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"Giving Training in
-- and Practicing -- a Form of Storytelling
Therapy, In-person and via
Videoconference" by Eric Miller, 2019, Chennai, south India Note: This
piece of writing describes my counselling work in various ways. This piece
of writing is a companion to "Symbols
in Dreams and Myths: A Response to The Shaman's Doorway (1976) and The Mythic
Imagination (1990) -- Two Books by Stephen Larsen," which
presents and discusses some ideas that animate my counselling work. __________________________ I give
training regarding a form of Storytelling Therapy and also use this method of
therapy in my work as a psychological counsellor -- both in-person and via
videoconference.1
I also conduct workshops in Storytelling and Story Writing.2, 3 I work primarily with teenagers and
adults. This essay discusses these
matters. *** The time
has come for Storytelling Therapy (also known as Therapeutic Uses of
Storytelling, Storytelling and Healing, and Storytelling
for Coaching and Counselling) to take its place alongside Drama
Therapy, Dance-movement Therapy, Music Therapy, Visual Art Therapy, etc, as
one of the Arts Therapies (also known as the Expressive Therapies,
the Creative Arts Therapies, and the Creative Therapies). Just as
stories and storytelling are used in many of the arts, they are also used in
many of the Arts Therapies. In the
various Arts Therapies, stories and storytelling have been like Cinderella,
fixing their older step-sisters' gowns, but never being able to go to the
ball themselves. Stories and
storytelling are often credited in the literature about Arts Therapies
(McNiff, 2009). However, Storytelling
Therapy is only now emerging as a field unto itself. *** Story can
be defined as a series of events. Storytelling can be defined as relating a series of events (to one or
more people in a social gathering). It
has become popular to refer to any communication of story as storytelling --
for examples, it is sometimes said that a particular novelist or cinema
director is a fine storyteller.
Literally, however, storytelling refers to primarily using voice and
body to relate a story to people who are present to each other, and who can
give near-instantaneous feedback to each other. Storytelling
has the same healing property that results from any process involving people
being together and cooperatively developing something. *** A story can be a model of the past, and a model for the
future. A story
can be a symbolic object that one can approach. One can get into it, and one can let it get
under one's skin. A story can do its
work on a person. A story that is
embraced and loved by a person moves that person towards specific cultures,
belief-systems, and communities. Stories
give examples of behavior, and presenters of stories tend to communicate
their feelings about these behaviors, thus urging listeners to also see
things the same way. Thus, telling a
story is an attempt to persuade one's listeners to understand experience the
same way one understands it. The words
"narrative" and "story" have similar meanings. However,
one way they differ is that narrating involves just telling what happened,
whereas storytelling can also involve acting-out characters (letting characters
speak for themselves). *** Numerous
forms of Storytelling Therapy exist, including Narrative Therapy,
Transformative
Narrative Therapy, Fairytale
Therapy, and Narrative
Medicine. Narrative Therapy
focuses on assisting the client to frame his/her Life Story so as to
emphasise one's coping methods and resiliency, and social-cultural beliefs by
which one may be influenced. Transformative
Narrative Therapy also utilises other stories, including stories from history,
folklore, cinema, and literature. Fairytale
Therapy involves finding Fairytale-like elements in one's Life Story, and
may involve composing a Fairytale-like version of one's Life Story and
creating a healing/guiding story that has the feel of a Fairytale. Narrative Medicine
is "a medical approach that utilises people's narratives in clinical
practice, research, and education as a way to promote healing."4 *** I use Storytelling
Therapy as an umbrella term for all therapeutic approaches that involve Narrative
Psychology, Archetypal
Psychology, and Metaphor
Therapy. Narrative
Psychology is
"the study of ways humans construct stories to deal with
experiences."5 Archetypal
Psychology "concerns the deepest patterns of psychic functioning,
the patterns that animate human life.
