Story-Telling as a Counselling Form

This presentation explores the therapeutic value of story-telling in counseling, specifically focusing on the narrative approach. It discusses how story-telling can help re-author beliefs and values, and highlights the benefits of this approach in counseling sessions. The presentation also compares story-telling with other theoretical approaches and discusses the role of the therapist in facilitating positive change. Additionally, it touches upon the emergence of scientific theories and their impact on narratives. Overall, the presentation emphasizes the power of story-telling as a source of therapy and the importance of separating negative stories from positive ones.

STORY TELLING
STUDENT’S NAME
UNIVERSITY
COURSE
DATE

Story-Telling
as a Counselling Form

INTRODUCTION
• A story is an account of an event or happening either imaginary or real.
• Through stories we are able to distinguish between two or more cultures.
• Through stories we are able to communicate with one another about meaning of events,
experiences and occurrences (Douglas et al., 2016).
• The stories can be transmitted through word of mouth or through written form
• The ability to tell stories start as soon as a baby learns a language.

 Narrative therapy was derived back in the 1980s by two gentlemen namely:
 David Epston and Michael White who were from New Zealand.
 Narrative therapy also goes by other names such as:
 re-storing and re-authoring as anew story is made up from the narrated story
by the client.

• This is an important life story of a person and the therapeutic value to the story maker
and storyteller.
• It started as a way community work and counseling but now it is widely spread in
almost all types of counseling.
• Problems are solved by allowing the client to narrate the event or life experience and its
from this stories that he\she is helped to re-author their beliefs and values replacing
negatives ones with positive ones (McDougall, 2015).
Narrative therapy

 According to the narrative approach we conclude the following :
• Its all about the beliefs
• The approach assumes that people’s lives\existence are all about stories
• Each culture has its own beliefs and values and that’s what makes up our unique practice.
• Counselling through story telling is an ancient activity that was used to offer therapy to
people who had different disorders\troubles.
• Counselors act as co-authors with their clients in the narrative.
• They help create a better story and identity about themselves.

 There are many theoretical approaches that have been developed and used in
counselling sessions e.g. motivational interviewing .
• This method aims to changing the mind of the client where as the therapist is expected
to show empathy and warmth.
• There are some characteristics that the counselor is required to portray :
• Reflective listening
• Open questions
• Affirmations
• Summary

• Reflective listening helps show genuine concern to the client and enable understand the
message thus enabling the counselor to be in apposition to help the client in the best
possible way.
• This way the counselor is able to draw a difference between client’s behavior and the
value they hold.

 In this approach the therapist is expected to allow the client to have his way: that is to
allow the client express resistance as it is their way of voicing their doubt.
 The therapist should support self-efficacy by making the client believe and see that
change is possible (Thibaut, 2017).
 The therapist should also emphasize on positive change.

 This theory builds on the optimistic theory that believes that people should change
through their capacity to exercise free choice.
 The role of the therapist is to offer direction and should e able to invoke self-motivation
from the client

 There is a major difference between the motivational interviewing and the story telling.
 In story telling the therapist does a lot of talking while in the motivational interviewing
he listens a lot.
 Narratives are usually based on other people’s encouraging stories that are meant to
motivate the client into getting out of some traps in the motivative interviewing
however it is all about self- actualization (Piaget, 2015).
 With the emergence of scientific theories today narratives are now diminishing or the
value that was associated with the narrative or narrative therapy.

 Scientific theories
• This theories seek to prove by measuring the authenticity of the narratives.
• They usually explain the human behavior and one of such theories is:
• The humanistic theory
This theory believes that peoples problems are not caused by the event of life but how
they experience the events.
It majors on the clients positive behavior and ability to use these traits you find
wisdom, growth, and healing.
It involves exploring the feelings of a person at a particular time instead of recounting
past events that led to the present problem (Sternberg, 2016).

 Humanistic theory believe that people are inherently motivated to become self-actualized.
 It focuses less on past events and environmental contribution of a person’s self-actualization.
 Its all about the human ability to explore creativity, love and psychological understanding.
 This theory is however limited as by allowing the client to think for themselves it brings
about confusion since in most cases people are seeking help from others.
 The method does not give any explanation to the client this may elicit feelings of frustration.
 Unlike narrative theory where people are given an explanation of possible causes to their
problem.

 A person who is taken through a narrative kind of counseling's is likely to recover than
the one who undergoes humanistic counselling as the problems that people have are
beyond their creativity.
 Another limitation of humanistic theory is that it biased as it does not eliminate
recount of past event thus one may miss on important details that might be the actual
problem.
 It also limits the exercise to only the people from western culture making it
ethnocentric.
 Its too positive as it assumes people are generally good and will choose the right path
for their lives which is a lie.

Conclusion
 Creation of stories/ story telling is one of the oldest ways in which people created their
identity and used in pass cultural beliefs from one generation to another.
 Its amazing that event with evolution of scientific theories people still find relieve in
story telling.
 They prefer sharing their stories to their friends or counselors and by just listening to
other peoples testimonies they et relieved from their burdens.
 This means that narratives just as in the older times are a powerful source of therapy.

 The value we hold dearly are to us by our parents or those who are ahead of us on our
community.
 A child learns to tell stories as soon as they learn to talk meaning story telling is
inherent.
 Some stories build wrong perceptions and paint the wrong picture of others so it is
important to seek to know the truth about various narratives
 Its also important to separate negative stories from the positive ones as this is the
essence of narrative theory and build our beliefs around the positive stories.

References
Douglas, B., Woolfe, R., Strawbridge, S., Kasket, E., & Galbraith, V. (Eds.). (2016). The
handbook of counseling psychology (3rd ed). New York: Sage.
McDougall, W., (2015). An introduction to social psychology (2nd ed). New York: Psychology
Press.
Piaget, J., (2015). Structuralism (3rd ed). New York: Psychology Press.
Sternberg, K., (2016). Cognitive psychology (2nd ed). New York: Nelson Education.
Thibaut, J. W., (2017). The social psychology of groups (3rd ed). New York: Routledge.