Therapeutic Storytelling

So I'm approaching that time in my studies when I'll soon be doing some actual counseling. Next semester will be "pre-practicum," which is basically practice counseling done with classmates. You get videotaped, you get critiqued, and you're expected to put up or shut up.

The following two semesters I'll be in practica I & II, which will be full-on clinical work. When I graduate in May of '08, even after passing the National Counselor Exam, I'll be an LPC-I (licensed professional counselor intern) for thousands of supervised hours. I'd expect no less for someone who is basically being given license to get inside someone's head.

But the question that I'll be expected to answer soon, for myself and others, is this: What will you do?

That is, where do you stand theoretically? Now, any good counselor will almost certainly tell you that they borrow therapeutic techniques from all over the place, depending on the client's needs. Yes, there are a few dominant theories: cognitive behavioral therapy, Bowenian therapy, solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT), narrative therapy, filial therapy, play therapy, whatever.

But at some point soon we'll be expected to basically pick a theory and run with it. We'll be expected to work primarily in accordance with the tenets and therapeutic techniques of one theory. The analogies with martial arts are way too plentiful, and I'll do what I can to avoid the temptation to go overboard. Still, it's kind of like being the martial artist who gets a black belt in Judo before branching out into other arts to develop a more well-rounded approach. I suppose one's superiors want to see that you CAN master one approach before you try to combine several.

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At this point I'm inclined to think I like SFBT quite a bit. It's brief, it's positive, and it's future-oriented. You don't dwell on the past, you don't interpret dreams or seek underlying meaning. You work closely with the client to formulate a plan you agree on, a plan based on what they feel will succeed. It's not ideal for every therapeutic setting (and no therapy is); it'd be awful for, say, a rape victim, because telling them you're not there to talk about the past isn't likely to go over well.

Jung and Freud are considered to be the grand old men of psychotherapy, yes, but you don't find an awful lot of that sort of therapy practiced. When you're digging that deep there's simply too much room for interpretation, too much latitude and not enough real-life benefit that can be demonstrated empirically.

Dream interpretation has barely been mentioned.

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I also like SFBT because its tenets mesh well with motivational interviewing, an intriguing technique being used with addicts these days with some degree of success.

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The thing is, at this very moment it sort of seems like a therapeutic technique is choosing me, not the other way around.

But let me back up a bit.

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Many of you know what a John Steinbeck fan I am. When other high school students were rolling their eyes when assigned to read Of Mice and Men, I was thrilled. My father and I fell in love with the simple charm of a film adaptation of his less-appreciated short novel Cannery Row.

I went on to absorb lots of Steinbeck, and I wrote about him every chance I got when college projects allowed. Hey, I took eight years to get my undergrad degree; lots of projects allowed, particularly when I was an English major.

I learned that the main character in Cannery Row, Doc, was based on Steinbeck’s real-life friend Ed Ricketts. Like Doc, Ricketts was a marine biologist working in the Monterey and Salinas area in California, living a simple life among the creatures he admired. He and Steinbeck drank many beers together.

Sometime in the 1940s, however, Ricketts was killed in a car accident.

Steinbeck was devastated.

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The Doc character was also featured in Sweet Thursday, a sequel to Cannery Row. In it, Doc meets a woman and falls in love with her.

I read a book of Steinbeck’s letters, and he was clear about the fact that he’d written the second book for the sole purpose of giving Ricketts the happy ending he didn’t get in real life.

John Steinbeck, one of the most brilliant writers to ever grace this planet, had dealt with the death of Ed Ricketts using narrative therapy.

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It’s an idea that’s been stuck in my head ever since, even when I didn’t know what to do with it. I was once at a funeral where I briefly had the idea I might be asked to speak. I can’t recall whose funeral it was, and looking back, I’m a little shocked that any such ceremony would leave any room for improvisation. Regardless, I remember thinking that if called upon, I’d talk about Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts, and how everyone struggles to make sense of death.

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So in 2000 or 2001 I had the good fortune to participate in an online chat with author Jerry Stahl. He’d been a writer on the TV show ALF, which I never saw. I was a Stahl fan due to the compelling darkness of his autobiography, Permanent Midnight.. In it, he describes his years of heroin addiction, and how he was stunned to collect a paycheck for his almost nonexistent contributions to the TV show, especially since it wasn’t much of a secret that he was a junkie who was often locked in a studio bathroom with a syringe.

(Ah, me and my opiate-tinged heroes.)

Anyway, he’d had so many comically insane moments in his life that I had to ask whether he’d used the occasion of writing Permanent Midnight to lend some order or meaning to events which seemed to lack any at the time.

He said emphatically that he had indeed done just that, giving structure where had been none, finding significance where he’d been unable to see it while wrapped in the moment.

Stahl, too, had used narrative therapy.

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Stahl, by the way, has gone on to be a contributing writer to CSI. He also wrote the “fictional autobiography” I, Fatty, based on the life of silent film star Fatty Arbuckle. I enjoyed that book, and mean to seek out more of his work.

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So yeah, this idea of using the word, which has always been so important to me, as a medium for change, or for connecting and re-connecting the dots, has long appealed to me.

As it turns out, I’ve done a bit of it myself.

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Narrative therapy can utilize a bit of selective omission, certainly, but don’t confuse it as a technique based on fabrications or lies.

Let’s look at it this way: Have you ever had a humdinger of a story to share with people, one that you knew packed a real whollop? I’ve certainly had a few come my way.

Smack dab in the middle of those stories you sometimes find it necessary to gloss over or omit bits that don’t lend to the dominant theme, that don’t do anything to bolster the big laugh or meaningful point you’re working towards.

Well, sometimes those omitted parts can lend new perspective. Maybe you feel guilty about doing something awfully inconsiderate to a friend or family member. As you share this story with a therapist, further discussion may lead you to reveal that, say, you only said what you did because of a misunderstanding, or perhaps you carried some resentment about that situation in general from another instance. If you explore those omitted parts, you might be able to find something useful to work with.

There’s more to it than that, of course, but you get the idea. Narrative therapy is about cognitively stepping back from the story as we know and have told it, and allowing that our perspective, as important as it is, is strictly subjective, and leaves room for re-interpretation and re-examination.

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So as I sit here, on the verge of having to implement all the STUFF we’ve been taught, I can’t shake the notion that narrative therapy comes pretty damn naturally to me.

I’m supposed to write a paper tomorrow, a position paper on a therapeutic technique that appeals to me. I’d planned on doing SFBT, but I must say that I may have to change those plans.

If you’ve read this far, well, thank you. As soon as I get past this week I’ll be back to (ab)normal. I’m pondering a couple entries on:

1. Bullies
2. Concerts

Ya’ll take care.