What is the main difference between person centered therapy and narrative therapy?

Answer 1

Person centered therapy respects the client's natural tendency towards 'growth' and attempts to facilitate this through empathy, congruence and unconditional postive regard. Narative therapy, as a postmodern and post-structural approach, would reject concepts such as 'growth', which might suggest a hierarchical or value-laden view of people. Narrative therapy facilitates a client's discovery of and perpetuation of 'preferred' selves instead.

Person centred therapy uses techniques such as repeating clients' words and phrases back to them and summarising their thoughts to prompt further self-discovery. There is a distinct lack of 'technique, with the focus much more on the quality of the relationship between client and practitioner. Narrative therapy uses 'externalising' to see problems as external to the self (e.g. having anger-management issues might be seen instead as anger having in influence on the person's life, an influence that the person is using various strategies to fight against). By mapping the influence of the problem over the client's life, the client is enabled to see ways they are resisting the problem. The focus eventually becomes shifting the 'story' they hold about themselves away from a problem-dominated narrative to a narrative defined by strengths. These preferred narratives are thickened by mapping their influence over the client's history and life.

Person centered thereapy is focused very much on the here-and-now, whereas narrative therapy looks at the influences of narratives on the client's whole life - past, present and future.

Both approaches avoid giving advice, opinion or judgement.

Answer 2

Person-centered therapy focuses on the importance of the therapist providing unconditional positive regard, empathy, and genuineness to the client, helping them to develop self-awareness and self-acceptance. On the other hand, narrative therapy focuses on helping clients view their problems as separate from themselves and encourages them to construct new, empowering stories about their lives that challenge dominant narratives. Narrative therapy also places a strong emphasis on externalizing problems and exploring the social and cultural context of the client's issues.