Narrative therapy originated in Australia and New Zealand in the thinking and practice of Michael White and David Epston, and is now a major international movement in family therapy and counselling.

Memories of the past are not used as a source from which to define the origins and nature of assumed pathology. Rather, the past is seen as a resource for renewed hope, self-empowerment and choice. Narrative therapy assists persons to identify, link, expand, and live by positive and helpful experiences in their past and present which they may have lost sight of in their immediate confusion and distress.

Narrative therapists do not see themselves as possessing ‘expert knowledge’ such as psychological insight. The therapist/counsellor is a facilitator of persons’ discovering ever richer accounts of their lives through telling and re-telling, in conversations both with the therapist and with others including people significant to the person. This telling and re-telling leads to persons’ positioning themselves differently in relation to their problems, and moving towards newly identified and preferred ways of living and relating. Discussion of social and cultural influences on the problem is often an important part of the process.