Transcript: Episode 323
323. NerdTown Topics: Using Narrative
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
[Note: This NerdTown Meetup presenter is Bill Woodburn, MEd, LPC-S, LMFT-S. Bill Woodburn is in standard font. NerdTown community members attending this meetup are in italics.]
Let me begin a little bit of introduction. What I want to talk about is using healing stories to work with clients, and particularly dissociative clients. But really, any client, and any person. I've been in private practice in Austin, Texas for about 30 plus years now. And you can tell by the gray hair. But most of the gray hair I have are from the first two years in private practice, but it'll do that to you. I was originally trained in systems theory and worked with families and couples, and so I tend to come at things from a systemic perspective. But then all of a sudden I got involved in learning psychodrama. And that took me, my systems perspective, and took it into this amazing story perspective. And so what you're getting is a bit of a mix here, it's neither exactly one or exactly the other.
And what I think I'll do today is I want to introduce some ideas about what stories are, and what gives them their power. And then I want to talk at the end a bit about how to use them. Now, I tend to have this great outline that has all these sections, but in in truth, what I'm really doing is telling a very long story here. So I may interweave things when they seem appropriate. And I really want questions. Because one thing I know is I'm, you know, I'm just this guy who likes stories. There are also other therapists here. And I may not be the best therapist in the room. So feel free to do the little hand signal and then I will pick up your question as soon as I can take a break in my brain. And then I always answer questions. Well, I always respond, sometimes even answer the question. But you know, that's where that works.
I do want to start with a trigger warning. Wherever we talk about therapy with people who have been through traumatic experiences, it's hard to scrub all the trauma out of that. So if you notice yourself becoming fuzzy, lightheaded, easily distracted, you might want to take a break from it. I'm not going to be insulted. I'm not going to get mad at anybody who either wants to shut it down or go off and get a drink of water. Come back if you can, but if you can't, I wish you well and I really appreciate you taking care of yourself.
What I'd also like to do up front, as I do in all my workshops, is mentioned some names of some people that went before me. Ruth Byers was a lovely lady who made my childhood a lot better than it could have been, and taught me a lot about stories and about the richness of the context that stories come out of. And I also want to thank Dorothy and Mort Satin who taught me psychodrama, and really they were there for the good of my professional childhood and brought me up and brought me both into the community of therapists, but also helped me stay connected to the clients is a special way. And I've always appreciated that.
Okay, so stories start with story. Everybody wonders, “well, Bill, why are you so interested in stories?” I've been a storyteller all my life. And now I’m a professional story listener, which is pretty solid. And I all attributed to the fact that I grew up on the wrong side of the courthouse. That's not like the wrong side of the tracks, it was still a nice house. But I grew up in this little town. And down the block from us was this huge courthouse. It was about three stories tall, it spanned the whole block, and it was between us and all the TV stations in Houston. Which meant that what we did after dinner is we sat around the table and told stories. And these were not organized stories, okay? This was “what happened to you today?” But it came out as a story. And this was “Oh did you hear about your cousin? You know, her job did this.” Or “Let me tell you about your ancestors before you even got here.” Or “Why are our grocery stores downtown named like that.” That's all right, we're doing fine.
So, but what that meant, for me, sitting around after dinner listening to stories, is that to be a part of the family, you had to learn how to tell a story. You had to learn the stories had beginnings and they had endings and they had this middle that actually had to do something. And then you had to look at people and you had to tell your story watching the eyes of the person that you were telling the story to. And you pretty soon learned that you learned a lot about the story someone else was telling by looking at their eyes, and looking at the set of their shoulders, and that they would tell you, if you're a little kid you're not too sure, is this a serious story, or is this a joke story, or, you know, what should I do with this? So I have been a story listener and a storyteller for a long time.
So, you know, I've been looking around for something to demonstrate how powerful stories are. And I have something, I have a little show and tell that will tell us how important stories are. This. See this? This is a piece of paper with really fancy printing on it. Right? This is a piece of paper that I drew just before the workshop. It's got a smiley face on it. This has a 1 on it. This has a 15 on it. So this one's way more valuable, right? Because it's got a 15 on it. And it's bigger. And it's got a smiley face. This has got a stupid guy who's not even smiling on. Yeah. So everyone wants this, right? No. [Sigh] You see, this comes with a story that we all agree on. That this is worth something. That if I take this to the grocery store, I could swap it for a banana. And that's a very human story. And it's a very essential part of being human is having these stories.
Because, you know, I could offer a chimpanzee who had has a banana, this dollar bill for the banana. Chimpanzee is not going to go for it. Okay, they're not human. They're not gonna go for it. They don't know the story. The story is this really is valuable. And you can use this with other people that know the story, and it all works out. But if you don't know the story, it doesn't mean anything.
