Many of you that know me or that have attended my Therapeutic Story Telling Workshops will know that story telling25 is one of my favourite areas of therapy.
Here I hope to explore this topic with you mainly in relation to how you can use story telling when working with children.
For thousands of years story telling has been used to help children to move from childhood to adulthood (Just look at The Iliad and Odyssey by Homer). Many cultures use story telling or 'shared dreams' to help children make the transition from childhood to adulthood. One of the most hypnotic things that someone can say is 'Once upon a time...' and we instantly enter a light trance, drift inside the mind and begin to relax and focus in anticipation of what is to come.
When working with anyone using stories therapeutically you need to make sure that the person hearing the story has the problem in mind so that they can link up the patterns in the story to the problem they would like help with.
For example if someone wants help with depression and they come to see me and I start talking about someone climbing Everest they know they came to see me to be helped with depression so the story will be absorbed in relation to the depression and the story is highly likely to have a therapeutic impact. If I knew someone had depression and met them in the street and they didn't know I knew they had depression and I told the same story it is unlikely to be successful as the depression and the patterns in the story aren't linked. If on the otherhand I meet the same person and start by asking how they are; even if they just politely say they are fine they will still access the thoughts about depression because these thoughts make up 'How they are'. If I then talk about someone climbing Everest this again has an increased chance of helping them with the depression.
An example of this idea is when I was on a plane and the person next to me was nervous about flying. I spoke about a child playing with an airport toy set and because the person had direct access to the problem the patterns I was laying down took effect and the person relaxed and found the flight OK.
For many years I worked with Children and Young People that had had difficult childhoods and had often experienced abuse whether this was physical, emotional or sexual. Many of these children and young people were wonderful, bright and intelligent people that unfortunately found certain situations would make them become angry, or they would lack confidence or self esteem or would become very anxious and often they didn't know why. Many people would ask them why and find the young person couldn't answer the question which often led to situations where the child or young person now felt stupid or angry with themselves for not even knowing why they do what they do.
Due to my training I knew that 'why' questions aren't the best way to go because the child or young person is unlikely to know why. The way to go is to create change from the inside out. With younger children especially I would tell stories that match the patterns that I see occuring. The brain is essentially a pattern matching machine; but it doesn't match patterns exactly; it can match a pattern with a 'near fit' so for example the pattern for suckling can be matched by the end of a finger or a bottle, it doesn't just need to be matched by a breast.
This means that if you have a general idea about a pattern you can lay that down in a story and know the brain will accept it. And if the pattern is way off and you were wrong the pattern wont fit at all but this doesn't matter it is just feedback to alter the story, or perhaps start more generally next time.
Stories that you use could be stories from books or even having the child watch certain films with you or it could be something you make up (either imaginary or based on real events). The important thing is to access the problem. This is often very easy to do indirectly. For example if I talk about my family people will unconsciously begin to think about their family. If I talk about when I was in school people will begin to think about when they were in school. This process of carrying out an internal search for related information is a 'transderivational search' and happens in every conversation you have. If someone says "You'll never guess what happened today?" A part of the person will probably try to think of what may have happened while another part of the person will think about what has happened to them today.
This process can be used by mentioning something that will create this search before or at the beginning of a story. Sometimes it can be done at the end of a story but I find it seems to work best near the beginning. This could be done in a brief conversation or whilst first mentioning a characters situation. You could even allow yourself to be overheard talking to someone (like on a telephone) about your day, or about having to do something you were nervous about that day etc...
If you incorporate it into the story it could be for example introducing Cinderella and how she was very nervous around her sisters.
Storytelling with children has many advantages. Children often have far better imaginations and can become absorbed far easier. Some ways I have helped children to become absorbed are to read to them with their eyes closed and ask them 'and what colour do you think the walls are?' and whatever colour they say you agree that they are correct. And you can ask them for the detail which means they have to imagine that detail building up an internal mental image.
Anyone wanting to use storytelling therapeutically with children should go and read short childrens stories and fairytales and look at what patterns are in those stories. For example do characters stand up for themselves successfully, do characters find they are good at things they used to think they were no good at, do they change their opinions, or do they become confident etc...
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