Social work theory · Volume E: Strengths, Agency & Meaning

Narrative theory and narrative approaches

Narrative theory holds that people make sense of their experience, identity and relationships by organising events into stories. A narrative links events across time, gives them a sequence and a point, and places the self within them.

Type: interdisciplinary theory of meaning and identity (from psychology, philosophy and the human sciences), which also informs practice approaches. The therapeutic method of narrative therapy is covered in H9.

1. What it is

Narrative theory holds that people make sense of their experience, identity and relationships by organising events into stories. A narrative links events across time, gives them a sequence and a point, and places the self within them (Polkinghorne, 1988). Narrative theorists argue that storytelling is a basic mode of human understanding, through which people interpret the past, act in the present and imagine the future (Bruner, 1990). Stories are also social: they draw on the cultural stories available in a community, and some stories carry more authority than others. For social work, narrative theory explains how life stories shape identity and agency, and why the stories told about people, in case files and assessments, matter (Riessman & Quinney, 2005).

Narrative as a theory of meaning. In narrative theory, meaning is created when events are connected into a plot that makes them intelligible. A single event, such as a job loss, means something different depending on whether it is told as part of a story of failure, injustice or new beginnings. Ricoeur (1984) argued that narrative is the means by which humans make time meaningful. McAdams (1993, 2001) proposed that adults form an identity by constructing an evolving life story that integrates the remembered past and the anticipated future.

Jerome Bruner. Bruner (1986) distinguished two modes of thought. The paradigmatic mode seeks logical, general and testable explanations, as in science. The narrative mode deals with human intentions and actions and the particular circumstances in which they occur. Bruner (1986) argued that stories operate on two planes at once: a plane of action (what happened) and a plane of consciousness (what those involved knew, thought and felt). In later work he argued that people construct reality, including their sense of self, through narrative, and that culture supplies the stories through which this occurs (Bruner, 1990, 1991).

Donald Polkinghorne. Polkinghorne (1988) argued that the human sciences need narrative knowing alongside formal, logical methods. His central concept is emplotment, the process by which a plot draws diverse events into a meaningful whole and shows how each contributes to an outcome. Polkinghorne treated the self as a narrative configuration: people understand who they are by placing their actions within a developing story. This view made narrative central to the study of human action, motivation and identity.

Narrative psychology and the storied self. Sarbin (1986) proposed narrative as a root metaphor for psychology, arguing that human conduct is storied. This work, with that of Bruner and McAdams, established narrative psychology as a field.

White and Epston’s ideas as theory. Michael White (Adelaide) and David Epston (Auckland) developed narrative therapy, but their work also contains a theory of how stories shape lives (White & Epston, 1990). Drawing on Bateson and Bruner, they argued that people give meaning to experience by storying it, and that these stories shape which experiences are noticed and which are left out. Drawing on Foucault, they argued that dominant cultural stories carry power and can define people in ways that limit them. Key concepts include the dominant or problem-saturated story, which captures a person’s identity in terms of a problem; thin descriptions, which are conclusions imposed by others; thick descriptions, which are rich, multi-stranded accounts developed with the person; and unique outcomes, experiences that contradict the dominant story and can become the basis for an alternative one (White, 2007). The methods built on these ideas, such as externalising conversations and re-authoring, are discussed in H9.

Social and cultural narratives. Narrative theorists emphasise that personal stories are shaped by cultural master narratives about, for example, gender, disability, illness or race. Frank (1995) identified restitution, chaos and quest narratives in illness stories, showing that the available story types shape how suffering is told and heard.

2. Historical development

Narrative theory emerged from what is often called the narrative turn in the human sciences during the 1980s. Scholars in psychology, philosophy, history and sociology questioned whether human life could be fully understood through the methods of natural science. Bruner, Polkinghorne and Sarbin argued that human action is intentional and meaningful, and that narrative is the form in which meaning is organised. The theory drew on hermeneutics and phenomenology (G2) and on social constructionist ideas about language (E7).

Narrative ideas entered social work through two routes. The first was narrative therapy, developed by White and Epston and promoted internationally through the Dulwich Centre in Adelaide. The second was narrative research, which gave voice to service users’ accounts and examined the stories professionals construct about clients (Riessman & Quinney, 2005). Narrative approaches have been used in Australia with Aboriginal communities, including community gatherings that honour collective stories of survival and strength (Wingard & Lester, 2001).

3. Practical guidance

Narrative theory guides how practitioners listen to, record and work with stories.

• Listen for the story. Attend to how a person connects events, what they emphasise and what they leave out. The plot reveals how they understand their situation and themselves (Polkinghorne, 1988).
• Notice dominant and alternative stories. Identify problem-saturated accounts and listen for experiences that do not fit them, such as times the person resisted a problem (White, 2007).
• Thicken preferred stories. Ask about the values, skills and relationships connected with moments of strength, so that alternative accounts gain detail and history.
• Attend to cultural narratives. Explore how stories about gender, culture, disability or mental illness shape the person’s account of themselves.
• Write with care. Case notes and reports are narratives with consequences. Record people’s own words and strengths, and avoid thin, totalising descriptions.
• Honour collective stories. With Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, recognise stories of collective survival, culture and resistance (Wingard & Lester, 2001).
• Know when to refer. Use narrative ideas in everyday practice, and refer to or train in narrative therapy (H9) for structured therapeutic work.

4. Critical evaluation

Strengths. Narrative theory treats people as active interpreters of their lives and recognises their expertise about their own experience. It explains how identity is formed and how it can change, and it links personal meaning to cultural and political contexts. It supports respectful, collaborative practice and has generated widely used research methods (Riessman, 2008). Its attention to professional writing encourages critical reflection on how services describe clients.

Limitations. Narrative theory can underplay material conditions: a new story does not change poverty or violence. Some critics argue that an emphasis on the constructed nature of stories sits uneasily with the need to establish facts in statutory settings, such as child protection or family violence. Not everyone finds storytelling accessible, and people with cognitive impairment or trauma may struggle to produce coherent narratives. The concepts are broad and difficult to test empirically.

Overall importance. Narrative theory gives social work a theory of meaning and identity that connects personal experience with culture and power. It underpins narrative therapy and narrative research, and it informs everyday practice in assessment, recording and relationship. It is most useful when combined with structural analysis and attention to material need.

5. References

• Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Harvard University Press.
• Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Harvard University Press.
• Bruner, J. (1991). The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry, 18(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1086/448619
• Frank, A. W. (1995). The wounded storyteller: Body, illness, and ethics. University of Chicago Press.
• McAdams, D. P. (1993). The stories we live by: Personal myths and the making of the self. William Morrow.
• McAdams, D. P. (2001). The psychology of life stories. Review of General Psychology, 5(2), 100–122. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.5.2.100
• Polkinghorne, D. E. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. State University of New York Press.
• Ricoeur, P. (1984). Time and narrative (Vol. 1; K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1983)
• Riessman, C. K. (2008). Narrative methods for the human sciences. Sage.
• Riessman, C. K., & Quinney, L. (2005). Narrative in social work: A critical review. Qualitative Social Work, 4(4), 391–412. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325005058643
• Sarbin, T. R. (Ed.). (1986). Narrative psychology: The storied nature of human conduct. Praeger.
• White, M. (2007). Maps of narrative practice. W. W. Norton.
• White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. W. W. Norton.
• Wingard, B., & Lester, J. (2001). Telling our stories in ways that make us stronger. Dulwich Centre Publications.