Stories are all around us and written right through us. We turn to stories for entertainment, we teach young children through stories, The Bible is full of parables and even as adults we often draw upon metaphor to paint a picture (I have just done it there.)
We tell stories about ourselves through anecdotes but also when we use more formal and informal communication such as via social media. These stories are a powerful force shaping our sense of our self and shaping the lives we live.
The stories we tell are the stories we live by.
Throughout childhood stories are given to us, stories of who we are and who we will become. These stories grow within us, shaping us. They become reinforced as internal scripts that we unconsciously act-out.
It can be empowering and therapeutic to become aware of the stories that shape us. It places the pen back in our own hands, enabling us to write our own story with awareness, facilitating choice about the scripts we choose and the roles we play.
“Everything is story” “Story is the basic unit of psychology and medicine, because everything humans do is done in the form of a story or a narrative…in fact, neuroscientists are finding that the default mode of our brain is to tell and recall stories…stories light up more areas of our brain than anything else and in fact when our brain is on idle, when our brain is just resting, what we tend to do is we run stories, simulations… story is the most powerful basic unit of information and in terms of psychology it makes a lot more sense to talk about defective stories than it does to talk about defective people…”
Lewis Mehl-Madrona, (2012)
“We can recognize ourselves in a story…and celebrate “what we human beings are capable of…what it is to be human and to reveal to us our shared strengths and weaknesses and dreams and passions and terrors and absurdities: isn’t the very point of story, the value, the heart of story, to do just this?”
Kevin Crossley-Holland (2006)
“Stories are a transformative force in people’s lives, provoking self-reflection and change, and are profoundly human”
Crawford et al (2004)
Stories provide us with frameworks to understand ourselves and our world around us. Kornberger (2006) describes the impact on Odysseus when, lost on his journey home from the Trojan Wars, he is washed up on the shores of a foreign land. Odysseus does not reveal his identity even though he is invited to dine with the King. Whilst enjoying the hospitality he listens to a bard who tells Odysseus’ very own tale; upon hearing his tale he weeps and releases the emotion pent up within him, he then continues to tell the rest of the tale himself. On hearing his own tale Odysseus experiences catharsis as he acknowledges his plight, that for ten years he strived but failed to make his way back to Ithaca. He tells his tale all through the night, and at dawn he is given a ship to complete his journey home, “(he) falls asleep and when he opens his eyes he is back in Ithaca” (Kornberger, 2006; p.18). Hearing his story enables him to bring into awareness his turmoil, he can then access and accept what he needs to resolve his predicament and he is returned safely home. Stories have many functions but perhaps a key function is to bring us home to our heart and soul.
Despert and Potter integrated stories into a psychoanalytical framework and noted that they were effective as an indirect therapeutic medium for the “investigation and treatment of emotional problems in children”:
“It is generally agreed that the direct approach to children’s problems is not only disappointing, but often not workable, and that occasionally the sole result thereby obtained is to induce a negative attitude in the child, an attitude that not only blocks the release of his feelings but also deprives the psychiatrist of his chance to gain insight into the problem. On the other hand, it is found that children with behaviour or neurotic disorders are able to express spontaneously their feelings, if an opportunity is given to them, through the use of an adequate medium. The medium reported on in this communication is that of the story.”
Despert and Potter (1936; p.619).
The therapeutic effects of storytelling have been well-known for centuries. Stories have been used across cultures to address fears, anxieties and existential issues and to teach cultural mores. The door of the library at Thebes, in Ancient Greece, bore the inscription: “depositories for healing of the soul” (Harper, 2010; p.2) and similar references can be seen in Alexandria, Egypt where an inscription describes stories as “medicine for the mind” (Heath et al, 2005).
As a psychologist, community storyteller and researcher, I have observed the powerful therapeutic effect of stories. Young people who attended storytelling programmes, that I have delivered, concluded that stories and the storyteller’s style of engagement were key ingredients in their change process.
