Narrative Coaching: How Stories Make Change Possible

Narrative coaching is an approach that uses a person's story as the central lever for change. It assumes that we order our lives into narratives and that a stuck story holds us back. In short:

• Core assumption: The event does not define you. The story you tell about it does.
• Key question: Which narrative dominates right now, and which overlooked narrative would be stronger?
• Origin: developed from the narrative therapy of Michael White and David Epston, adapted for the coaching context.
• Goal: not to treat symptoms, but to rewrite your own story into a more solid one.

Anyone searching for "stories in coaching" or "storytelling coaching" usually means exactly this: a structured way to change your own narrative.

What is narrative coaching?

Narrative coaching describes a method in which you work with your coach on the story you tell about yourself and your situation. The core idea is simple and still profound. People do not experience life as a loose collection of facts, but as a coherent narrative with a main character, turning points, and a moral. This narrative decides what you consider possible.

The problem: often a single, problem-saturated story dominates. "I am someone who always fails." "I have no talent for leadership." Such sentences sound like facts, but they are interpretations. Narrative coaching makes that interpretation visible and opens space for alternative narratives that are just as true but have been overlooked so far.

That sets the approach apart from goal-driven models. Where a classic method asks "What is your goal and how do you get there", narrative coaching first asks "Which story is holding you in place". Both have their place. The narrative angle works above all when a person has known the goal for a long time but does not inwardly believe they belong to it.

That explains why pure goal work sometimes runs into a wall. A client can name every step of the plan and still not act, because their story about themselves contradicts the plan. Narrative coaching starts exactly at that gap.

Lies auch: Coaching methods at a glance: GROW, OSKAR and systemic

What separates narrative coaching from narrative therapy?

Narrative coaching and narrative therapy share the same roots but work in different fields. This boundary is not a formality but a question of responsibility.

Narrative therapy is a clinical procedure. It treats mental disorders with clinical severity: depression, trauma sequelae, anxiety disorders. That requires therapeutic training and an appropriate setting.

Narrative coaching works with healthy people on development, orientation, and roles. A client sorting out their identity after selling a company, a team looking for a shared story after a merger, a leader before the next career step. It is about meaning and direction, not about healing.

The rule for you as a coach is clear. If signs of a clinical burden appear, you refer to a specialist. This separation protects your client and you. Anyone who blurs it leaves their competence.

Lies auch: Coaching, therapy, counselling and mentoring compared

Where does the narrative approach come from?

The narrative approach comes from Michael White and David Epston, who developed it in the 1980s. Their 1990 book "Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends" is considered the founding text. White, connected with the Dulwich Centre in Australia, formulated the idea that people can be trapped in dominant, problem-saturated narratives and that these narratives can be rewritten.

For coaching, David Drake in particular translated these ideas. His work "Narrative Coaching" and the Center for Narrative Coaching he founded lifted the techniques out of the clinical context and made them usable for developmental work. This matters because it shows: the method is not a market invention but has a documented professional lineage.

This origin also explains the sober core of the approach. It promises no quick change, but a more precise perception of your own story. If you want to understand how coaching as a whole grew out of different disciplines, the origin and definition of coaching is worth a look.

How does narrative coaching externalize a problem?

Externalizing means separating the problem from the person in language. Instead of "I am burned out", it becomes "The burnout is here and wants to control my calendar". The difference seems small but changes the client's position fundamentally.

As long as the problem is part of the identity, a person can only work on themselves, which creates shame. Once the problem becomes a counterpart, room to act appears. You can observe, question, and push back something that is not yourself.

As a coach, you work with questions like these:

• If the problem had a name, what would it be called?
• When did it first take influence over you?
• In which moments does it have less power over you?
• What does it want to convince you of that is not true?

The last point is the transition to the next technique. Because where the problem has less power lie the exceptions from which a new story grows.

An example from practice. A founder from the canton of Aargau describes himself as "chronically overwhelmed". As soon as the overwhelm gets a name and appears as a counterpart, he can question it: when it shows up, what it demands, when it is quieter. He notices that it grows loud above all on Sunday evenings and almost disappears in his team on Mondays. This observation is valuable because it shows the problem is not equally strong everywhere. These gaps are exactly the raw material for change.

How does re-authoring work in coaching?

Re-authoring means actively rewriting your own narrative along overlooked successes. The client remains the author of their story but collects evidence that had no place in the dominant narrative.

