Is Narrative Therapy Helpful for Dissociation?

2.7K

Using Narrative Therapy to Address Mental Health Concerns

You are the narrator of your own story. Imagine that you are running late to work and end up stuck in traffic. This is definitely frustrating, but at the time, there’s nothing you can do about it. You can either choose to look at it as extra time to listen to music, an audiobook, or a podcast or get frustrated and allow it to set the tone for your day.

This scenario highlights how the lens through which you view the world might shape your thoughts, feelings, and decisions. For people struggling with dissociation, trauma bonding, depression, anxiety, addiction, anger, eating disorders, or emotional dysregulation, narrative therapy teaches you how to view the world through a more positive lens.

At Catalina, we feel there is a compelling (and affirmative) answer to the question: “Is Narrative Therapy helpful for dissociation and trauma treatment?”

Keep reading to learn more about how this therapeutic method leads to better treatment outcomes for people struggling in these areas and how to reach out to Catalina Behavioral Health for more information.

What Conditions Does Narrative Therapy Treat Effectively?

Narrative approaches to therapy, also called “re-authoring therapy,” gives clients a better understanding of themselves and their experiences. It is meant to help you separate yourself from the problem, whether that is stress, trauma, or other symptoms.

While it can be used for conditions like dissociative identity disorder, this approach has applications for trauma, anxiety, depression, addiction, and other mental health issues as well.

This treatment approach also removes feelings of blame and shame while teaching clients to live in the present. It offers a greater sense of understanding and empowers you to make decisions that positively affect your life going forward.

Dissociative Symptoms

You might experience dissociative symptoms when you feel that you are disconnected from your thoughts, emotions, or the physical world around you. Some of the most common dissociative symptoms include:

• Being disconnected from thoughts
• Memory loss
• Difficulty coping with emotions
• Blurred sense of identity
• Feeling distorted
• Experiencing depression, anxiety, or other mental health problems

Dissociation is a symptom of trauma or mental illness. However, it can also be a diagnosis on its own. The APA recognizes three dissociation disorders including depersonalization disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and dissociative amnesia.

Trauma

For people with negative emotions like shame or guilt surrounding traumatic memories, narrative therapy can help you rewrite the trauma that you experienced.

It focuses on the concepts of reframing what happened and understanding that whatever happened, you did not deserve it. It may be used alone or with eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapies, particularly for people who have memory lapses or repressed trauma.

Re-authoring therapy is also helpful in cases of trauma bonding. As your relationship with the person who hurts you is discussed, you can paint them as the person they truly were, rather than looking at them through rose-colored glasses.

Depression

People who struggle with depression often have a negative outlook on life. You may expect the worst and struggle with human connection because life and people have let you down so much in the past. Unfortunately, this mental psychology of expecting the worst has the potential to do more harm than good.

In the safety net provided by a healthy therapist-client relationship, you can work to rewrite the story that is your life. By breaking free of that negative mindset, you’ll see major differences in your desire to be a part of life, something that can help heal dissociation on its own.

You’ll learn to separate your problems from yourself and respond to stresses in a healthier way, leading to hopefulness and a better outlook on life.

Anxiety

When narrative therapy concepts are applied to anxiety disorders, you can reframe your thinking in your interactions with others. It gives you the ability to separate yourself from anxious thoughts, giving you more control. This approach also lets you learn how to better manage stress during these situations.

When receiving this treatment, a therapist will guide you in how to externalize your anxieties so they don’t continue to impact your interactions and experiences with the people around you. It gives you the power to take action and do things that might cause anxiety, especially if they will benefit you in the future. This allows you to stop dissociation and be present, interacting with others on your own terms.

Addiction

Narrative therapy is also helpful for overcoming substance use disorder. It’s not uncommon for people struggling with addiction to have troubles reach out to family members, friends, therapists, or even treatment programs that can help.

They might feel shameful or guilty for their past struggles and focus on that, rather than focusing on the impact that completing a treatment program can have on helping them grow.

As you reframe your experiences with addiction, it becomes easier to look at them as motivation. You’ll look at them as situations that happened that have no holding on your future, empowering you to take action on your own terms. From here, you can find a sense of connection and purpose in the world, overcoming dissociation that might inhibit the recovery process.

Healing from Other Mental Health Issues

According to article review by psychology experts, people with angry outbursts, intense, lasting grief, emotional dysregulation, and eating disorders can also find solutions with re-writing therapy.

It is not uncommon to feel dissociation when living with these conditions, as you might not want to be connected to your experience at the time.

No matter the problem, being able to author your own story and experiences, while understanding them in a new light, empowers you to take action and work toward change. It puts a positive spin on recovery and makes it possible to overcome even the most intense dissociation symptoms.

Find Tools to Improve Your Mental Health at Catalina

If you are struggling with dissociation, learning to reconnect with yourself, your emotions, and the world around you is crucial in overcoming mental health struggles. Staying in a state of disassociation might seem like the only way to keep yourself from feeling intense emotions and the impact of mental illness on your life, but that is not the only answer.

Find out how unpacking these emotions in the safety net that therapy provides can help you today.

Stop living in a fog today and take action by reaching out to Catalina Behavioral Health. Our team of therapists and mental health professionals are waiting to see how we can best help you overcome struggles and have better treatment outcomes.

We’re waiting by the phone – give us a call with questions, to verify your insurance, or to find out how one of our psychology experts can help you.

References

1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360851979_Narrative_therapy_Applications_and_Outcomes_A_Systematic_Review
2. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dissociative-disorders/symptoms-causes/syc-20355215