ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates what narrative approaches can contribute to our repertoire of methods. We build our lives around the stories we tell ourselves. Sometimes those stories are unhelpful and can benefit from being rewritten, which is precisely what this approach is all about. Narrative approaches can therefore be understood as relying on a process of helping people to develop new, more empowering narratives – to re-author the stories that are part of their sense of who they are and how they relate to the world. There is therefore a strong emphasis on meanings and how they can help or hinder people in how they address their life challenges. Social workers can play a constructive role in bringing about new, more positive narratives to replace ones that have proven to be problematic in one or more ways.
