hi my name is Dr Danielle crane I a clinical psychologist and about seven years ago I posted a video on YouTube about narrative therapy the Tree of Life project and it unexpectedly gained about 14,000 YouTube views and about 240,000 um blog views and I ended up with messages from people all around the world um asking my advice on how to deliver it or um providing their kind of thanks um and feedback um on how well it was working for them um which I really appreciated and at the same time it did make me regret the fact that I'd filmed it um sat on my bedroom floor whilst very unwell with morning sickness um and mainly just trying to not throw up um so I think it's got to the point where it's probably a good idea to re-record it um as part of this new channel um going into a bit more detail about the actual approach of narrative therapy um and the sort of stance that the therapist takes um I will then give you an overview of each of the sessions and how I used to deliver them um and there'll be loads of um links to resources and that's the thing below um so hopefully you find this helpful so why don't we start by thinking about what narrative therapy actually is so the idea is that all of us have narratives that we use to weave together the different um experiences and beliefs that we have in a way that feels meaningful to us and we will always have particular narratives that are more dominant than others so for example you may have a narrative of being a victim and that may influence the way that you um kind of deal with future situations or the way that you think about yourself and in narrative therapy we try to um take a very non-judgmental and genuinely curious approach where we will help the person explore um potential other perspectives or other stories um that they may be missing so for example they may uh realize that actually there's a narrative of perhaps than being a Survivor rather than a victim of that experience um and that thinking of it in that slightly different way is more helpful for them um we don't try to kind of um uh dictate to a person what narratives they should hold on to um because we acknowledge that the person is um an expert um in their own life and their own experience and we are very much just there to help them to kind of gently explore um those particular narratives um the approach um also helps people to notice their strengths and skills um and abilities so that they um feel that they able to use those things if future difficulties come up um there's also a huge emphasis on externalizing the problem so rather than thinking um I'm anorexic we might encourage people to think I have anorexia or I suffer from anorexia um and see themselves as a separate entity to that particular difficulty the other thing about narrative therapy is it doesn't view the person in isolation it acknowledges that they are part of a wider system so a lot of those narratives will actually be family narratives or cultural narratives that the person is holding on to so we try and take that into account in the sessions as well so one of the ways of delivering narrative therapy is with the Tree of Life project um I'll link the people below who originally developed this idea and some of their videos as well the idea is that you are working with someone um drawing out a tree where each part of the tree represents some aspect of experience so the roots are their past um experiences the ground is their present experiences the trunk of the tree are their coping skills and abilities and resources the branches are their hopes for the future the leaves are the important people in their life the uh fruits or flowers are gifts that they've been given and then you also talk about storms which are things that could um threaten their tree in some way um and when I was an assistant I um delivered this in both individual settings with um children and in group settings as well um including Eating Disorders groups and that sort of thing um and always had very good feedback about the project um I also would often integrate um elements of cognitive behavioral therapy or motivational interviewing or that s thing if it felt appropriate um for that particular client and I can explain how I did that um and I found that it's gives you a really good structure to the sessions it also um creates a lot of opportunity for for sort of discussions and it allows a person to be really creative um in how they're kind of expressing things um and the main thing I found was also that um often people are really anxious about talking to a therapist or you know if they've got um autism or things like that they might really struggle with direct kind of face tof face um conversation um and actually having a shared activity where you are both kind of looking at something on the desk um and talking about it whilst engaging activity T tended to be much easier for them um you know I've never I've never done this with a client and have them sort of not be willing to engage or or that sort of thing it worked really well helping them to kind of open up a bit um so I'll go through each of the stages so I would usually start with the roots moving up to the ground trunk of the tree branches leaves flowers and then talking about storms but it's up to you what order you would like to do it in also I was in a service where I was restricted to se sessions but you are welcome to take as many sessions as you need um when start ING with the roots of the tree these symbolize the person's past and where they've come from and it's easiest if you turn the page on its side and write um the life events as a timeline down the one side um it's up to the person what events they consider to be significant so it can include both um traumatic events as well as things that um they're very proud of um or achievements in their life um and whilst obviously going through those events it gives you an opportunity to talk to the person about the different um narratives that might have been around at that time um both their personal narratives and wider sort of family um or societal narratives and thinking about any changes that there' have been in those particular narratives throughout their life um how that's affected the way that they've dealt with different situations and that sort of thing so once you've written out your timeline you can go around each item with a colored pen to make the shape of the roots it's up to the client if they want to do the writing join themselves or if they would like you to do it for them and they just pick the colors and style I also have a template of a tree on one of my worksheets that you can use if you need some more help with this the roots of the tree will then connect to the base um of the tree trunk and there's going to be space on either side for the ground the ground represents the person's current day-to-day life and that can include both symptoms of the mental health difficulties um as well