The Use of Narrative Therapy Group for Young Women with Unwed Pregnancy Experience by Siu-wai Lit
In Hong Kong, teenage girls who become pregnant when not married are routinely blamed for what is described as their ‘immature’ and ‘irresponsible’ behaviour. All too often, this then becomes a dominant problem-saturated story with totalising effects that blinds their eyes from seeing the alternative stories of their own lives. There is generally little concern given to this group of teenage women and a lack of understanding of their own accounts of the issue and their subjective experience of facing social disapproval and exclusion. Siu-wai chose to use a narrative therapy group to facilitate double-story development. By eliciting these young women’s narratives of worries, their struggles in facing social disapproval and exclusion, and at the same time eliciting counter narratives, this process enabled identity transformations in the experience of their subjugated position.
This video presents the experience of this narrative therapy group that gave voice to the neglected counter narratives of unwed teenage women with pregnancy experience. Group members not only experienced personal transformations, but also realised that they have a choice – to be continuously dominated by the problem-saturated story or to take a step to walk out!
Siu-wai Lit is the Head of the Office of Counselling and Wellness of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She has been teaching in the Department of Applied Social Sciences of the same University for about fifteen years. She is a dedicated narrative practitioner who uses narrative therapy, especially narrative therapy groups to facilitate transformation among various groups of people including people suffering from mental illness and terminal cancer, mothers with children with special learning needs, and young people.
