Question 1

Can journaling actually replace therapy for healing from something difficult?

Accepted Answer

No, and it's important to be clear about that. Narrative therapy is a clinical approach practiced by trained therapists. Journal prompts inspired by its ideas can be a genuinely useful personal practice, but they aren't a substitute for professional support, especially for significant trauma or ongoing mental health difficulty.

Question 2

What does it mean that "the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem"?

Accepted Answer

It's the central idea behind narrative therapy, developed by Michael White and David Epston, meaning a person's identity shouldn't be treated as the same thing as the difficulty they're facing. The problem is something separate, something happening to a person, not a definition of who they are.

Question 3

What is an "exception" in narrative therapy, and why does it matter?

Accepted Answer

It refers to a moment when a problem didn't have full control over a situation, however small. Narrative therapy treats these moments as meaningful evidence of a person's existing strength, often overlooked because the difficulty tends to dominate the story.

Question 4

How often should I use journal prompts for healing?

Accepted Answer

There's no fixed schedule, but returning to them regularly, rather than expecting one entry to resolve everything, tends to reflect how healing actually works, gradually, with the fuller story building over time rather than all at once.

jounralling

Journal Prompts for Healing (A Real Idea From Therapy, Adapted for Your Journal)

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