Narrative work and the metaphor of ‘home’— Katie Howells

This paper explores how homes – both as physical places and as metaphors– can be taken up in narrative therapy practice. The author first explores various meanings that people attribute to the concept of ‘home’, and then outlines some options for the relevance of the home metaphor to various maps of narrative practice. The paper then recounts three examples drawn from practice: first, re-authoring conversations with a couple leaving one way of living, dominated by addiction, to reclaim another; second, the documentation of the skills and knowledges of a young woman working to ‘stay close to home’ in dealing with anorexia; and, finally, a remembering conversation supported by the metaphor of home with a woman wanting to review her husband’s membership of her ‘club of life’ following his infidelity.