Coaching practices for Landscape of Identity Narrative Therapy

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Landscape of Identity Narrative Therapy, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • I can recount exactly what happened
  • The new way I’m trying to see myself only seems to hold when I’m alone with it
  • I’ve spotted a few moments where I was braver than my usual story says, but they feel like isolated flukes
  • I’m so convinced I’m "the one who always falls apart" that I can’t see anything else
  • There’s a story I tell about my past

Practices that may help

  1. Landscape of Identity and Action Questions
    Use two question types to map both what the person DID (action) and what that reveals about who they ARE (identity).
    Narrative Therapy: Rewriting the Stories That Define You
  2. Definitional Ceremonies and Outsider Witnesses
    Invite meaningful others to witness and retell the new story — being known differently by others consolidates the new identity.
    Narrative Therapy: Rewriting the Stories That Define You
  3. Narrative Therapy: Rewriting the Stories That Define You
    Narrative therapy, developed by Michael White and David Epston, holds that people live by stories — about who they are, what they’re capable of, and what their experiences mean. By separating the person from the problem ("the person is not the problem; the problem is the problem") and finding "unique outcomes" that contradict a limiting story, therapy opens space to author a more empowering alternative. The evidence base is growing but smaller and less methodologically uniform than CBT.
  4. Re-Authoring the Alternative Story
    Build a preferred story of identity by thickening the exceptions into a narrative with a plot.
    Narrative Therapy: Rewriting the Stories That Define You
  5. Finding Unique Outcomes (Exceptions to the Problem Story)
    Surface moments when the problem did NOT dominate — these are the seeds of an alternative story.
    Narrative Therapy: Rewriting the Stories That Define You
  6. Narrative Identity, Made Practical
    Dan McAdams’ narrative identity theory holds that identity itself is a personal myth — an internalized, evolving story that integrates your past, present, and imagined future into a coherent sense of self. The structure and tone of that story (whether it moves toward redemption or contamination, agency or communion) predicts psychological well-being, and the story can be deliberately revised. Evidence is primarily observational but robustly consistent.
  7. Revise your life narrative when it limits you
    Identify and reauthor the story you tell about your past that constrains what you believe is possible.
    The Life Crafting Intervention: Scripting Your Future Self
  8. Externalizing the Problem
    Separate the person from the problem by talking about it as if it exists outside them.
    Narrative Therapy: Rewriting the Stories That Define You
  9. Construct a lifeline
    Lay out your entire life chronologically using symbolic markers — stones for traumatic events, flowers for positive ones.
    Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET): Weaving Trauma Into a Coherent Life Story
  10. The Absent But Implicit: What Problems Reveal About What We Value
    Every problem story implies a violated value — surfacing that value reveals the person’s strengths, not just their struggles.
    Narrative Therapy: Rewriting the Stories That Define You

Related concerns

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.

Practice this with IX Coach

Try this practice