Stories actually are powerful. And then these organizing principles that we use all over our lives, even if we're not very aware of it; who we are what we do. Did you know that before a client comes to your office, they already have a story about you? They've never met you before. Maybe they talked to you on the phone. And they show up, and they're in the waiting room, running through their story about you. Okay? And they have a story about themselves. And they have a story about what it means to go to counseling. And they have a story about that other counselor that they saw that said this or said that.
You see, we are our stories. They determine a lot about what we're going to see and how we're going to act. Pretty much 100% of you recognize that dollar bill when I held it up because everybody knows that story. Even people in other countries would know that story. Even people in other cultures. We'd have to go a long way back up in the jungle to find somebody who didn't know that story. Now, they may not know that particular dollar bill, but they know “Okay, he's holding up some sort of money, and it's got a story, and the moment I know this story, then-.” Because stories are powerful.
So, if you're sitting, if you're in therapy, and you're sitting across from a family, then you're sitting across from a story. And if you're sitting across from a couple, you're sitting across from a story. And if you're sitting across from an individual, you may be sitting across from lots of stories. You know, stories of successes, and failure, and pain and triumph of strength and weakness. I just said a whole bunch of words and everybody's nodding and smiling because it all seems so true. But that's only because you went into your own head and linked up your stories with those word. Strength, weakness, success, failure, pain, triumph. They don't just come out of my mouth and sort of wander around the room. You grab some of them, and they have these little hooks for you. They have hooks into your own story.
Okay, so that's how it works. That's how it works. That there are these little hooks in our brain that hook onto the words and hook into our story. So now we're sharing a story. Because now I'm thinking about my successes and my failures, you’re thinking about your successes and your failures. Now they don't have to be exactly the same, but all of a sudden we're starting to participate in the same story. That's how a conversation works. That's how language works. To participate in the same story, using words that are mostly recognizable.
And so when a client tells me their story, I have these little hooks in my brain. And it's okay if I compare them a little bit to my own successes and failures, my own pain. That's how I know. That's how I joined the story. There’s nothing wrong with it. I don't believe in that completely objective therapist that doesn't know what success is, doesn't know what failure is. I mean, come on. I've been there, okay? And so I've got some hooks that will help out.
All right. So I'm skipping ahead in my outline, as always do, because I want to get to some of the juicy parts.
So I want to talk about three different ways of telling a story. And these are just some things I've observed, and I've given them some names. So if you've experienced something different, you could give them different names, or you could add or subtract or to what I'm talking about.
So let's say your client comes in and they're going to tell you a story. Almost 100% of them tell you a story. Except for the teenagers that just stare at you and refuse to talk. But pretty much everybody else tells you a story. The first story space they might inhabit, the first way they might tell a story, is to tell a story as history. Okay? History is about being accurate. It's about recounting. It's about being linear. It's about being objective. Okay? Well, how many years have you been married? When was your divorce? How many kids do you have? Those are all very objective facts, and most of the time will be told in a pretty linear way because that's what we do with history. It also is objective. By the way, what that means in the story world, and in the therapy story world, is that we have to get out of ourselves to tell the story. There is a judge in a histories story that sits outside of us, and even outside the therapist, and judges whether this is accurate or not. That this really happened? Did it really happen that way? Did it happen that many times? That did happen on that dte? And it's not just me and it's not just the therapist. It's sort of this objective somebody that's looking in and saying, “Did this really happen?” Did this really, big air quotes, “really happen”?
So one of the problems with this, though-. You know, you can get a lot of information from a history story. It's a very compact way to give a lot of information, and that's what it's good for. But there's a downside, you see. Let's say I'm sitting with my therapist and I'm telling a history story. And then she asks a question and I say, “I don't know.” I don't know. But what am I really saying? If I'm telling a history story, and I don't know, what's the criteria for don't know? Well, it's that I can't tell it objectively in a linear fashion with absolute accuracy. That's what I don't know means in a history recounting of something. I can't tell you. I can't satisfy that objective observer that needs this to be a linear story that needs to be objectively accurate. And since I can't, then I have to say I don’t know.
Okay, so, you're dealing with a client with a history story, and they say they don't know. And you also go, oh, and my client also dissociates. Well, if they're telling the history story, and they dissociate, they got two choices. One, is to make shit up. Because they don't have a linear scan, they're not sure of the objective reality because they weren't having an objective observer there. So they have to make up something, and then they feel bad and you feel bad and-. Or they had to say, “I don't know.” Okay? So what I want you to get from that is when a client is telling you a history story, that very accurate layer thing, and they say they don't know, what they're really saying is “I can't produce this any further in a history format.” Luckily, there are other stories spaces we can inhabit. Okay?