as hobbies and interests and people they're spending their time with um it is also a good opportunity to sometimes draw in elements of cognitive behavior therapy in terms of helping the person understand some of the cycles that they might be stuck in so for example if someone anxious and they're avoiding certain situations as a result of that it provides them with temporary relief and at the same time makes anxiety worse in the longer term I do have a CBT worksheet that you can use to explain to people the the basic ideas of CBT um and things like that in more detail we then move on to the trunk of the tree the lower half I tend to do coping skills so with the coping skills you will initially um ask the client what skills they currently use um both helpful and unhelpful so it might be that the client listens to music to try and relax themselves um or it might be that they're self Haring um as a try way of trying to distract themselves from their feelings so you can then with their permission um offer suggestions of additional or alternative coping skills that they can start trying to use and you can teach them how to actually apply each of those skills I do have worksheets available that you can um give to clients explaining a wide variety of different coping skills that they can try um then the top half of the tree we are going to be thinking about their um abilities and strengths and um different roles they take um and that sort of thing so um I will normally write their name in the middle of that section and then write the qualities around um some people struggle to identify um positive qualities that they have so they might need a lot of support with this section and sometimes the way that I found most helpful is asking them to collect compliment slips before the session which means that they ask friends and family to write three things that they like about the client and put them in a sealed envelope the client then brings the envelope to the session and we open them together and read all of the things that people have said about them and it tends to um be quite a moving session in terms of people actually reflecting on the alternative narratives that there are about them um and helping them to think of those different perspectives um as well then I tend to move on to the branches of the tree which represent the person's hopes and goals for the future so these might be things are related to therapy in terms of wanting to manage their mental health um in a different way it might be things that are completely unrelated like um getting a particular career um or achieving um other things in their life so um each goal is Rich on one of the branches and it's an opportunity to sometimes bringing elements of motivational interviewing in terms of um helping them think about where they are now compared to where they would like to be um what steps they might need to take to get them there what barriers might be in the way um you know if they feel that they are um three out of 10 in terms of their their progress to get there what would it take for them to be four out of 10 like what small differences would they need to be um and that's the thing and I'll make an entire separate video on motivational interviewing techniques as these can be helpful for any goal but um particularly helping people who are perhaps ambivalent about recovery um the next part of the tree we are thinking about people um in the client support network so this can include friends and family teachers therapists um pets it can include people who've passed away um it can also include um uh inspirational figures or their favorite writer anyone that sort of had an influence in the client's life um and when we're talking about each of those people we'll obviously be talking about the relationship they have with them the narratives around those particular relationships um and sometimes I encourage people to actually write a letter to someone important in their life um they don't need to actually give it to the person sometimes writing it is therapeutic in itself um but as a way of actually being able to express how they feel the things perhaps they're grateful for or the things that they have been hurt by um and that can be a very useful exercise another exercise I sometimes use at this point is something called a family sculpt which um involves the person picking an object to represent themselves and to represent each important person in their life and then they place the items um on the table um to indicate how close they feel to each person and and the relationship with the person so you know whether their mom is you know right by their side and their dad's at the edge of the table and that's a thing can end up showing quite a lot about the relationship um sometimes they also pick an object to represent the mental health difficulty itself um and how that impacts their relationship with other people which links in very nicely with the narrative therapy idea of externalizing um your mental health difficulties um and seeing them as a separate entity in themsel um I'll make a separate video about family sculpts um because they are really interesting and can be really useful in a number of ways as you can see I've now moved on to flowers on the tree you can also use fruits or nuts or whatever the client chooses and these just represent gifts that the person has been given both material um and um sort of uh qualities that they have so it might be they have their dad sense of humor or it might be they their mom gave them a special necklace or their friend gives great hugs anything like that we would count as a gift and then I tend to end the project talking about storms which are things that may come up um in the near future that are likely to be difficult for the client for example a relationship breakup or deterioration in their mental health um we have a think about what things they could do to manage that situation um including creating a crisis plan of their coping skills um important people that they can contact UM their strengths uh coping statements that sort of thing I have a worksheet that you can use um that really simply lays that out um on one side of A4 paper and some people will share their trees with other people it gives them an opportunity to start sharing that um new story that perhaps they've developed about their life um and when we used to do this in a group setting we would stick all the trees up on the wall to to create almost a forest and um help the person to see that they are not alone they are part of this um Forest of other people with similar experiences who are there to support them as well so I'm hoping that's given you a good overview of the sessions um do feel free to use the resources linked below or comment with any questions that you might have um and I will also write a blog post summarizing all of this so I hope that's been helpful um and I'll see you all again soon