Rapport Building Interview Questions for Narrative Therapists

Narrative therapy is a specific method of counseling built around the basic principals pioneered by Michael White. The counseling technique involves understanding and shaping the story of a person's life in narrative terms. As with other methods of counseling, for narrative therapy to be effective, there needs to be trust and some level of rapport between the patient and the therapist.

General Questions

• In order to cross the first threshold of rapport building, therapists need to get a patient talking. The easiest way to do this is to simply ask a person to talk about themselves in unspecified terms. Invite the patient to tell you whatever he wants to about himself. What he chooses to tell you or not tell you helps decide which other rapport building questions you might pursue next.

Questions About Choices

• Narrative therapists often ask people about the choices that they make. Every question the narrative therapist asks serves the dual purpose of eliciting information and building rapport. Questions about the choices that patients make in life allow the therapist to guide the conversation to looking at other possible outcomes that might have resulted in a patient's life, based on hypothetical different choices they could have made.

Checking In

• Something else that narrative therapists do often is check in with the patient, in order to ensure that the conversation is working for them. This helps build rapport because the patient learns that the control in the conversation lies with him, and that the therapist is there to support and facilitate his journey. For instance, a therapist might ask whether the conversation feels good for the patient, if the patient wants to stay on a given conversation track, or if he would rather talk about something else.

Naming

• When people experience something harmful, stressful or otherwise difficult situation, they need to reclaim power over that situation to be able to deal with it. Part of gaining that power requires that the problem be given a name. Narrative therapists ask questions to help patients name the problems they face. Questions as simple as "what name would you assign to what's happened?" help patients put a label on the problem and address it head on.