Storytelling therapy

Domain VIII · Creative & expressive arts therapies · Eric Miller, Alida Gersie, Ildikó Boldizsár · 2015 · Chennai, India

What it is

"Storytelling therapy" is not one manualised therapy. Miller proposes it as a creative arts therapy and as an umbrella term for story- and narrative-based therapies. Under that umbrella there are distinct named practices: Gersie's therapeutic storymaking, used mainly in groups and drawing on myths…

Format

• The sources describe a process, not a fixed number of sessions. None of the sources gives session counts or criteria for moving between phases. The phase structure and criteria below are a working synthesis built around Miller's three steps.
• Groups (Gersie's main setting) run as a series of themed sessions. Gersie & King group stories under seven themes: Beginnings, Passages, Knots, The Tree, Trickster, Healing and Return. The facilitator chapters cover mythmaking structures and ways of making images. A plausible group series follows…

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Professional frame. No regulated profession called "storytelling therapist" exists. Miller presents the term as a proposal, not an established, tested discipline. Professional storytellers who work in health settings are artists, not therapists. In the UK, story work done as therapy usually falls within dramatherapy, a regulated profession: dramatherapists are "by law, regulated by the HCPC", must hold a Level 7…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Does it use a device, heat, cold, water or a physical procedure? Has a medical professional checked that it is safe for you?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Don't read drawings or stories as diagnostic evidence (5.10).
• Forced positivity. The repaired story should still hold the losses.
• Privacy. The client decides what leaves the room, and recordings need separate consent (5.8).
• Treat it as an exploration, not a validated test, and don't draw diagnostic conclusions from it (5.10).
• Ownership is the sign it's working: the client brings stories between sessions. For traditional and Indigenous stories, see 4.11.

Problems the guide addresses

• Stuck: "I don't know any stories" / nothing comes
• Resistance: "This is childish" / "just stories"
• Overwhelm, flooding and pacing of disclosure
• Non-adherence: no story brought, no between-session task done
• Ruptures: a story you chose misfires
• Disclosures and safeguarding
• Events that cannot be changed (bereavement, abuse, disability)
• Groups: screening, confidentiality, privacy
• Children and young people
• Over-reading projective material

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.