Narrative therapy is built on the premise that problems are maintained in language and the way we interpret them.  Language is understood to be socially constructed.  People measure life events against their beliefs and discard anything that is not consistent with their perception.

Therapists take a non-judgmental approach to therapy believing that people have good intentions yet become stuck by the powerful negative forces of their problem-saturated stories.

Narrative therapists describe problems as problems and not people as problems.  This creates space for clients to adopt new interpretations and re-author their life stories.   Change occurs when clients reclaim preferred outcomes and reincorporate them into their life stories, having new hope and faith to overcome their problems.