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From: Dr Eric Miller,
eric@storytellinginstitute.org, www.storytellinginstitute.org "Storytelling
Therapy" Training Format: 8
weekly one-hour one-on-one sessions Sessions 1 and
2 --- Introduction
and Discussion: The 8 steps
of Storytelling Therapy. The framework
of Storytelling Therapy is: Given that "The right story will do its work
on you" – "What work needs to be done on me?" (relating to
healing and/or growing-maturing-developing). --- Activity: The trainee tells the trainee's Life Story. --- Activity: The trainee identifies 4 themes in the
trainee's Life Story (with assistance from the facilitator). Sessions 3, 4,
5, and 6 --- Introduction
and Discussion: The
functions and importance of metaphors. --- Activity: The trainee identifies 3 Echo stories for
each theme in the trainee's Life Story (with assistance from the
facilitator). --- Introduction
and Discussion: The
functions and importance of play. --- Activity: The trainee is invited to play with
(modify) and make metaphors for aspects of the trainee's Life Story and Echo
Stories. --- Activity: The "Tree as Self" drawing
activity. --- Activity: Breathing, vocal, and physical warm-ups. --- Introduction,
Discussion, and Activity: The
following concepts of Carl Jung are discussed: Archetypes, the Collective Unconscious, the
Shadow, Anima/Animus, and Individuation.
The trainee is invited to consider how these concepts may apply to the
trainee's own experience. --- Activity: The trainee invites a character from a
favorite fairytale or epic "for coffee", and trainee and character
compare notes about life. (The story
is an Echo story; the activity involves role-playing.) --- Introduction
and Discussion: Fairytales
and other traditional stories: What is
a fairytale? The 12 steps of the
"fairytale heroine’s journey."
Vladimir Propp's "structure of fairytales. Joseph Campbell's "hero's journey". How might any of this relate to one's own
experience? --- Introduction,
Discussion, and Activity: The trainee
is introduced to the work of Gabor Maté: Non-communication as a cause of
trauma, and Compassionate Inquiry (a method of questioning to help clients be
increasingly aware of themselves).
Re-activation. Re-starting
development of: aspects of communication, and of aspects of one's self. The trainee considers the effects of
non-communication in the trainee's own experience. --- Activity: Is any "Life Story Repair" is
needed in the trainee's Life Story? Does
the story one tells oneself about oneself (about one's identity) need to be
modified to take new circumstances into account and to make the best of the
situation? --- Introduction,
Discussion, and Activity: Dealing
with feelings of regret, guilt, and shame. --- Introduction,
Discussion, and Activity:
Understanding Defense Mechanisms. --- Introduction,
Activity, and Discussion: Living and
thinking mythically: Becoming
increasingly clear about one's beliefs about one's place in, and relationship
with, the universe -- to increase one's wellness. And using characters in myth, epic, and
folktales as metaphors for one's behaviour and self. The trainee is invited to write about and
discuss characters who are interesting to the trainee in this context. --- Introduction,
Discussion, and Activity: We discuss
how the founders of psychoanalysis utiliised characters in stories from
ancient Greece and Italy (Rome) as metaphors for psychological tendencies
(complexes). The trainee is invited to
look for such metaphors within the culture(s) within which the trainee was
raised. --- Introduction
and Discussion: What is the
healing process? (Recovery from
trauma.) Under what conditions can healing
occur? What are some ways healing
occurs? --- Introduction,
Activity, and Discussion: Take inventory regarding the voices,
characters, feelings, and inclinations within one. Invite them all to an imaginary
"dinner party". What is the
seating arrangement? Who sits next to
who? Who should be kept apart from
who? Who says what to who? Does anyone do or say anything noteable? --- Activity and
Discussion: The trainee
role-plays with characters in the trainee's memory and imagination (to
increase their understanding of "What work needs to be done on me?"
and to do some of that work). Among
the characters the trainee may role-play with are: 1) Versions of one's self
as a child (this may involve "re-parenting" a child version of
oneself), and 2) Aspects of one's personality. --- Introduction
and Discussion:
Catharsis. Abreaction. Release.
Relief. "Having one's day
in court". "Putting down
baggage". Working through
feelings and memories. The value of
sharing things with someone (a life coach, therapist, facilitator, etc), of
having someone witness the process of self-exploration. Being able to let things go (but not
"sweeping things under the rug").
>>> "The 2nd experience of a
situation can be a liberation from the 1st experience of the situation"
(Victor Frankel). >>>
"Until you make the
unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it
fate" (Carl Jung). Sessions 6, 7,
and 8 --- Activity and
Discussion: Creativity activities:
Active Imagination and Question-based Story-making. --- Activity: The trainee composes and tells the
trainee's healing/developing story (with assistance from the facilitator). --- Activity and
Discussion: The trainee
tells, writes (by hand), draws, dances, sings, and creates a 3-dimensional
model of the trainee's healing/developing story. Discussion occurs. The trainee types the story and gives this
to the facilitator. Recommended
webpages "Into the
Dark Forest: The Fairytale Heroine’s Journey," by Theodora Goss, http://storytellinginstitute.org/237.pdf --- "What is
Jungian Analysis?," by Michael Vannoy Adams, http://jungnewyork.com/what-is-jungian-analysis.shtml --- All of the
essays at https://storytellinginstitute.org/215.html --- https://healingstoryalliance.org --- http://storytellingtherapy.com --- https://storytellinginstitute.org/#c Recommended
books Boundaries of
the Soul: The Practice of Jung's Psychology, by June
Singer. New York: Doubleday. 1972. --- Healing
Stories for Challenging Behaviour, by Susan
Perrow. UK: Hawthorn Press. 2008. --- Hero with a
Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell. New York: Pantheon Books. 1949. --- Retelling the
Stories of Our Lives: Everyday Narrative Therapy to Draw Inspiration and
Transform Experience, by David Denborough. New York and London: Norton and Company.
2014. --- Tell It By
Heart: Women and the Healing Power of Story, by Erica
Helm Meade. Peru, Illinois: Open Court
Publishing Co. 1995. This book is especially recommended. info is at https://storytellinginstitute.org/Tell_It_By_Heart.pdf --- Women Who Run
with the Wolves: Myths and Other Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype,
by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. New York: Ballantine Books. 1992. |