Narrative Therapy

Questioning Labels

By  | 

Lately I’ve been waiting until after I’ve completed an article to figure out a title for it. The reason why is the tremendous power labels have to influence perception. With the title of an article in place parameters enter the picture. Ideas never get the chance to germinate because they don’t fit within that newly set schema. The field is narrowed and with it possibilities are narrowed.

In this sense labels simultaneously get you closer to the truth and further away from it, closer because they provide a useful context for grouping related ideas, for quickly assessing what does and doesn’t fit, further  because vital information is always overlooked. When it doesn’t fit within a preconceived set of associations it never even enters conscious awareness.

This is what Kierkegaard meant when he wrote “When you label me you negate me.” A label is like casting out a fishing net, where when you pull it back into the boat all you see is what was too big to escape. But a great deal of marine life did slip through, and it was every bit as real as what you observe flopping about in the boat.

Deconstructing labels of all kinds is highly important to narrative therapists, who understand that the stories we tell shape our perceptions of ourselves and the world. These stories include labels of all kinds, labels that necessarily keep us from seeing the full picture, from recognizing and making room for our full expression as unique, complex individuals.

This is why the Buddhist tradition is concerned with the non-judgmental attitude, with entering the present moment without any preconceived notions. We close off our ability to experience reality as it is when we label a thin slice of it and then make it represent the whole pie.

Of course labels have their place, they help us make sense of the world. The key is questioning these labels, taking the time to bring them into conscious awareness, refusing to quickly negate people or situations by  tacking a label on there and never looking back.

Related posts:

  1. The Library The DSM IV-TR is often referred to as the bible of psychology. It is used for the diagnosis of psychological disorders of all kinds and if you have ever gotten mental health counseling, especially if you used insurance, you have had direct experience with it. In order to bill insurance companies clinicians in the United […]...
  2. Problem With The Favorable Dominant Narrative Narrative therapists are concerned with deconstructing the rich tapestry of stories that make up social reality in order to help clients become aware that the way they see themselves, what we would call their dominant narrative, is not necessarily indicative of who they really are. There are usually a multitude of data points to contradict […]...
  3. Combating Low Self-Esteem The challenge in combating low self-esteem is that self-esteem is itself ephemeral. It’s a feeling, a state of mind, an orientation towards people and the world that might be very real but remains difficult to pin down, difficult to define. But what is not difficult to pin down or define is the automatic negative thinking, […]...
  4. Fun With Language When operating within a narrative framework one of the ways to raise awareness and ultimately effect change is through the purposeful manipulation of the English language. From the Narrative point of view, manipulation of language happens all the time anyway, except unconsciously and to the detriment of those who are unfairly labeled. We can play […]...
  5. You Define Who You Are Wrong perceptions have the power to influence the way you define yourself if you let them. The dominant narratives and labels foisted upon us are often biased and never tell the whole story because they reduce us to a narrow definition based on just a few data points. Yet many conform their thoughts and actions […]...
  6. Question Your Labels The problem with being labeled, even when the label in question is culturally desirable, is that your available options for thinking, feeling, and behaving necessarily shrink dramatically so that only that constellation of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors which ‘belong’ to your label are considered appropriate by you and the community. Let’s say for example that […]...
  7. Power of Labels “Once you label me you negate me” -Soren Kierkegaard Narrative Therapy focuses on the power of storytelling. When you think about it for a moment you will realize there is a story that has been told about you since you were a very young child. The people around you have painted a limited picture of […]...
  8. Projection In Gestalt We have talked about the importance of completing the needs satisfaction cycle in various aspects of your life in order to feel a sense of wholeness. In this framework psychological distress is often the result of unconsciously being unable to move from one stage to the next. Gestalt psychologists call the mechanisms we use to […]...
  9. Narrative Power Relations To understand the role of the counselor in a narrative setting we have to understand one of the philosophical premises of Narrative Therapy. Power relationships are implicitly sanctioned and maintained in our culture, especially against minority groups, and are a major cause of mental health issues. Outright racism has been largely replaced by an arguably more […]...
  10. Do Not Let Others Decide Your Identity For You Most of us end up defining ourselves by the stories told about us. The controlling environment is just too powerful. We end up inhabiting certain identities even when we know on some level that they don’t fit us. But after a shorter or longer struggle we finally surrender to the current. You can’t hope to […]...
  11. Person First Language An essential step in moving towards a just world is to start using person first language in our interactions and our perceptions. When we talk about person first language we mean always putting the human being before a disability, psychological disorder, or any other aspect that globally categorizes. Here are some examples: Instead of Schizophrenics, […]...
  12. You Are Not Your Diagnosis “Depressed people think they know themselves, but maybe they only know depression.” – Mark Epstein For some receiving a mental health diagnosis is a good thing because it creates certainty around an area that was always cloudy and threatening. Just having an explanation can provide a lot of relief, even when this explanation doesn’t do […]...
  13. How To Apologize Apologizing seems like it should be a pretty straightforward affair but for many people it is anything but. At the unconscious level what might make apologizing so difficult is that you equate the act with surrender, which implies handing over all the power in the relationship to the other. The question to ask yourself, if […]...
  14. Care With Labels The fact that these days people receive a diagnostic label they must carry around for the rest of their lives based on a one hour interview is mind boggling. There are so many variables in play, like how the client is feeling that day, how active symptoms are, what the clinician has been reading and […]...
  15. Power Struggle In a very real sense parenting young children is about power. Someone needs to be in charge and by dint of your life experience and the fact that you’re an adult, with the rights and privileges that go along with your station, that someone has got to be you. So the question that remains is […]...
  16. Conditional Questioning We talked about resistances in the last article. Now we will talk about a really good strategy, called conditional questioning, to help a client free himself up a little bit to be able to move through his resistances. Refusal to talk about a subject can be really difficult to deal with for a therapist. You […]...
  17. Superheroes In The DSM This morning as I woke up groggy and confused from a fitful dream it suddenly dawned on me that most comic book superheroes could be diagnosed with a disorder from the DSM IV-TR. Actually all mental disorders are really just normal behavior exaggerated, which is why mental health professionals need to take great care in […]...
  18. The Toll Of Being Compared A common phenomenon in family systems is that certain members end up having their personality traits and behaviors compared or contrasted to some other member of the nuclear or extended family. In effect these members being compared, in the minds of the labelers, become copies rather than individuals. Their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors aren’t taken […]...
  19. Conditional Questioning and Fear Conditional questioning is a useful therapeutic tool when you’re feeling stuck, you could say due to a client’s resistances but it’s probably better to say due to the understandable inability to picture a life different from one’s current reality. The conditional question asks you to imagine if things were a certain way, you don’t have […]...
  20. Do Not Feel Guilty About How You Respond To Trauma Most people have a pretty good idea about how they’ll feel if they ever go through an intense, traumatic situation. This preconceived notion probably has a lot to do with the movies they’ve seen and books they’ve read where their favorite fictional characters deal with trauma and its aftermath. But some people actually do end […]...
Related Items