You Are Not the Problem": The Narrative Therapy Technique That Changes Everything

Have you ever caught yourself saying — or heard someone else say — “I’m just an anxious person” or “my kid is a problem child”? These phrases come from a place of frustration, not malice, but they carry something heavy: the idea that the person is the problem. And when we believe that, change feels almost impossible. After all, how do you change what you fundamentally are?

In narrative therapy, we work from a different premise — one that I’ve seen be genuinely liberating for the people I work with: you are not the problem. The problem is the problem. One of the most powerful techniques for actually experiencing this — not just understanding it intellectually — is called externalization of the problem.

In this article, I want to walk you through what that means, how it works in therapy, and why it can transform your relationship with the things that are hurting you most.

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What Does It Mean to Externalize a Problem?

In the context of narrative therapy, externalizing a problem means giving it a separate existence from the person experiencing it. Instead of saying “I’m depressed,” we start talking about “the depression that’s been showing up in your life lately.” Instead of “my son is so aggressive,” we explore “the aggression that’s been visiting your son a lot recently.”

This isn’t just wordplay. It’s a shift in perspective with real consequences for how we feel and what we believe is possible.

When the problem lives inside you, you feel like you’re broken — like the issue is your identity. But when the problem exists outside you — as something separate, with its own name and characteristics — suddenly you have a relationship with it. And relationships can change.

Externalization was developed by therapists Michael White and David Epston, the founders of narrative therapy, and it’s now one of the most widely used approaches in work with adults, children, and families alike.

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A Real-World Example: When Anxiety Stops Being “Who You Are”

Let me share something I see regularly in my practice. Someone comes in — let’s call her Sarah, 34 years old — and says: “I’m just a really anxious person. I’ve always been like this. It’s just my personality.”

Sarah carries that identity like it’s been sewn onto her back. She can’t take it off because she believes it is her.

In therapy, we start doing something different. I might ask: “If you had to give this feeling a name — if anxiety were a character, what would it be like?”

People sometimes laugh at first. But then something shifts. Sarah says: “It would be like this really bossy voice that tells me everything is going to go wrong.” We give it a name — she chose to call it “The Catastrophizer” — and suddenly Sarah can talk about it as something separate from herself.

So instead of “I’m an anxious person,” it becomes: “The Catastrophizer showed up Sunday night and wouldn’t let me sleep.”

Notice the difference? Now Sarah can ask herself: When does it show up? What feeds it? When have I managed not to let it take over? Those questions weren’t available when anxiety was simply who she was.

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How Externalization Works in Therapy

Externalizing a problem isn’t just about naming something and moving on. It’s a process that unfolds carefully across sessions, with curiosity and care. Some of what we work on together includes:

• Naming the problem: What do we call this thing that’s affecting you? It can be a straightforward name (“the sadness,” “the anger”) or something more creative that you come up with yourself.
• Mapping its effects: What does this problem do in your life? How does it affect your work, your relationships, the way you see yourself?
• Tracing its history: How long has it been around? What conditions make it grow? What weakens it?
• Finding the exceptions: Have there been moments when the problem was present but didn’t win? What did you do differently? These moments are gold in narrative therapy — they reveal resources you already have.
• Rewriting your identity: If the problem isn’t you, then who are you? This part of the work is deep, and often unexpectedly moving.

With children, this process often happens through play therapy — drawing the “worry monster,” building it a house far away, or writing it a letter. Kids are remarkably creative with this, and the results can be surprising.

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What Kinds of Issues Does This Work For?

Externalization is one of the most versatile tools in narrative therapy. I use it regularly with:

• Anxiety and fears — in adults, teenagers, and children
• Grief and loss — separating “the loss” from the identity of the person living through it
• Low self-esteem — when “I’m a failure” becomes “failure has been visiting a lot lately”
• Children’s behavioral challenges — working with what’s affecting the child, rather than labeling the child themselves
• Relationship conflicts — externalizing “the disconnection” or “the fighting” as something happening to the relationship, not something one person is
• Parenting struggles — when parents feel like they’re “bad parents,” exploring what narrative has them stuck

It’s not a magic fix, and it doesn’t look the same for everyone. But in my practice, I’ve seen it open doors that seemed completely closed.

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Externalizing Is Not Minimizing — an Important Distinction

I want to be clear about something, because this question comes up: externalizing a problem doesn’t mean dismissing it, downplaying it, or pretending it isn’t real.

It’s actually the opposite.

When we externalize, we take the problem very seriously. We name it, study it, and try to understand it. What we don’t do is fuse it with the person’s identity. Sarah’s anxiety is real and it deeply affects her life — but Sarah is not her anxiety.

This distinction matters especially when working with parents who are worried about their kids. Telling a child “you’re a liar” has very different effects than exploring together: “What happens when lying shows up? What is it trying to protect you from?” In the second case, the child doesn’t feel attacked — and can actually participate in change.

Externalization is an act of respect. It says to the person: you are worth more than this problem. You are more than this.

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A Final Thought

So many people come to therapy convinced that something is fundamentally broken in them. That they’re too sensitive, too intense, too much. That this is just how they are and how they’ll always be.

Narrative therapy — and externalization in particular — reminds me, session after session, that people are so much more than the problems they’re living through. That we have resources, stories of resilience, moments where we’ve handled hard things with more strength than we gave ourselves credit for. And when we stop fighting against ourselves, something new becomes possible.

If any of this resonated with you, or if there’s something you’ve been carrying that you’re ready to stop carrying alone, I’d be glad to work with you. I offer therapy sessions in English for expats, digital nomads, and English speakers living in Mexico City. You can reach me on WhatsApp to schedule a first session with no commitment required. Sometimes that first step is the hardest one — and also the most important.