Narrative Therapy's Relational Understanding of Identity

• Author: Gene Combs,Jill Freedman
• Published date: 01 June 2016
• Date: 01 June 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12216

Narrative Therapy’s Relational Understanding of

Identity

GENE COMBS*

JILL FREEDMAN

†

We describe how we think of identity as relational, distributed, performed, and fluid,

and we illustrate the use of this conceptualization within a narrative worldview. Drawing

on the work of Michael White, we describe how this relational view of identit y leads to ther-

apeutic responses that give value to interconnection across multiple contexts and tha t focus

on becoming rather than on being. We show how a narrative worldview helps focus on the

relational, co-evolving perspective that was the basis of our early attraction to family ther-

apy. We offer detailed examples from our work of practices that help us stay firmly situated

in a relational worldview that is counter to the pervasive influence of individualism in our

contemporary culture.

Keywords: Narrative Therapy; Identity; Relationship; Individualism; Self

Fam Proc 55:211–224, 2016

Valuing relationship and interdependence over individualism and independence is a

central feature of family therapy. During the thrilling period of family therapy that

made our younger selves want to call it home, we were drawn to Gregory Bateson’s (1980)

ideas about “mind in nature” and the “ecology of ideas.” Bateson reminded us not to “chop

up the ecology” into small cause-and-effect chains that distorted the complexities of inter-

relationship and change over time. He directed our attention toward “the pattern that con-

nects the starfish and the star,” and he warned of the often negative (even if unintended)

consequences of short-term reductionist thought. In a seminal article in this journal titled

“Thinking about thinking in family therapy,” Auerswald (1985) reminded us of the

ever-evolving, wide-ranging character of Bateson’s worldview:

If one constructs a four-dimensional holographic thought model of Batesonian evolution, any seg-

ment any size of that model turns out to be an ecosystem. A randomly selected segment will be an

open system.... The awareness that such a system is a segment of a larger field, however, pre-

cludes treating it permanently as a closed system. The family is such an ecosystem. An individual

is such an ecosystem. A community is such an ecosystem. A nation is such an ecosystem. You

name it.

Now, over the thirty years since that article was published, we see our treas ured field

beset by influences that require therapists to narrow their focus, to center that focus on

short arcs of pathology, and to locate that pathology in individual bodies.

*Department of Family Medicine, University of Chicago/NorthShore University Health System Family

Medicine Residency Program, Evanston, IL.

†

Evanston Family Therapy Center, Evanston, IL.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Gene Combs, 1212 Elmwood Ave.

Evanston, IL 60202. E-mail: genecombs1@sbcglobal.net.

We are grateful to Vicki Dickerson for her patience and generous editorial support in bringing this paper

to fruition; we could not have done it without her.

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Family Process, Vol. 55, No. 2, 2016 ©2016 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12216