Narratives: Constructing Meaning, Shaping Themes & Resolving Challenges - Essay Sample

Introduction

People usually use narratives to construct and give meaning to the situation they are in or support a specific theme. In a narration, individuals would only involve the ideas that validate their arguments. According to Madigan (2012), these themes help to create the plot of a story. They are vital since they help social workers to identify how these themes can be reconstructed to form a positive story that will solve the challenges that a client is going through. In the case scenario provided for this review, it shows the narration of a patient who is having depression due to past and current events that have occurred in her life. Various themes have been used by the client to prove that she is the cause of her family failures as the dominant discourse.

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Not being a good parent is one of the themes that are recurrent in this narration. This can be identified in various instances. To start with, she blames herself for not being a good parent, since she believes that she denied her twin daughters parental attachment when they needed it most. Due to prenatal depression, she tried suicide, and she was helped by mental health professions to realize that her body had a chemical imbalance, and she was given medication and directed to a physician. She also indicated that her team of physicians helped her to see that her untreated depression was affecting her ability to serve her children, thus jeopardizing their future mental health. As such, even after being discharged, she went home with strong feelings of guilt from the knowledge that she had recognized her depression and allowed it to impact her parenthood. This theme also reoccurred when she stated that she had failed to give her children a better childhood environment. In this case, she argued that having twins at the age of 18, and being isolated from her family, and excommunicated from the church, became stressors and led to her struggle with parenthood, meaning she never gave her children the proper care they needed. She blamed herself for this, citing that she believes she could have done better. She also blames herself for all the failures that have occurred in the family because she had not provided Susan with the validation relationship, nurturing, and love that she deserved. She also blames herself for being a control freak, and hence blames herself for what occurred to Susan.

The other theme that is evident is seeing herself as a looser, or not meeting the expected standards. To start with, she believes that she was a failure because of conceiving at the age of 18. It is due to this that she, together with her partner Kelly, were isolated from their family and excommunicated from the church. She also blames herself for not being able to handle her depression despite being a psychologist. This was the reason why she was reluctant to seek counseling, thinking that she could handle it herself. She also feels that being a psychologist, she was in a better position to provide Susan with a validating environment, and hence she blamed herself, especially when the mental health team who were attending to Susan told her that the conflictual/stressful home environment is what was affecting Susan. Susan referring to her as a suicidal mother also made her believe that she was a loser. She also states that she felt a sense of worthlessness and shame for being a loser in many other instances.

Guilt is also a theme found in her narration. The client recasts various instances that give her feelings of guilt. She stated that she felt guilty for being angry. At first, she had tried to justify it with the assumption that she was just being defensive, using it to avoid her feelings of worthlessness and shame. However, she experienced a fury during her M.Ed. program, where mothers' refrigerators were blamed for creating mental health difficulties for their children. She also feels guilty when her daughter and the health team blame her of being a control freak. She also stated that she felt a sense of guilt for having a dream of a health professional career and yet struggling with postpartum depression.

In this discourse, there are certain assumptions/contradictions that are suggestive of power differentials. According to Morgan, A. (2000), people construct their stories from their past and present in reference to thin conclusions coined along with problem stories. Conclusions express the truth about an individual who is struggling with an identity problem. In most cases, thin conclusions are drawn from problem-saturated stories, which usually disempower people since they are based on inadequacies, dysfunctions, disabilities, and weaknesses. Fook & Gardner (2007) noted that while these stories reflect an individual's perspective of their lives, they are not constructed in a vacuum. They are usually impacted by the surroundings, such as the culture and power differential. The implications are those thin descriptions of people's identity, and actions are created by others with a defining power in certain circumstances such as health professionals, teachers, and parents.

In the case study of the client adopted for this review, one assumption that suggests power differential comes from the parents and the religious leaders. The client perceives herself as being a failure because she became pregnant at the very tender age of 18. As a result, she and her partner were isolated from their families and excommunicated from the church. In this case, their parent and the church shaped the assumption held by the client that having a child at this age was a failure in their lives. Morgan (2002) asserted that behaviors lack meaning unless they are given meaning to a person with the power to do so.

