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Section 3. Constructionism

Why We Tell Stories: The Narrative Construction of Reality

Pages 118-127
Published online: 28 Dec 2017
 
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The postmodern era is understood as the “endgame” of a historical experiment in which narrative tradition was abandoned in favor of a metaphor of “man the machine.” Machines, however, lack intentions, the domain of narrative. Humans, as intentional, are narrative by nature. We become the stories we tell ourselves then believe as the truth. Such stories create a world that is defended because it upholds our identity. Narrative therapy externalizes these stories so that self-healing resources inherent in the soul can speak to us of its neglected longings and make us whole.

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Author information

Alan Parry

Alan Parry, Ph.D., is a psychologist and family therapist who took a TA 101 from Eric Berne in 1966. He is an AAMFT approved supervisor and the co-author with Robert Doan of Story Re-Visions: Narrative Therapy in the Postmodern World.