell demonstrate the ethics and values that are important to them. Stories almost always disclose a person’s unique skills and knowledges when responding to hardships or difficult circumstances.
Meaning making
People attribute meaning to life events based on their own understanding and the context in which these events take place. Life events happen in time that no longer exists; however, the meaning attached to these experiences persist over time (Epston and White, 1990). Narrative Therapy is curious about what people do with these experiences, the meanings tethered to them and how meaning is expressed in their daily lives.
Centering the knowledge of a person
As a Narrative Therapist, my commitment is to the ethics of centering peoples’ knowledges over my own. I want to make certain that I acknowledge the many ways people respond to difficult life events and privilege this knowledge in our dialogue. By de-centering my position as a counsellor, space is created to extol the expertise of those who entrust me with their life stories. I make every effort to help people recognize that they are not empty vessels in need of filling by a therapist but, instead, are storytellers, meaning makers and knowledge carriers. Through rich therapeutic questioning, the counsellor becomes the student and the person becomes the teacher in their life narrative. It’s a beautiful play of synergy, collaboration and solidarity.
Ethics of social justice
Prioritizing a person’s knowledge and lived experience is closely aligned with an ethics of justice by calling out systemic oppression and theories of normativity. This is an important path when centering peoples’ stories and helping them narrate their lived experience on their own terms. Transferring power back to a person instead of relying on the DMS-5, an important part of the colonial toolkit, which was designed to avoid culture, context, language and meaning and protect the bio-medicalization of the world (Dr. Allan Wade, 2021 Radical Therapist podcast). A diagnosis leans on asking “What is wrong with you?” A practice with a strong ethics of social justice inquires, “What has happened to you?” Embracing justice doing means culture, context and language are welcomed into the conversation so that people are given permission to make meaning in their own way.
Performance of story
So much of a person’s life goes unstoried, untold and unnoticed. Since people make meaning out of their experiences, it is important that they have avenues to give shape to their personal narratives. Narrative Therapists embrace a person’s telling of their story and ask questions that help fill in the gaps created by a lack of exploration. People as multistoried beings require an attentive witness, a listener, in order to journey back in time and rediscover their histories. With each telling of a person’s story, new meanings are constructed, and a re-authoring of their lives transpires.
“…every telling or retelling of a story, through its performance, is a new telling that encapsulates, and expands upon the previous telling.” (Epston & White, 1990)
Final word on the ethics of my practice
The ethics of my work are aligned with a world view of bearing witness to people’s experiences and honouring their preferred ways of living. The main reason I was drawn to Narrative Therapy is because, at the heart of this kind of counselling, is a desire to meet people where they are, without judgment, to listen to their stories, ask questions and create space for them to be truly heard. In an equitable society, everyone has the right to tell their story, to be respected and valued, so I do my best to make counselling accessible to all those who seek it. Social justice cannot exist without equity, and an equitable society means every person’s story matters.
Karen Mittet