Using Stories
When I tell people that I write stories for therapeutic use, their eyes become glazed. The more curious will ask questions but whether because I fail to explain adequately or because it is an alien concept, I seldom get the idea that the person I’m talking to is convinced of the value of stories. Yet, if I ask you what story or stories, meant a lot to you as a child, you can probably, after some thought, identify one or two. If you ask yourself what the themes of that story are and whether those themes resonate with your life now, as an adult, there is a good chance they will. You might even have been influenced by a story or a book and you wouldn't be the first person to realise that. So stories can be very significant.
I have talked to people who say that a particular book, tale, or someone’s life story, have changed their own lives. You only have to watch a child taking on the persona of some super hero to realise that stories, when they harness our imagination, allow us to explore new possibilities, new behaviours – new ways of being in the world. It is precisely because stories get under our skin and creep into our unconscious minds unannounced and in a subtle way, that we rarely notice them. You see, stories are everywhere. The recent snow gave many people a story to tell because it was unusual enough to disrupt our lives and take us out of our normal routines. We read stories in the newspapers, hear and see them on TV and on social networks. Stories are everywhere causing us to reflect, consider and perhaps change.
It is always the case that those of us who are interested in change and growth both in ourselves and in others, find that the most effective ways to bring this about is through utilising how our minds work anyway. Anything artificial such as drugs or “treatment” requires an act of faith. Since stories have an impact on us in our day to day lives, we can harness that to good effect. Furthermore, there are many of us, children and adults alike who would be resistant to someone trying to change us or modify our behaviours. Stories bypass that resistance since a person can decide they’ve just heard a story and that’s the end of it, or, if the story has a resonance for them, it can and will stay with them, lingering long enough to exert its subtle influence.
Recently, my colleague told me she was working with a child who, although charming, creative and intelligent, has little sense of what we adults would call “boundaries” He lives life in the fast lane and is into everything. He is either off in his own world, while at school or unable to sit still, driving those around him to distraction. She wanted a story for him. I was in the process of moving house so the story was delayed. On arrival at my new home which is built of wood, I realised that there was a clematis that had been left for years to grow at random. It had even grown through the cracks in the wood. If left unchecked, it might have taken over the house completely, given a few years. At the earliest opportunity, I hacked it back. It provided me with the perfect metaphor for the story for her child.
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