Toward a Narrative Approach to Christian Marital Therapy

Abstract

The narrative understanding of human nature exists as a major paradigm shift within the field of psychology, which has moved the focus of therapyaway from managing psychological problems, toward a focus on integrating varied dimensions of experience into a meaningful life story. This change in thinking has opened up new avenues for Christian integration since a story-based epistemology is more compatible with the scriptural narrative of salvation history than is the traditional scientific paradigm. However, to what extent the narrative model is equipped for the specialized work of marital therapy is still to be researched and developed. Hence, the mission of this dissertation is to integrate narrative and marital psychologies into a theoretical framework for Christian marital therapy. To produce an integrative definition of marital meaning that transcends reductionist trends in contemporary therapeutic practice, a Christian anthropology is brought into dialogue with Victor Frankl’s concept of will to meaning . The mutually enriching aspects of these two schools of thought are used to develop an original COR-RELATE Meaning Model of Marital Therapy. To reinforce an empirical basis for narrative intervention, the principles of narrative composition between marital partners as uncovered through John Gottman’s marital research (i.e., the shared meaning system) are called upon. By adapting specific intervention strategies from White and Epson’s narrative therapy model to a marital framework, a brief illustration is presented on how the COR-RELATE Model can be applied to a narrative approach to Christian marital therapy.