So let's move on to number two here. What I call autobiography. Okay? That's a non-objective history. That's the history where the point of view is what I saw with my eyes. Not this kind of weird, imaginary objective observer. It's what do I remember, what was important to me.
Let me give you an example, because I dropped a stitch here and I love to go back and pick it up. Let me give you an example of a history story and then I'll give you an example of an autobiography story, and we can kind of see the difference. This is not a trauma story, by the way. This is not even a big counseling story. It's just a short story I remember from my childhood. So when I was six years old, my grandfather, some days, would take me down to the café and buy me pancakes. And I would sit at the table and eat two pancakes that were pretty large on a plate with my grandpa. And afterwards, we would walk back to the house. That's a history recounting. If you had been there, standing across the street, you would have seen my grandfather and I walked down the street. It was about three blocks to the café. You would see us enter the café. You would see two pancakes on the plate. I can remember all of those things well enough to tell you a history story.
But now let me tell you that same story as an autobiography story. And it would go like this: You know, one of the most wonderful things in my childhood was when my grandfather would take me down to the café in the little town that I grew up. It seemed to be a long way because it was blocks and blocks. And when I got to the café, out front I would see all of those cars and trucks parked, and it would be a little scary. But I was with my grandfather so I knew it would be all right. And he took me in there and they sat me on a wooden box so I could be high enough to reach the table. And these huge pancakes would show up with these pats of butter on top. And I loved my grandfather because he never complained about how much syrup I poured over the top. I could have all the syrup I wanted. And I would sit there and I would eat those pancakes with my grandfather on those mornings. And then we would walk back down to the house.
Now, what's the difference between those two stories? It’s the point of view. In an autobiographical story, see, I'm allowed to add in my feelings. I'm allowed to say what how it impacted me when these events happened. Now are those objectively perfectly accurate? I have no idea. I do not exactly remember what I felt back then. But I remember how I feel now, when I imagine those images. Those things that are objectively true, I did walk with my grandfather down to the cafe, but I'm letting that story become part of an autobiography. I am mixing it up a little bit with who I am, and who I want to be, and how I see the world. And you're getting all of that in the story. It is very different than history story. It's got a different point of view, and it puts me in the center of the action. The teller becomes the center of the action. In history, the center of the action is kind of somewhere off to the side somewhere. But in an autobiography, this is my experience of what it was like and what I remember. And you also get an extra bonus because you know how I've stored that story now.
It, you know, an autobiography story really supports a connection with myself, and renews a connection with my grandfather, and renews a connection with my hometown. All of those connections get renewed in an autobiographical story, and they don't in a history story. Because the history story, it's not about me, it's not about my experience. Now, the neat part about an autobiographical story, is it can generate a ton of questions for the therapist. You know, where was the town? What was the café? What was the name of the café? What was it like? And that's the trap. That's the trap. Because if you're my therapist and you start asking me questions about this autobiographical story, it's going to push me back into a historical story. And the more uncertain I am about the precise accuracy of the tales, the easier it is to push me back to the story. “Well, how much butter did they put on the pancakes?” I have, I don't, I don’t remember. I mean, I think of it as a bunch. But if you want a number, I don't have it. If you said something like, “Well, what do you think your grandfather thought?” Well, that may be a pretty cool therapists question, but it takes me out of my autobiography space where I'm looking through my eyes. And now I have to go back into that objective space and think about what was my grandfather doing sitting over there, you know. And so now I'm back to history.
It's one of the classic things when a client begins to trust you and move into autobiographical space, and we ask these questions that are meant to ground them or get more concrete information, what we end up doing is pushing them back into historical space. And things get impoverished really fast. Okay? And the therapist gets bored, because it's just history. And so we decide we're going to fix it by asking more questions, which push them farther back into history. Okay?
And then there is the big landmine for trauma survivors—and I bet you know what it is—where they look at you and they say, “But what if this is not true? What if this didn't happen?” And that's exactly the question for a history, because it's about accuracy, it's about objectivity. And then you're going to hit that landmine one of these days. Now, with an autobiography, that's a much smaller problem. And it's still a problem but it's a much smaller problem. Because this is about my experience of what was going on, and in my present time experience with the memories of what was going on. It isn't about how many pats of butter were on the pancake. it's the fact that I felt like there was plenty. It wasn't how much syrup was on the pancake, it's that I felt and remember the permission my grandfather gave me to be generous with myself.
So if you're hearing an autobiographical story, and you’re a therapist, you can start to relate to it in the context of the story. In the ways it affected the teller. “That must have felt so good to help all that syrup you wanted, to have that moment of freedom as a child, and that doesn’t come too often as a child, does it?” See, that's different than, “How much syrup did you use? Did your grandfather get angry at you when you use that much syrup? Did your grandmother often get angry when you use too much?” I mean, yeah, okay, maybe nice questions, way out of the autobiographical space. And you know what, guys? It's also the weaselly thing for therapists to do. Because history is so much safer for us therapists.
