I was searching for connections between my work—counselling psychology, and my hobby-storytelling when I came upon the Healing Story Alliance. I was pleasantly surprised to find that its website has a lot of story resources and that its members actively reach out to professions beyond storytelling circles. The Healing Story alliance—HSA—is a special interest group of the National Storytelling Network. It brings together people who can see the value of stories in the context of healing.
There are differing views on the value and place of storytelling in the work that counsellors do. Professional counsellors usually look at storytelling through the lens of narrative therapy. This model presents clients as people who tell problem stories. A narrative therapist is a skilful listener with tools. The therapist guides a process of restructuring clients’ stories so they can gain power over their lives. In a successful therapy, the restructured stories would be healing stories, I.e. stories that create healing. In a grounded theory study of people who found healing in their own stories, Swaton and o’callaghan identified three healing story characteristics: a struggle, a healing process that revealed options, and the enduring ability to inspire.
Healing Story Alliance members envision a larger role for storytelling than narrative therapy would suggest. They imagine scenarios in which a doctor, a nurse, a pastor or a psychologist might purposefully select a story for telling to patients or clients. Their website offers a selection of stories and some instruction on how to conduct a post-story discussion. It also has a list-serve where people regularly ask for story suggestions. Many users of the list-serve have comprehensive story repertoires backed up by storytelling experience in a variety of circumstances. When you ask for suggestions, you usually get a lot of them. I have sought advice on the list-serve a number of times and occasionally offered advice to others.
Any story can be a healing story. The final assessment of its healing value is always determined by the listener response. That said, a story’s healing prospects improve when the teller finds the right voice for the story and the right story for the occasion.
Finding the right story can be a bit of a challenge. My first question to the list-serve members was propelled by desperation. I was booked to facilitate a discussion attended by a group of men in a last-chance addictions program. All things considered, it was an invitation I would rather have declined. I had been recruited because I am a hope specialist, but with my limitations, being neither male nor addicted, I was pretty certain I would feel out of place and uncomfortable in this group. I needed to find a way to be comfortable.
I asked the people on the HSA list-serve for a story that could help me connect with these guys, a story I could tell to set a tone of understanding and empathy. Somebody suggested a King Arthur story, sometimes known as the Half Man story, the story of King Arthur’s wrestling match with Hanner Dyn.
I’ll admit that I was skeptical about that suggestion. Up to that point I had never liked King Arthur stories, or wrestling matches either. But Arthur was a man, and men like wrestling, and I really needed a story, so I searched the Internet for the story. I gave it a feeble practice and took it with me, predicting that I would not tell it.
But accurate prediction was not my long suit. I was even more uncomfortable than I had imagined. The men were agitated. Their skin was dry and itchy. Listening in on their conversation I gathered that some of them would rather have been elsewhere. Lacking a better alternative, I decided to tell that story—tell it very slowly—make it last as long as possible so there would be less time for other things.
I started the story. Right from the beginning I could feel that the presence of the audience was giving the story more power than I thought it had. It really was the perfect story. It’s a guy story, through and through, wrestling all the way, each match more challenging than the last. King Arthur wins the last match, but just barely. He wants to try again but he stops when he is told that there will be no more victories for him. He will never again be able to win. His worthy opponent—growing more powerful in every match--is Hanner Dyn. The name Hanner Dyn means habit.
So goes the story, and by the time the story had ended those guys and I were connected. We were comfortable. Inspiration was in the air. Hardly anybody was scratching. The remaining hour passed quickly enough. The Healing story alliance had proven its worth.
I made a little curtsy—to HSA and also to that wise King Arthur.
REFERENCES
Swaton, S. & O’callaghan, J. (1999). The experience of 'healing stories' in the life narrative: A grounded theory
Counselling psychology quarterly 12(4), pp. 413-429
You can find the Healing Story Alliance on the Internet at http://www.healingstory.org/home.html
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