NARRATIVE FOCUSED COUNSELING
STORY WORK THERAPY IN TULSA
The story stays yours. The way your body tells it is what can shift.
Story work is a counseling approach that looks closely at specific moments from your past to understand patterns in your present. Rather than summarizing years, you and your counselor spend real time on one scene. What you concluded about yourself back then often still shapes how you read people now.
The short version
You set the pace
How far into a scene you go, and when to stop, stays your call.
Offered one on one
Individual sessions, not a group or a workshop format.
No script to follow
Where a session goes depends on what comes up, not a set agenda.
Used alongside counseling
Typically paired with regular sessions rather than replacing them.
WHEN UNDERSTANDING IT HAS NOT CHANGED IT
Is Story Work Right For You?
Some patterns stay in place even after you understand them well. Story work may be worth considering when that describes where you are.
This approach suits some people and not others, and it is one option among several we offer. Your counselor will tell you honestly whether it makes sense for what you are working on, and can suggest a different starting point if it does not.
Start With A Free ConsultationWHAT PEOPLE BRING TO STORY WORK
What Does Story Work Help With?
Clients often bring an ongoing pattern rather than a single event, including the following.
Repeating Relationship Patterns
The same conflicts and dynamics showing up across different relationships.
Family Of Origin
How your household handled conflict, closeness, and what went unspoken.
Persistent Self-Criticism
Harsh internal beliefs that have followed you since early on.
Feeling Distant In Close Relationships
Difficulty being fully known by people you have been close to for years.
Questions About Faith
Beliefs about God shaped by earlier church or family experiences.
Never Feeling Like Enough
Accomplishments that do not bring the relief you expected them to.
A difficult past is not a requirement for this work.
If something on this list sounds familiar, that is reason enough to ask whether story work fits your situation.
The long version
What Is Story Work?
Story work is a counseling approach that examines specific experiences from your past in order to understand patterns in your present. It is sometimes called narrative focused counseling.
Rather than summarizing years of history, you and your counselor focus on one experience at a time and give it real attention. Details that get skipped over in a summary are often where the meaning sits.
Your counselor listens for what you needed at the time, who was present, and what you came to believe about yourself as a result. Those beliefs frequently continue operating long after the situation itself has changed.
Story work does not change what happened. It can make the conclusions you drew from it easier to recognize and question, which is often where the movement comes from.
Faith is included at whatever level you ask for and left out entirely if you prefer. Story work is typically used alongside regular counseling rather than in place of it, and your counselor will tell you honestly whether it suits what you are working on.
What happened is fixed. What you concluded from it is not.
Start With A Free ConsultationWHERE THE THINKING COMES FROM
Why Focus On One Moment?
This part is the background. It explains the thinking behind the approach rather than what a session looks like, and you can skip it without missing anything you need before a first appointment. If what you want is the practical picture, that is further up this page. For everyone else, here is why story work works the way it does, in four parts. Open any one to read it.
01
Where The Approach Comes From
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Story work developed within Christian counseling, largely through Dan Allender's writing and the narrative focused trauma care model. Counselors trained in it work in both faith based and general settings.
02
Conclusions, Not Just Events
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What shapes the present is usually not the event itself but what you decided it meant. Cognitive approaches call these core beliefs. They tend to form early, operate automatically, and outlast the circumstances that produced them.
03
Why Detail Matters
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Specific memories reveal more than general ones. A summary smooths out the parts that carry the meaning, which is why story work stays with a single scene instead of covering years at a time.
04
What Story Work Is Not
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This is not memory recovery, and nothing about it asks you to remember more than you already do. It is also not a replacement for treatment when trauma symptoms are active, and your counselor may recommend starting elsewhere.
Story work is an approach rather than a standardized clinical protocol, and this page will not claim otherwise.
Your counselor will tell you plainly which approach fits what you are working on.
The Counselor For This Work
Story Work With Dr. Roselene Coblentz
Ph.D., LMFT
Dr. Roselene Coblentz offers story work at Redemption Counseling. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist and holds a doctorate.
Sessions are available at our Tulsa office and by telehealth anywhere in Oklahoma. Story work is typically used alongside regular counseling rather than in place of it, and she will tell you honestly whether it suits what you are working on.
She has also written two books, both available on Amazon.
Read her full bioYou Do Not Need
A Memory Picked Out
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Is story work the same as narrative therapy?
No, though the names invite confusion. Narrative therapy is a separate clinical model developed within family therapy, built around separating a person from the problem story. Story work came out of Christian counseling and stays focused on specific past experiences and what you concluded from them. Some counselors use both, so it is worth asking which one is meant.
What if I do not remember much of my childhood?
Common, and not a barrier. Story work uses what you already have, which for most people is a handful of scenes rather than a continuous account. Gaps can be informative in their own right. Nothing in this approach asks you to retrieve memories you do not currently hold.
How many sessions does story work take?
There is no set number. Some clients spend a few sessions on it and return to regular counseling, while others come back to it over months as new situations surface. Your counselor can give you a better estimate after the first conversation, once she understands what you are working on.
Can story work bring up more than I expected?
It can. Looking closely at a difficult experience often surfaces feeling that a summary kept at a comfortable distance, which is worth knowing before you start. You set the pace, sessions can slow down or stop entirely, and your counselor will ask how you are doing between appointments as well.
Can I do story work if I already see another therapist?
Usually, and it helps to tell both counselors. Some people keep their existing therapy in place and add story work for a season. Sharing information between providers requires your written consent, and your counselor can walk you through how that works before anything gets sent anywhere.