Narrative Therapy

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Narrative Therapy Social Emotional
Development of Young Children

• Dr P.N.Reebye
• Clinical Professor
• University of British Columbia
• Ms.A.Wolverton,Infant Development consultant

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Preworkhop Questionnaire

• Discuss two random
• Responses.

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Learning Objectives

1. Learners will be able to appreciate the
   importance of narratives in therapy
2. Analyze template narratives
3. Use narratives as a source of evaluation
4. Understand the effectiveness of use of narratives
   in special populations

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Key Words

1. Narratives
2. Interactions
3. Social emotional development
4. Dyadic and Family contexts
5. Co-Construction tasks

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Narratives

• Definitions
• Socio-emotional Development
• Connecting early narratives with emotional
  experiences
• Multiple perspectives on narratives

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Narratives 2 premises (Emde)

1. Shared forms of understanding experiences
2. Essential for affective well-being and personal
   growth
3. Therapeutic tool that uses humane approach that
   is not restrictive( My addition)

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Developmental Impact on narratives Infancy

• Can grasp order of events
• Can manage turn taking with caregiver
• Use intersubjectivity to establish narrative
  attunement
• Implicit joint reference with one word sentences

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2nd year

• Increased symbolic activity
• Knows how reference works
• Multiword sentences to convey meaning
• Can organize experience into fundamental
  categories agent( Johnny),action (
  play),instrument (ball)
• Understands small units combined produce larger
  meaning
• Understands distinctive narrative voices

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3-5 Years

• Development of semantic ( mad, happy, tired)and
  syntactic(tenses,temporal markers , link events
  as because, so) systems
• Sophisticate affective narrative frames

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Preschoolers narratives 3 levels
Discourse
3 levels
Plot
Representations
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Looking for emotional content in narratives

• Narrative style
• Emotional regulation
• Emotional themes
• View of self and other
• Emotional Resolution

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Affective narrative frames

• Situation narratives
• Personal experience
• Feasible human narratives
• Dramatic narratives
• Emotion state narratives
• Idealized narratives
• Metaphoric narratives

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Attachment perspective

• Parental attachment and narratives
• Parental authority and narratives
• Learning from parentsParent as a Mentor Child
  as an apprentice
• Gender differences in narrative themes
• Attachment themes in children

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Special Populations

• Maltreated children
• Mood disorders
• Separation anxiety
• Social anxiety

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Mother Child co-construction tasks

• Maternal influence on childs narratives
• First scaffolding then a narrative frame.
• High elaborative and Low information mothers

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Story Stems

• Lost Keys
• Separation
• Reunion
• Story Time with mom

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Discussion on video clips

• Video Clip 1 ,2,3,
• Comment on Co-Construction tasks
• Video Clip 4 comment on emotional content of the
  narrative.
• Video Clip 5 Family narrative

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Clinical Importance of Narratives

• Exploring of childs psychodynamic processes
• Can uncover information such as abuse, family
  chaos and confirm diagnosis
• Helping mother-child dyads to co-regulate affect
• Recognize limitations of the approach

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References

• Favez ,N.(2006) From Family Play to Family
  Narratives The Signal Newsletter of the World
  Association for Infant Mental Health July
  December 2005
• Oppenheim ,D (1997).The attachment doll play
  interview for preschoolers .International journal
  of Behavioural Development,20,681-697
• Warren,S.L., Emde,R.N., Sroufe,L.A.(2000).Interna
  l Representations Predicting anxiety from
  children's play narratives.Journal of the
  American academy of Child and Adolescent
  Psychiatry,39(1),100-107
• Warren,S.L.,Oppenheim,D., Emde ,R.N.(1996).Can
  Emotions and themes in childrens play predict
  behavior problems? American academy of Child and
  Adolescent Psychiatry,34(10),1331-1337.
• Emde RN., Wolf D P., Oppenheim D (2003) Revealing
  the Inner worlds of Young Children.Oxford
  University Press