In the literature on therapeutic storytelling there is convergence that suggests that the psychological process underpinning the use of stories in therapy is the role of metaphor which provides the opportunity for therapeutic engagement on a safe, symbolic level Processing trauma through a symbolical medium allows for some emotional distance from the trauma, whilst facilitating the processing and integration of trauma-related emotions and cognitions.
Since storytelling provides a relationship at a safe distance, it is particularly useful with young people who have insecure attachment styles. Stories provide the opportunity for a co-regulated dyadic relationship with ‘hard to reach’ young people labelled as emotionally and behaviourally difficult.
Stories can be offered as ‘story medicine’ for unconscious processing and personal reflection. Stories can be selected to develop emotional literacy, including for example, problem-solving strategies that could model alternative ways for the child to cope with problems of living. Stories create a relational opportunity within which a child or young person can be relaxed, receptive and reflective.
“Life is a bundle of riddles”- Hugh Lupton, (2003)
“We tell stories to unriddle the world” – Alan Garner
I will end with a story. This is a traditional English story that dates back centuries. There are many versions of this story which are told by renowned English storytellers, and many other forms found throughout the world including Georgia, Brazil and the Middle East. A version of this story can be found in versions of the Arabian Nights and it forms the backbone to the Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. The version that I present here is my own adaptation.
The Pedlar’s Dream
John Chapman woke in the night. He’d had that dream again, the dream that niggled and nagged, the one that left him feeling unsettled with his life.
He liked his life as a Pedlar. He travelled the Westmorland and Cumberland fells selling his wares, exchanging stories and gossip for a roof over his head.
But this dream niggled and nagged, and nagged and niggled, and left him dreaming about something more.
In his dream an apparition came to him and enticed him to seek his fortune.
“Go to London and there you will learn the secret of your fortune,” said the ghostly visitor.
Night after night the vision came to him. On this particular night it had visited him three times.
The niggles and nags grew stronger and before John knew what he was doing he had packed up all of his remaining wares, and his last bits of food, and he left, with his dog in tow.
He set off with his dog along the old pack horse routes, up and over Honister pass, the horses and carts loaded with the rocks of the slate mines passing him in the other direction; he was forced to rest many times up Hard Knott and surveyed the view as he rested at the old roman fort. On and on he travelled, the journey was hard but his dream pulled him onward.
Eventually after many days he reached London. He had sold all of his wares, and there he stood upon London Bridge, in exactly the spot that the apparition had told him to wait. He waited and he waited and he waited.
All day long he stood, waiting for a sign of his treasure.
Night time came and he curled up with his dog, and waited still.
For three days and three nights John Chapman and his dog waited, and by the morning after his third night, even he was beginning to give up hope.
“It’s time we went home” he told his dog.
But just as he was leaving a shopkeeper approached him. He was from the pawnbroker’s next to where John had been standing, waiting.
“Oy you, what you doing? Up to no good? I’ve seen you there standing, loitering, you haven’t moved for three days and three nights. Why? What are you waiting for?”
And John told him his story.
“Ha Ha Ha” laughed the shopkeeper, you’re even worse than I thought, wasting your time on account of a dream. Let me tell you, I have a dream most nights, and in that dream I too have an apparition come to me, and he tells me that there’s a chest of gold lying under an old oak tree, between a pedlar’s cottage and a church. It even tells me the name of the pedlar, and the place where he lives. But do you think I go travelling across the country, do you think I go travelling to Cumbria in search of John Chapman of Heaning Mislet*? You’ve no sense lad, now get yourself home and do some proper work.” And the pawnbroker turned his back on John and walked back to his shop, laughing at what he thought was John Chapman’s naivety.
And as for John, he and his dog fair flew back to Heaning Mislet to seek his treasure.
Ah ha! Who’d have thought that it was right under his nose all the time. Following his dream to seek his fortune had brought him right back to himself.
(*Heaning and Mislet are two hamlets in Cumbria, not a single village – this is a story after all.)
Dr Nici Long 