Archetypal Psychology likens itself to a polytheistic mythology in
that it attempts to recognize the myriad fantasies and myths – regarding
gods, goddesses, humans, animals, etc – that shape and are shaped by our
psychological lives."6 Metaphor Therapy "uses metaphor as a tool to
help people express their experiences symbolically. Metaphors can involve spontaneous processes
within a client's mind, having to do with both the client's consciousness and
unconscious."7 Metaphors go deeper than the conscious /
rational / logical level. Metaphors
can connect one to nature, a culture, and a community (Perrow,
2014). *** There is
also the field of Narrative
Coaching, which is "an experiential and holistic approach that helps
people shift their stories about themselves, others, and life itself to
create new possibilities and new results."8 *** The form
of Storytelling Therapy I am helping to develop is based on the 3 steps of
Carl Jung's therapeutic method (9): 1)
Explication. (Analysis of the client's
Life Story, and of episodes within the Life Story.) 2)
Amplification. (Association of other
stories with a client's Life Story.) 3)
Creative Imagination. (Role-playing,
that is, speaking to and as characters in the above-mentioned stories, and in
imaginary stories.) *** The 7
steps of the form of Storytelling Therapy I am helping to develop are (10): 1) The client tells his/her Life Story (the Story of his/her
Life) -- as well as why he/she has come for counselling. 2) The client identifies outstanding themes, turning
points, and archetypal objects, relationships, and situations in his/her Life
Story (with assistance from the facilitator if needed). (Jung's Step 1.) 3) The client gathers stories that are similar to his/her
Life Story, and to episodes within this story (with assistance from the
facilitator if needed). (Jung's Step 2.) 4) The client plays with (changes, adds to, etc) any of
the above-mentioned stories. 5) The client role-plays (speaks to and as) characters in
any of the above-mentioned stories (with assistance from the facilitator if
needed). (Jung's
Step 3.) 6) The client develops metaphors relating to the
above-mentioned stories (with assistance from the facilitator if needed). 7) The client develops a healing/guiding story for
him/herself (with assistance from the facilitator if needed). *** A
healing/guiding story may be therapeutic, or it may be designed to assist the
client to enter the next stage in his/her healthy development. The
healing/guiding story may involve integrating various aspects of the client's
personality and experience (Jung called this maturation process,
"individuation"). Helping a
client to compose a healing/guiding story for him/herself may involve
teaching ways of composing stories -- which I also do in my Storytelling and
Story Writing Workshops. In the
process of composing this healing/guiding story, the client may use one or
more of the 14 Story Composition activities I use in my Creative Writing
workshops, including describing and discussing: dreams, daydreams, one's
personality traits and emotions, social and environmental issues, something
interesting that occurred in the past 24 hours, etc.11 The
general creative method I train people in is: start with your own
experiences, and then develop fantasies around them. In this regard, an acronym that may be
useful is, ROQI -- Remember, Observe, Question, Imagine. *** A key
aspect of this version of Storytelling Therapy is that ideally, 1) The client comes up with metaphors and a
healing/guiding story for him/herself -- with the therapist/coach/facilitator
assisting, if needed. 2) Then the client tells this story to other people in
his/her life, and leads conversations about this story with these listeners. In these
ways, the healing/guiding story comes from within the client, and the client
truly owns the healing/guiding story -- emotionally, intellectually, and
otherwise. *** Two wonderful examples of healing/guiding stories
(contained within case studies) are, "Budur
and the Moon Rabbit" (Denton,
2017). Involving
nature, the universe, and the client's memory of her mother. This healing/guiding story was composed by
the client. "The Small Wonder" (Verma, 2017). This healing/guiding story was composed by the facilitator. *** The
"in-performance transference process" (IPTP) occurs when a
storyteller speaks as a character who is addressing another character. When this occurs, one's listeners are put
in the position of the character being addressed. This relates
to Step 5 of the Storytelling Therapy process: "Role-play, speak to and
as characters in any of the above-mentioned stories" (from one's memory
and imagination). The IPTP
is different from the type of transference that is more popularly referred to
in the field of Psychology: namely, that in the relationship between a client
and a therapist, the client may come to see and treat the therapist as the
client's father and/or mother. Both of
these types of transference can be used in healing ways -- including by
helping clients to see situations from various figures' points of view, and
to develop understanding of and empathy for each figure. *** Both my
counselling clients, and my storytelling and creative writing students, start
with memories of their experiences and develop these memories into
imaginative fantasies. The
counsellees come for wellness and are encouraged to enter the realm of
art. The story students come for art
and may increase their wellness. Creativity
-- exploring, expressing, and sharing oneself, in direct and symbolic ways --
can in itself be healing and healthy.
