The proving
demand.
Who am I when I’m not demonstrating capability?
Using narrative therapy’s statement of position map to explore the pressure many disabled people feel to keep proving they are capable, deserving or not a burden.
What this is: a page on the pressure to keep proving yourself.
Why it matters: proving can cost rest, relationships and enjoyment, and is often invisible because it looks like success.
The sharpest reframe: you can value ambition and still reject the idea that achievement is the price of respect.
One thing to take away: allow mixed answers.
The short version
Many disabled people describe a constant pressure to prove themselves: that they can do the job, that they aren’t lazy, that they deserve support, that they aren’t a burden. Narrative therapy can externalise this as “the proving demand” (or whatever name fits) and explore it with Michael White’s statement of position map: what it is, what it does, how the person evaluates its effects, and why. The answers are often mixed. Someone can value their ambition and still reject the idea that achievement is the price of being respected.
You might recognise this
Illustrative statementsDrawn together from common experiences. They are not quotes from individual people.
The statement of position map
Established practice- Describe it in words that fit the person’s experience.
- Explore its effects on their life.
- Ask how they evaluate those effects. Good, bad, mixed?
- Explore why they take that position: what matters to them.
An example
Lorcan is 41, a solicitor, and has a visual impairment. He stays late most nights, double-checks everything, and has not taken a full holiday in four years. He says he loves his work. He also says he is “running on fumes”.
Lorcan is a fictional teaching example, not a real person.
If we gave this pressure a name, what would fit?
The proving thing. I have to prove I’m as good as the sighted lawyers.
What does the proving thing ask of you?
Never be the one who needs extra time. Never miss a detail.
What happens to rest, relationships, enjoyment?
Rest doesn’t exist. My partner says I’m never really home.
Which of those effects do you dislike?
The partner part. And being this tired.
Are there any you value?
Honestly, I’m good at my job because of it. I don’t want to lose that.
So you value being good at your work, and you don’t like what the proving thing costs. What does that tell us about the life you want?
That I want to be good at it without having to earn my place every single day.
What happened next
Illustrative sequenceLorcan decided to try one thing: leaving at six on two evenings a week, and using the screen-reading software he’s entitled to without apologising for it. The first week, a senior partner made a joke about “part-timers”. Lorcan felt the proving demand surge back, and stayed late the next night.
In therapy he and the therapist looked at both: the real workplace culture, which he decided to raise with HR through the reasonable adjustments route, and the demand’s grip on him. By the next month he was leaving early one night a week. He says it’s not where he wants to be, but the one evening has become his. The workplace hasn’t changed much yet. He has.
Mixed answers
Lorcan doesn’t have to choose between ambition and rest, or between pride in his competence and his disability identity. The work is to separate what he values (doing his job well) from the demand that he prove his right to be there. Practical steps might follow: using the reasonable adjustments he is entitled to without apology, or taking his holiday. Those are his choices.
What needs attention here?
The person values their achievement
Possible focus: what they value in it, alongside its costs
What to avoid: asking them to give up ambition
The demand is reinforced by a real workplace culture
Possible focus: both the culture and its effects on the person
What to avoid: treating it as only an inner story
Rest feels impossible
Possible focus: what rest would require, and who gives permission
What to avoid: prescribing rest as homework
Possible starting points, agreed with the person, not rules.
When the therapist gets it wrong
RepairImagine the therapist had said: “It sounds like you’re overcompensating. You don’t need to prove anything.” Lorcan bristled.
I think I dismissed something you value. You’re proud of your work, and I made it sound like a symptom.
It felt like being told my career is a coping mechanism.
That’s not what I meant, and I’m sorry. Can we look at what you want to keep, and what you’d like to put down?
What changes as a result: the conversation separates what Lorcan values from what costs him, rather than treating his drive as the problem. An apology alone would not have been the whole repair.
How you’d know it helped
- The person can tell their own values apart from the demand to prove themselves.
- They make one choice the proving demand would not allow.
- They feel less like they have to earn their place every day.
Words you can use
For clientsQuestions worth carrying, as a therapist
Therapist Reflection- Have I treated a client’s drive as a symptom?
- Am I allowing mixed answers?
- Have I noticed workplace or cultural pressures, not just inner ones?
Evidence & sources
Sources checked in October 2026, using targeted searches rather than a systematic review. “We have not located” means our searches did not find it.
The statement of position map: White, M., Maps of Narrative Practice (Norton, 2007).
The “proving demand” as a disability-relevant subject of externalising, and the practice guidance, are this site’s synthesis.
Lorcan and the dialogues are constructed for learning. They are not real people or real sessions.
We have not located research on the pressure disabled people feel to prove competence, as explored in therapy.
How to cite this page: Donaghey, C. (2026). The Proving Demand. Disability in Psychotherapy. Available at: https://disabilityinpsychotherapy.online/what-is-psychotherapy/narrative-therapy/the-proving-demand/ (Accessed: [date]).
Shared under CC BY-NC 4.0: you can share, adapt and teach from this page, including on fee-paying courses, with credit. See Reusing This Material.