An older adult looks through landscape photographs beside a sunny window.

Narrative Therapy

You are not the problem. The problem is the problem.

Illustrative Two men talking on a garden bench with their faces visible

What It Is

The Stories We Live Inside

All of us carry a story about who we are, built out of what happened and what people told us it meant. "I am the difficult one." "I am the one who ruins things." Those stories can leave out a great deal.

Tatiana's humanistic approach looks at the whole person and the story that shaped them, and narrative therapy is one of the frameworks she draws on for it.

The way a problem is described can shape the options you see. 'I failed at something important' and 'I am a failure' are different statements, even when both arise from the same painful event. You may want to explore which descriptions of your life feel inherited, incomplete, or too narrow. This does not mean inventing a cheerful account or denying what happened. A conversation can make room for context, relationships, and parts of your experience that a single label leaves out. Ask how a narrative approach would connect with the concern that brought you here and what participation would actually involve.

You might bring a phrase you often use about yourself and ask what it leaves out. Are there relationships, choices, efforts, or circumstances that do not fit that single description? These questions can open a conversation without requiring you to adopt a new story immediately. Ask how the clinician uses this approach and how it would relate to your own goals. Your language, values, and interpretation of your experience should remain topics for discussion.

Three Moves

How It Works

Name It Out Loud
Instead of "I am depressed," try "Depression has been telling me I should stay in bed." Now there is some space between you and it.
Trace Its History
Where did this story come from, and who benefits when you keep believing it?
Find What It Left Out
Look for the times the story did not hold, and build from there.

Illustrative rear view of a silver-haired adult reading on a covered terrace overlooking a leafy garden.

Where It Can Fit

Trauma survivors who have been defined by what happened to them
People carrying labels from family or culture
Grief, when a life needs a new shape

A Larger Story

For Believers

Christians already know the idea that the story you were told about yourself may not be the truest one. If you want that in the room, Tatiana can bring it in. If you do not, the work stands on its own.