“If you are always trying to be normal,
you will never know how amazing you can be.”
Maya Angelou
Have you ever noticed how we can automatically and unconsciously just go along with societal expectations? E.g., getting hung up about feeling “normal”, drawn into ideas of a “perfect parent” and feeling the effects of “parent blaming”, wrestling with ideas about how we should look and behave, feeling sure that “the problem” is somehow in us or who we are, e.g., “I am a worrier”.
And have you ever noticed that problems can feel overwhelming, confusing or unsolvable sometimes?
And because problems are tricky, they can convince us and our family members and other important people in our lives that the problem is “inside” an individual, and keep everyone focused on this limiting single story e.g., a child can be viewed as difficult, a service can be viewed as not doing enough, a person can be viewed as an anxious or depressed person, a child struggling to attend school can be seen through the single story of “school refusal”, or a relationship can be viewed as “unsalvageable”.
It’s important to remember that our lives are multi-storied and that there’s so much more to us than problems we are facing and that we can live our lives beyond narrow or limiting societal expectations.
In Narrative Therapy we talk about “deconstruction”. This a powerful and versatile technique to help by breaking problems down into smaller, more manageable parts that are easier to understand and address. It also helps to clarify what the core issue or issues are. Getting perspective this way is really helpful in feeling you have choice and power about how you move forwards with life.
Deconstruction also situates the problem in “context” by discovering, acknowledging, and "taking apart" beliefs, ideas and practices of broader culture that assist the problem, e.g., cultural and societal specifications about things like gender roles or parenting, racism, or social media prescriptions about how we should look, live, and parent. Our kids can be particularly susceptible to the influence of social media.
Deconstruction is really versatile.
You can use it for lots of different problems and in lots of different ways e.g.,
Get curious with yourself by asking whose idea or belief this really is that’s troubling you, and whether the belief fits for you or not.
Get curious about broader influences on problems e.g., any ideas or core beliefs you’ve unconsciously carried with you in your backpack of life from your family of origin, culture or era in time you’ve grown up in.
Examine the “stakeholders” of the problem e.g., advertisers and social media companies invite people to think there’s a certain way to look and to live a “happy, successful life”.
Ask yourself, are there things in society that help create these beliefs? Do these societal beliefs serve you or make life harder?
Draw a pie chart to map the different parts of the problem and what size each part is, or use a pizza drawing with different sized slices of pizza.
Use a cake, soup or pizza metaphor to deconstruct the “ingredients” and/or “layers” of the problem. You could draw this out or literally write the ingredients list ... and don’t forget to say how much of each ingredient is in the problem.
Cook a hamburger and lay out all the individual ingredients (or use a hamburger metaphor and draw it) thinking about the layers of the hamburger as different parts of the problem… and consider which layer is thicker and what order the layers are in.
Draw a brick wall and deconstruct the problem by putting different parts of the problem on different bricks.
Deconstruction is a great way to help change our relationship with problems, and if you do this as a family it’s a great way to help your family unite in resisting the effects of the problem and taking steps towards your preferred future.
You can also use this approach creatively with your kids and teens to help them develop their problem solving skills, and to help them gain perspective when challenges with friends, school, identity, family and life feel overwhelming.
So next time a problem shows up in your life, your kid’s life or your family life take a minute and decide, how will you deconstruct it?
Leonie :)
Dr Leonie White - Clinical Family Therapist and Psychologist
Helping people grow, connect and thrive in life’s unique journey.
Please note - this article is educational in nature and does not constitute therapy advice.
Please seek help from a professional if you require support.
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