It should come as no surprise that “telling our story” is very powerful. In counseling and psychotherapy we sometimes use the term “narrative.” With this thought, I decided to take a stroll through some of my books, including clinical, self-help, and literature, to see how others have thought of or used narrative.

One of my favorite sources of “wisdom” stories is in the classic form of “fairy tale.” I still carry some of these stories around in my mind. The “story” of the blind men and the elephant comes to mind and has a message that “seeing the whole” is an important task. I used the story of the Ugly Duckling the other day… it seemed right at the moment… when I was thinking of how creative and special a client appeared who was trying to “be like everyone else.” Of course the Greeks, Shakespeare, and thousands of authors have been imparting their wisdom for thousands of years through the use of story.

But, narrative as used in therapy is more personal. How does a personal narrative help? Most of us are not kings, queens, swans, or princes captured in the body of a frog. Our stories may not have universal meaning, but they do have meaning to us. They do help us to attach meaning to our lives as we sort through the events of our lives.

Cognitive therapy as described by A. T. Beck (1979) is directed toward changing “the meaning of events.” Of course for events to have meaning, they must be told in context. An event told in context by a client is in effect a story set within the larger story of a person’s life.

In another technique Beck (1985) uses imagery to identify a client’s assumptions. “The therapist asks the patient to close his eyes and picture the earliest memory he has of a distressing experience as similar as possible to the one he is undergoing.” Again, if sufficient detail is added a picture forms, if context is added, we have a “story.”

An approach that is especially intriguing when dealing with trauma is called “Emotional Review” (Beck, 1985). According to Beck, “A three-year-old boy was in a non-injurious but traumatic accident on the freeway. For several weeks after the accident he would say, ‘Talk the accident.’ He had his parents describe the accident to him in great detail several times, and he in turn described it to other people. He seemed to need to review the accident in order to process it and put it in his long-term memory.” Put another way, the little boy wanted to “hear the story” so he could make sense of the experience.

Charles Whitfield gives strong support to “telling our story” in his classic, Healing the Child Within. He states “Telling our story is a powerful act in discovering and healing our Child Within [Self]. It is a foundation of recovery in self-help groups, group therapy, and individual psychotherapy and counseling.

The very first skill I learned in my very first “hands on” class was to listen. The very first activity was for each student to listen and track the “narrative” of another student. That is, we listened to each other and followed the other person’s line of thought. What we were doing was telling each other a slice of our “life story.” The text we used in that class was by Ivy and Ivy (2003). The entire book was directed toward conducting sessions with clients. Ivy and Ivy state “Listening is the foundation of counseling and interviewing. In the session, we seek to enable clients to tell their stories.” The skills we used in that first hands-on class are very relevant to what I do in every counseling session today.

The primary approach that I use today is detailed by Jeffery Binder (2004). A central part of this approach is to construct a “narrative theme.” This is done by having a client describe multiple narratives or stories. These of course take place within the client’s larger life story. The nice part of this approach is that it is very individualized and is the source of my theme “Solutions tailored to fit you.” As Binder puts it… “A case formulation constructed as part of a life story represents a diagnosis that is precisely individualized for each patient. The story uniquely associated with a patient should explain the source of interpersonal problems as well as help explain his or her distressing symptom and impairments in functioning.”

Simply said, telling your story both reveals the problem you are experiencing, and sets the stage for resolving the problem. Now that is pretty nice, and from a client’s perspective, not as painful as you might expect.

References:

Beck, A. T. (1979). Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. Madison, CT: Meridian.

Beck A. T. and Emery, G. (1985). Anxiety Disorders and Phobias: A Cognitive Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books

Binder, J. L. (2004). Key Competencies in Brief Dynamic Psychotherapy. NY: Guilford Press.

Ivy and Ivy (2003) Intentional Interviewing and Counseling. 5^th ed. Pacific Grove, CA. Brooks Cole.

Whitfield (1987) Healing the Child Within. Deerfield Beach, Florida: Health Communications.