Editor’s note: This article was submitted for publication Fall 2018. This is a late upload.
By: Wayne Head
There is a therapeutic modality treatment that targets the stories that define our lives. The main premise is that we have negative stories that we and others continue which then define how we look at ourselves and our role in the world. These oppressive story lines create our image of ourselves and define what and how we do in the world. These oppressive story lines are maintained through problem saturated stories.
One example of this is the mother of a seventh-grade boy who was starting junior high. She spent most of the one-hour meeting telling me how her boy would tear up the school—no teacher or school existed that could contain or deal with her son. She recounted stories of him attacking teachers, turning over desks, and otherwise disrupting the classroom. He was later able to attend school without any big disruptions using Narrative Therapy.
We tend to accept the roles that we are assigned in life, responding to the scripts that others give us daily. The year I failed the fifth grade, I was standing in the hall as a punishment when Mrs. Miller came up to me. I liked Mrs. Miller and she greeted me telling me that I was a good guy, smart, and did not need to act like this and get into trouble all of the time. I straightened up and tried to stare through Mrs. Miller, doing my best bad guy imitation. At the time I asked myself why I was acting like this to Mrs. Miller, one of my favorite teachers. I realized many years later that I was reacting to the bad guy role that Mrs. Miller, and my being in the hallway, assigned to me that day.
I am not making excuses for my behavior, I chose to act out in class which resulted in my being in the hallway and later failing that grade. By focusing on what I was doing wrong and entreating me to do and be better, Mrs. Miller was unwittingly focusing on my being a bad guy. I see this too much in my work as a school counselor. Children take on the role assigned to them through the stories that are told about them.
Recently, I had a student tell me that he had realized something. I asked what this realization was and he replied that he was smart. Here we have an eighth grader who had learned to change his focus from talking back, getting upset, horse playing in class, and being distracted from his work by his own thoughts, realizing for the first time that he was intelligent. He had accepted stories that said that he was not a good student because of his behavior. Adult reactions to his behaviors had concealed his natural abilities to learn and participate in school. I felt happy for him in this new revelation but a tad bit sad that it had occurred so late in his school career.
Another illustration of this dynamic that our stories define our roles in the world also involves a school setting. A new teacher was assigned 15 students. She saw three-digit numbers attached to each student’s name on her class roll. She assumed that these numbers represented their respective IQ’s; 120, 130, 135, etc. She began challenging her gifted class with more advanced studies and expectations. At the end of the year, her students were the top scoring students on the annual tests, and her class had the highest grade point averages for their grade level. The principal was commenting on her achievements and she replied, “how could I do less with these particular students?” He asked what she meant and she said, ”well you gave me all of these gifted students,” and she showed him all of their IQ scores. He laughed and told her that the numbers were the students’ locker numbers. She made a story about the students and they lived up to their new stories.
We can alter these perceptions of ourselves by changing and challenging our oppressive story lines. We need to find the stories that already exist, that do not fit these oppressive life stories, and begin focusing on them and practicing them more and more. Start pushing away the tricks of the problem, depression, worry, anger, being a bad guy, etc. By realizing how these story lines trick us and stay in our lives, we can decide to interfere in their existence in our lives and limit their interference in our lives. When we shift our focus, and challenge the oppressive story lines, we can free ourselves from these scripts and roles that we have accepted in our lives.
The boy in the first story learned that he was not a bad guy, he was instead a child who had been tricked by his ADHD, and the stories around this dynamic, to act as a bad guy. Through these oppressive storylines it was expected that he not pay attention in class, entertain himself by walking around the classroom, and react harshly when told to sit down and be quiet. When we focused on the trickster, ADHD, he was able to take charge of his own story and rewrite that story to add success in the school setting to his life.