The other thin conclusion suggested by a power differential is the client perceiving herself as being a poor mother. She stated that, when she attempted suicide, she was taken to hospital where she was referred to mental treatment. However, she also stated that the mental health professionals took a lot of time to provide her with information on how her untreated depression was limiting her to serve her children and hence risking their mental future problem. As such, when her daughter was later challenged with mental problems, she blamed herself as being the cause. The mental health professionals attending to Susan also validated this assumption by stating that poor parenting was the cause of Susan's mental issues.

Identify how in the course of speaking with this client about their incident that you will demonstrate your 'refusal to accept or participate in dominant discourses'

As a narrative therapist, I would refuse to accept to participate in her dominant discourse in order to help my client overcome the problem of identity she is facing. After identifying that she is telling a story based on a thin conclusion, I would try to find a way of alternative stories in her life that will help her break the influence of the problems she is facing. According to Zimmerman and Beaudoin (2015), using just thin descriptions and conclusions can support and sustain a problem. I would try to make her understand that whenever a thin conclusion takes roots, it becomes easy for individuals to gather evidence that supports these problem-saturated narratives. With time, the influence of these discourse becomes bigger and bigger, and with time, any behavior that does not support these stories becomes invisible. When they overcome the life of an individual, they become powerful in a manner that they lead only to thin conclusions, and any positive aspects such as competencies, abilities, knowledge, and skills are hidden by the problem stories. I would show her how this is what is shaping her narrative. As such, I would reject to participate in her dominant discourse and instead introduce alternative stories in her life that show her the other part of her life. An example of the alternative story I would introduce is how she has been supportive of her family. Another possible alternative story would focus on how she has been able to overcome troubles and challenges early in her life. An alternative story focusing her achievements as a psychologist and how she had been helping others would also be effective.

How you might work with the client to construct new inclusive empowering discourses and/or establish new cultures/climates from which new discourses can be generated.

As stated by Baines (2011), being freed from problematic stories is not as simple as to re-author an alternative story. As such, the work of a therapist should be to make ways in which the alternative stories that are empowering can be richly described. In a narrative therapist perspective, thin conclusions are understood as the opposite of a rich life and relationship descriptions. As such, creating a story richly-described makes an alternative discourse that can be empowering as it will reveal hidden positive aspects hidden by the thin problematic conclusions. There are various approaches that can be used to make an alternative story being richly described. The idea is that, whenever a story is richly described, then it will also lead to a rich conclusion.

One method that can be used to help a client create a culture/climate where a new discourse can be generated is showing her the importance of articulation in the fine detail of her life storyline. In reference to Morgan, A. (2000), to help in creating a climate where a new discourse can be conducted, the most vital aspect is to make a client understand that our experiences are faced with both ups and downs, and none of them should be ignored because they occur concurrently. For example, in a novel, why we understand characters is because their stories are richly articulated, including their own understanding, histories, and motives. This will allow the client to see the need to articulate various aspects of her life and hence put various occurrences into their own context. In this process, the client will also be able to discover the strength areas that can help her from the identity struggle she is facing.

The other aspect for creating a climate or culture where an alternative story can be authored will be to find ways of showing the client how their richly described stories are interwoven with the stories of others (Morgan, 2000). In the case of this client, the stories of other individuals related to her, such as her partner, children, parent, and religious leaders, play a part, and they cannot be ignored. Besides, showing a client how people with the power of defining in certain circumstances influence her thin conclusion would also create a culture of creating an alternative empowering story. This brings in the idea of anti-oppressive discourse. It emphasizes the essence of inclusion, difference, and inclusion. This can promote a discourse that is anti-oppression based on aspects such as class, race, or gender, among other oppressions. It promotes social justice, which recognizes multiple-axis and non-hierarchy oppression. In some cases, thin conclusions are facilitated by obscure relations power. For example, if a woman has reached a point of perceiving herself as worthless and deserving punishment due to being exposed to abuse for years, his thin conclusion can do the injustices she has been experiencing invisible. They hide her significant act of resistance as well as the tactic of control and power which she has been subjected to (Brown, 2012). Consequently, the concept of anti-oppression discourse would help the client create a construct a new inclusive and empowering discourses which are not based on thin conclusions hence making her competencies, abilities, knowledge, and skills visib...