Narrative Therapy in the Perinatal Period
The transition to parenthood often changes far more than your daily routine. It can change how you see yourself.
Perhaps you've started thinking:
I'm failing as a mother.
My body let me down.
I've ruined my baby.
I'm not the person I used to be.
I should have coped better.
Everything changed after the birth.
I'll never be myself again.
These stories rarely appear overnight. They are usually built from years of experiences, expectations, relationships and messages about what it means to be a "good" parent.
When we are anxious, depressed, grieving or traumatised, these stories often become narrower and more critical. We begin to view ourselves through the lens of our difficulties rather than recognising them as experiences we are living through.
Narrative Therapy offers a different way of understanding these experiences. Rather than asking, "What's wrong with you?", it asks:
"What story has your experiences led you to believe about yourself, and is that the whole story?"
What is Narrative Therapy?
Narrative Therapy is a collaborative psychological therapy developed by Michael White and David Epston.
It is based on the idea that people make sense of their lives through stories. These stories influence how we understand ourselves, our relationships and what we believe is possible.
When life becomes difficult, one story can begin to dominate.
Instead of seeing yourself as someone experiencing postnatal depression, you may begin to believe that you are a bad mother.
Instead of recognising the effects of birth trauma, you may conclude that you are weak.
Instead of seeing infertility as something that happened to you, you may come to believe that your body is broken.
Narrative Therapy helps separate your identity from your difficulties, creating space to recognise strengths, values, resilience and experiences that have been overshadowed.
The aim is not to invent a more positive story or pretend painful experiences never happened. Rather, it is to develop a richer, more balanced understanding of who you are.
Why is Narrative Therapy particularly helpful during the perinatal period?
Pregnancy and early parenthood are major identity transitions.
Many people discover that their previous sense of self no longer feels secure.
You may be navigating questions such as:
Who am I now?
What kind of parent am I becoming?
Can I trust my body?
How has this experience changed me?
Why doesn't motherhood feel like I expected?
Can I hold onto parts of myself alongside becoming a parent?
Alongside these changes come powerful cultural messages about motherhood, fathers, attachment, breastfeeding, birth, fertility and family life.
Narrative Therapy creates space to explore where these expectations came from, whether they truly fit your own values, and how they may be shaping the way you judge yourself.
Difficulties Narrative Therapy can help with
Narrative Therapy can be particularly helpful for:
Perinatal anxiety
Postnatal depression
Birth trauma
Fertility difficulties
Pregnancy after loss
Miscarriage and baby loss
Traumatic fertility treatment
Adjustment to parenthood
Difficult birth experiences
Identity changes after becoming a parent
Parenting after childhood trauma
Long-term health complications in pregnancy
Caring for a premature or medically complex baby
Grief following unexpected changes to family life
It is often especially valuable when shame, guilt or self-blame have become central to how you understand yourself.
How Narrative Therapy works
Although every person's therapy is different, sessions often involve several key ideas.
Externalising the problem
One of the best-known aspects of Narrative Therapy is separating the person from the problem. Instead of saying:
"I am anxious."
we might explore how anxiety has become influential in your life recently.
Rather than:
"I'm a terrible mother."
we might examine how self-criticism has gradually convinced you this is true.
This subtle shift often creates enough distance to become curious rather than simply accepting the problem as part of your identity.
Exploring where the story came from
Our beliefs about ourselves rarely develop in isolation.
Together, we explore how your life experiences have shaped the story you now hold about yourself. This might include your family relationships, childhood experiences, fertility journey, pregnancy or birth, previous losses, interactions with healthcare professionals, and the wider cultural messages you've absorbed about what it means to be a "good" parent.
Understanding where these stories came from can make them feel less like objective truths and more like understandable responses to your experiences. This often helps reduce self-blame and creates space for greater compassion towards yourself.
Identifying overlooked stories
When people are distressed, the mind naturally pays more attention to evidence that supports negative beliefs.
Narrative Therapy deliberately searches for experiences that may have been overlooked.
For example: A mother who believes she is failing may also be the person who gets up every night despite exhaustion, keeps attending appointments for her baby, asks for help when needed and continues showing enormous care despite feeling frightened.
These moments are often dismissed as insignificant, yet they tell an important story about persistence, love and commitment, and help us to shift the lens we are seeing ourselves and the world through.
Clarifying your values
Rather than focusing solely on symptoms, Narrative Therapy explores what matters most to you.
Questions might include:
What kind of parent do you hope to be?
What values guide your parenting?
What do you want your child to remember about you?
What has helped you survive difficult experiences?
What qualities have carried you this far?
These conversations often help people reconnect with parts of themselves that became hidden beneath anxiety, trauma or depression.
Re-authoring your story
Over time, therapy helps develop a broader, more compassionate narrative. This doesn't erase painful experiences. Instead, those experiences become one chapter in your life rather than the entire story. Many people begin therapy feeling defined by what has happened to them. We find that Narrative Therapy can help a person to leave with a stronger sense of who they are beyond their difficulties.
What might Narrative Therapy look like in practice?
As an example, a mother who experienced a traumatic emergency caesarean birth may arrive believing:
"I failed to give birth properly."
As therapy progresses, we begin exploring where this belief came from. We examine the expectations she carried into birth, the messages she received afterwards, the fear she experienced during labour and the enormous responsibility she felt to keep her baby safe.
Gradually, a different story tends to begin to emerge. Rather than someone who failed, she starts to recognise someone who endured an overwhelming medical emergency, made difficult decisions under immense pressure and continued caring for her baby while coping with trauma.
The facts of what happened have not changed, but the meaning she gives those experiences has. That shift often reduces shame and creates space for a new perspective.
How Narrative Therapy fits with other approaches
Narrative Therapy is often integrated with other evidence-based therapies, including:
Compassion Focused Therapy (to reduce shame and strengthen self-compassion)
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (to understand thinking patterns)
Trauma-focused approaches (Trauma-Focussed CBT and EMDR) for PTSD and birth trauma
The exact approach depends on your experiences, goals and the formulation we develop together.
Is Narrative Therapy right for me?
Narrative Therapy may be a good fit if you've found yourself questioning who you are since becoming a parent, or if you're struggling to make sense of your experiences during pregnancy, birth or early parenthood. It can be particularly helpful when a difficult experience or diagnosis has come to define how you see yourself, or when you're looking for a therapeutic approach that explores meaning, identity and values alongside emotional wellbeing.
Many people find that Narrative Therapy feels less about "fixing" themselves and more about developing a kinder, more balanced understanding of who they are. Rather than being defined by anxiety, trauma, grief or self-doubt, therapy creates space to recognise the fuller picture of your experiences, strengths and the person you are becoming.
Narrative Therapy at Motherhood in Mind
At Motherhood in Mind, Narrative Therapy is about working together to understand the stories that have developed around your experiences, explore how they are influencing your wellbeing, and create space for richer, more compassionate ways of seeing yourself.
Because the perinatal period is such a significant chapter of life, the stories we develop during this time can shape how we remember ourselves for years to come.
Therapy offers an opportunity to ensure that those stories are not written by anxiety, trauma, grief or self-blame alone, but also include your resilience, your values, your relationships and the many ways you have continued to care despite everything you have been carrying.
