Localization Impediments and Developmental Pathways of Narrative Therapy in China

Introduced to China in the late 1990s, narrative therapy faces a persistent gap between theoretical endorsement and practical implementation. Cultural tension between narrative therapy’s individualistic self-conception and China’s relational cultural framework creates operational resistance. A fragmented training system fails to process practitioners’ experiences of operational difficulty, hindering the accumulation of localized knowledge and evidence needed for institutional reform. Institutional constraints, such as project-based accountability and quantitative evaluation, diminish resources for systemic improvement. These interlocked mechanisms form a self-reinforcing cycle perpetuating localization difficulties. To disrupt this cycle, this paper proposes synergistic pathways: foregrounding the relational self and employing staged authority borrowing; developing context-specific operational modules; establishing stratified training with supervised certification; and prioritizing professional standards to anchor evaluation reform and policy recognition. This analysis establishes a theoretical framework to guide future empirical research on the cultural adaptation of narrative therapy practices.