This runs in three movements. First, you look together for exceptions, so-called unique outcomes: moments in which the person acted against their problem story. Then you condense these moments into a line. A leader who considers herself conflict-averse suddenly recalls five situations in which she clearly took a stand. Finally, you connect this line to values and abilities that were already present in the previous life story.

Re-authoring is not sugar-coating. The exceptions must be real, otherwise the new story will not hold. This is exactly why it needs presence and careful listening, as also described by emotional intelligence in coaching. And because a new story only holds when it is connected to real motives, narrative coaching often interlocks with motivational questions, for instance from self-determination theory in coaching.

What is a witnessing ritual in narrative coaching?

A witnessing ritual, originally a definitional ceremony, brings in outsiders to witness and reinforce the new story. Michael White described it as a way to socially anchor a newly written narrative so it does not fade after the session.

In coaching, the client chooses one or more people who matter to them. These listen to the new narrative and respond not with praise, but with what resonated in them. This response works more strongly than any compliment because it anchors the new story in relationships. What several people confirm becomes real.

The form of the response matters. The witnesses do not judge whether the new story is good or right. They tell what own experience the words remind them of. This shift from judgment to resonance is the core of the ritual and the reason it works.

In practice this is well organized through a structured coaching session in which a client shares their new narrative and receives feedback. For coaches, reflecting on these processes is just as important, which is where supervision and intervision come in.

Who is narrative coaching for?

Narrative coaching suits people at transitions where the old story no longer fits. This applies especially to Swiss SME owners handing over or selling their life's work. When the company has carried the identity for decades, an emptiness often remains after the sale that no business plan fills.

Rafael Moser, narrative coach and organizational developer from Zurich with eleven years of practice, knows this situation well.

"I switched from solution-focused methods to the narrative approach when I noticed that my clients in company handovers did not need a strategy, but a new answer to the question of who they are without the company. Only when we rewrote their story did their agency return."

This observation matches what the approach is meant to deliver. It works where a person does not have to solve a problem but has to understand their role anew. After separation, job loss, promotion, or indeed succession. It is less suited to purely operational goals such as concrete negotiation preparation, where structured models reach the target faster.

In Switzerland, the approach has a particular space in succession planning. Many owners of family businesses, from German-speaking Switzerland through the Romandie to Ticino, face the handover to the next generation or to external buyers. The legal and financial questions are one thing. The question of who you are after the handover is another. This identity-near work is done by no notary and no fiduciary, but by a coach.

How robust coaching is as a format is shown by a look at the research on the effectiveness of coaching.

How long does a narrative coaching process take?

A narrative coaching process usually takes several sessions over a few weeks to months, rarely just a single conversation. The reason lies in the approach itself. A dominant story has settled over years, and a new narrative needs time to take root in everyday life.

Typical is an arc of five to ten sessions. The first serve externalizing and tracing exceptions. The middle ones condense these exceptions into a new line. The last anchor the result, often through a witnessing ritual. Between sessions, the client gathers further evidence for the new story, which carries the process.

This duration is not a drawback but part of the effect. A narrative that changes in one session usually does not hold. One that is filled over weeks with real experiences stays. Anyone offering the process as a coach therefore sensibly plans a package rather than a single hour.

How do you start with narrative coaching?

If you want to try first narrative techniques yourself as a leader, start with externalizing. Address a problem deliberately as a counterpart once and observe how your stance changes. For deeper work, especially on identity questions, being accompanied by a trained coach makes sense.

For coaches who want to add the approach to their offering: the investment in a recognized further training pays off professionally and fiscally. In Switzerland you can deduct profession-oriented further training up to a total amount of CHF 12'000 per year from federal direct tax, regulated in Article 33 paragraph 1 letter j of the Federal Act on Direct Federal Taxation (Source: fedlex.admin.ch, DBG Art. 33). Your cantonal tax authority confirms the exact deductible amount for your canton.

On bondigoo you find professionals with different methodological focuses in the coach directory, whom you book directly after a first conversation. If you want to offer the narrative approach in a structured way as a coach, individual sessions can be mapped just as well as multi-stage coaching programs that accompany a whole story across several stages. How the platform works overall is explained on the How bondigoo works page.

Stories do not change at the push of a button. But with the right counterpart and a clear procedure, a stuck narrative becomes one again in which development is possible.

Ready for the next step? Start your professional coaching business on bondigoo now