So can coming to terms with who one is, and with what one conceives to
be one's place in the universe. One
take-away (for the client) of an 8-session "Storytelling Therapy"
counselling experience is a healing/guiding story. *** Each
medium of communication has its own qualities, and colors what is
communicated and how it is communicated. Videoconferencing
strikes me as epic and heroic. It is
such an accomplishment -- both for humanity in general, and for the
individuals engaged in a videoconference -- to be able to
(near-simultaneously) transmit and receive audio and video. When a videoconference works
(technologically), it is thrilling; when it doesn't, it can be extremely
frustrating and disappointing. Thus, it
seems to me that a sense of triumphant achievement generally colors the
providing of services (such as training and counselling) via videoconference. Of
course, there are also downsides to videoconferencing. There is no substitute for the warmth,
intimacy, and directness that is offered by physically-present
communication. It might be best to
recognise that physically-present and videoconference communication are just
different. Incidentally: videoconference
communication is most effective when the participants can also periodically
meet via physical presence. I have a
long-term love for the medium of videoconferencing -- I have been using it, and
researching and writing about it, for over 25 years.12, 13 I find that if one can develop the
give-and-take and back-and-forth of conversation with the other individuals
involved, one can overcome distances of any sort between people. ___________________________ Dr Eric
Miller is a native New Yorker, settled in Chennai (on India's southeast
coast). Dr Eric has earned a PhD in
Folklore (University of Pennsylvania), and a MSc in Psychology (University of
Madras). He has also completed in a
one-year course in "Psychological Counselling" offered by the
Chennai Counsellors Foundation. He is
the Director of the World
Storytelling Institute; and is the Assistant Director of the East West Center for Counselling and
Training, and the Indian
Institute of Psychodrama. Website: http://storytellingandvideoconferencing.com
Email ID:
eric@storytellinginstitute.org ___________________________ Citations Michael
Vannoy Adams, "What is Jungian Analysis?". No date. http://jungnewyork.com/what-is-jungian-analysis.shtml Shaun
McNiff, Integrating the Arts in
Therapy: History, Theory, and Practice.
Springfield, Illinois: Charles Thomas Publisher. 2009. Eric
Miller, "Carl Jung's 3-step Therapy Process," 2017, http://storytellinginstitute.org/Jung.html Eric
Miller, "Expressive Arts Therapy -- including Storytelling Therapy -- in
Cultural Context," 2016, http://storytellinginstitute.org/145.pdf Eric
Miller, "Fairytale Therapy: A Type of Storytelling Therapy," 2018, http://storytellinginstitute.org/Fairytale_Therapy.pdf Eric
Miller, "A 7-step Storytelling Therapy Process," 2017, http://storytellinginstitute.org/216.html Eric
Miller, "Story and Storytelling in Storytelling Therapy and Expressive
Arts Therapy," 2017, http://storytellinginstitute.org/368.pdf Eric
Miller, Editor, "Ways Storytellers are Using Audio- and
Videoconferencing." (A 12-page
section in the Summer 2017 issue of Storytelling Magazine, a publication of
the USA's National Storytelling Network.)
http://storytellinginstitute.org/Teleconferencing.pdf Eric
Miller, "14 Activities in a Creative Writing Workshop," 2019, http://storytellinginstitute.org/14a.pdf Trisha
Denton, "Healing Story: Budur and
the Moon Rabbit." (A case
study of a client of a student in the Fall 2017 edition of Eric Miller's
Storytelling Therapy videoconference course.)
2017. http://storytellinginstitute.org/27a.pdf Theodora
Goss, "Into the Dark Forest: The Fairytale Heroine’s Journey." (Followed by Sowmya Srinivasan's
notes.) 2017. http://storytellinginstitute.org/237.pdf Susan
Perrow, "The Mystery And Magic Of Metaphor," 2014, http://healingstory.org/publications/diving-in-the-moon-journal-2014/the-mystery-and-magic-of-metaphor Mishti Verma, "The Healing Touch of a Story,"
2017, http://storytellinginstitute.org/228.pdf Links to
readings for Eric Miller's course on "Storytelling for Coaching and
Counselling" ("Storytelling Therapy"), http://storytellinginstitute.org/215.html Links to
recordings of 17 videoconferences Eric Miller has co-hosted, http://storytellinginstitute.org/av.html Metaphor Therapy, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor_therapy Narrative
Coaching, https://www.momentinstitute.org/narrative-coaching-1 Narrative Medicine, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_medicine Narrative Psychology, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_psychology Narrative Therapy, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_therapy Transformative
Narrative Therapy, https://tinyurl.com/TransformativeNarrativeTherapy
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