Narrative Therapy: What shapes you without your permission?

By: Chelsea Glover-Jordan, LCSW-C, LICSW

According to Positivepsychology.com “Narrative therapy empowers individuals to reshape their life stories, emphasizing strengths and values to overcome challenges”. As a clinician who has used narrative therapy to reshape and refuel my own narrative, I find it empowering when working with the populations and communities I serve. In particular, Black women can benefit tremendously from narrative therapy.

There is no secret about it. Black women have consistently and constantly become victims of systemic racism and sexism. The Black woman has been stigmatized and stereotyped so much that at this point, when the rest of the world is experiencing such scrutiny, we are taking trips, getting degrees, and minding our business because this simply has been life as we’ve always known it. It’s just a normal Tuesday for us.  

Over the past few decades, there has been a call to action in which Black women bring awareness to the forefront in that we certainly do have a place in this world. We’ve always had a place in this world, it just was not asserted in masses as it is now. We have actually contributed to and built the very foundation many cultures aspire to emulate. There is something to be said about a whole community of people whom society disparages in waves, tries to mute, and deter our greatness from shining through. This is one of the reasons I believe so many Black women go get degrees because of the slightest inconvenience. It is a way to cope and to continue to prove to ourselves and to the rest of the world [which we shouldn’t have to do] that we are simply astronomical in quality.  Christena Cleveland, author of a great read, God Is a Black Woman, heavily encourages readers to analyze their narrative, to ask themselves what powerfully shapes them without their consent? Ms. Cleveland goes on to explain that Black culture has been so deeply rooted in colloquialisms, sayings, and a combination of words and thoughts that just are because they simply just have been. If there is a lack of self-awareness and that desire to grow and evolve, we as a people will just go along with what we were taught and given since birth.

Let me put this in perspective a bit. Like many other millennials, I am sure many of us went through childhood getting relaxers (or perms as some may call it). It is a chemical that little Black girl’s mama’s put in their hair to make their hair bone straight. The relaxing process was a ritual the night before Easter Sunday or the weekend before the first day of school. The chemical completely knocked out the beautiful kinky coils God blessed us with. A byproduct of that hair straightening was the damage that was more than likely to come with it to include breakage, hair not growing to its fullest potential, and even medical conditions such as alopecia. If I had a dollar for every Black woman who said something to the effect that if their mothers and grandmothers did not perm their hair as a child, they would have luscious, full, and healthy locs of hair, I would be a rich woman.

It's not just the relaxers that were of concern, but the reason for the relaxers. Some would argue that the chemical was used to make a little girl’s hair more “manageable”, but in actuality we can all admit that it was a beauty standard. Even down to “laid edges”, the mainstream construct of beauty has always identified straight and tamed hair as the thing we should all aspire to have. More recently, the standard of Black beauty has shifted to the embracing of those kinky coils. Many Black women [and men] wear their big hair, allowing it to grow full and thick up to the sun just as DNA would have initially had it.

As children, little Black girls were told they needed to perm their hairs to look presentable, professional, and kempt. Now, the narrative is quite different. Black women have single handedly transformed their narrative into one that embraces their natural selves, also having the audacity to unapologetically wear those natural crowns in white dominated spaces, proclaiming that this is in fact the standard of beauty.

That “creamy crack” shaped a whole culture and now it has been widely dispelled due to Black women changing their narrative.

Obviously, the debate on whether to perm or not to perm is a minuscule one in the grand scheme of the things Black women struggle with. It still, however, holds weight in that when therapists facilitate narrative therapy with clients, “by externalizing problems, clients can view their issues separately from their identities, facilitating constructive change” (Positive Psychology, 2017). Narrative therapy helps to deconstruct people’s story, externalize the problems, biases, and growth opportunities, so that the client can re-establish themselves as who they want to be and not who they were told to be. There is no way there is one standard of beauty, straight and tamed hair. By getting perms, little girls were indirectly being told that they were not beautiful and acceptable in their natural state. They were to use this chemical so that on important occasions like Easter Sunday and the first day of school, they could look their best.

In narrative therapy, a clinician assists the client in re-authoring their own standard of beauty and overall identities. Identities that align more with their adult established value set, belief system, and one that emulates individuality, whatever that means to them. Narrative therapy helps deconstruct old narratives that have powerfully shaped their psyche without their permission. It isolates the “problem” from the person so that it’s easier to “get rid of” this unwanted guest. This helps to encourage resilience while promoting well-being in a rooted sense of authentic identity.

We know that storytelling in therapy can be a powerful tool utilized by clinicians to iterate, process, and evolve a client. When a clinician facilitates narrative theory over the course of their treatment, the client is able to interpret experiences and willfully determine if those experiences will or will no longer continue to shape their identities, who they are to themselves and who they are to the rest of the world. In the case of the little Black girl who got perms on special occasions to make sure her hair was tamed and kept, when she became an adult and participated in narrative therapy, she realized that standard of beauty no longer fits who she is. It no longer embodies authenticity. It must be externalized as an issue that does not take into account her culture, unique features, and her individuality. Dispelling that now externalized narrative has empowered her to create a new narrative for herself, one that embodies all the things she was told was wrong with her as a child, either directly or indirectly.

Whatever type of therapy you engage in as a Black woman, just please engage. Take ownership of your story and how it will continue and inevitably end. There are too many constructs society, the government, and our families impose on us without permission. Bring awareness to the forefront and live your life on your terms, engaging with people and in circles that align with the more appreciated and natural-feeling version of you.  

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