But to join an autobiographical space, that takes some guts. That takes me letting the story affect me some. See that, that means that you all had to have those hooks in your brain that thought about what pancakes looked like to you when you were five, six years old. You had to go there. And you had to think about, and you had to think about grandfathers, and you had to-. I mean, that's what storytelling does. It's supposed to have those hooks. But if you're going to refuse those hooks in order to keep yourself safe as a therapist, then the client is going to come tell you this rich autobiographical story. And you're going to look down at your notes, make a note and go, “Mmhmm, and so what did your grandmother think about it?” And you do that too many times and the client just will refuse to get out of history. They won't go there anymore.
There's also a terrific thing about the autobiographical space. It's a real affirmation of our own identity and how we fit in the world. If you remember when I told that as an autobiographical story, it was about how I fit as a little kid with my grandfather. What did I experience? And by affirming that experience, I affirmed my right to have that experience. And you might say, “Well, but as a kid, did you actually, you know, we-.” Doesn’t matter. In that moment, as I told you that story, I affirmed my experience of that story. And that is worthwhile.
Actually, it is even healing to me, even though nothing particularly wrong was wrong in that moment. I just enjoyed telling that story to kind of be with my grandfather again. That was just a wonderful moment for me to tell it. And to see Maddie nod, and then I thought, “Yeah, okay, so she risked having some hooks from her brain connect to this story. And now we're sharing a story. And she let it affect her. And it affects me. And now we're in this together.” Okay? And I trust the experience more.
So just to make this complicated, I'm gonna say there's a third thing, way to tell this story. Now it didn’t show up all the time, but when it does it's really powerful. It's the mythic space to tell a story. Okay, you got history, which is just like this linear recounting objective details. You've got this autobiographical, which is what did the teller experience in the moment? Myth does something else. And let me see if I can add to this story with myth: I love my grandfather, and I loved being there with him as I ate the pancakes. And I remember seeing the men of the town in there for breakfast in the morning. And they talked about the price of cattle, and they talked about the price of feed, and they talked about whether they should cut the hay now or wait, or what the weather might do. And they talked to my grandfather, since he owned the local grocery store, about what he expected the prices of beef to be when things came around to sell. And I now realize that when a grown man walked up to that table and looked down at me and said, “Oh, it's such a strong boy. He sure eats a bunch of pancakes. I bet he’s gonna grow up and be a real strong man.” That that man was greeting me into the company of men in that community. I wasn't there yet, but he was making that opening. That was a ritual that he was going through, and I felt it. And I felt my grandfather, say, “You know, one day, you know, he's going to run that store. And I gotta make him big and strong, and I'm teaching him everything I know, so that one of these days he can be here and run that store.” They we're making a place for me. You know, now, I rarely go back to that town. I didn't take over the store. In fact, a food chain came in and lowered the prices and my grandfather's grocery store went out of business. But when I go to that town, you know, the shell of that store is still there and still means something to me. Unfortunately, 10 years ago, the café there burned down and I really felt that the soul of the town had just been pulled out. And a connection that I had very tenuous with that town also died with.
That's a mythic story. That goes beyond my perspective from my eyes and begins to try to find my place as a human in the world. See, an autobiography affirms my experience, a mythic story affirms my humanity and my connection to the other humans. And it recognizes other humans’ attempt to greet me into their community. It's a small community. It makes a difference if you know who you're dealing with, you know? And so they began that process and I felt it, even as a child, of how they would greet me into the community, how they would recognize me, how they would make a place for me, how my grandfather would begin to talk about his legacy that he would leave to me. These are all, not just individual autobiographical pieces, but human pieces. I get to join humanity when I tell it this way, when I see the story this way. It both empowers me, but also humbles me some. I’m unique, but I'm also very common. It affirms my humanity also in a way that affirms my worth. I am part of that. I'm part of that community, I'm part of that history, I’m part of those days.
So a mythic story, when a client can go into a mythic story, they start to deal with very different issues. They deal with the right use of power, are the wrong use of power, connection, and humanity, and what does it take to be a human being. One of the things I love about reading the Greek plays is the Greeks were incredibly, incredibly involved in the right use of power versus the wrong use of power. They even had words for it. The right use of power was called kairos. And the wrong use of power was called despos, or we get the word desperate.
But when I think about it, and I remember being with my grandfather, I remember-. There was a whole teaching there about kairos and despos. The men around me were talking about who they do business with and who they trusted and who they didn't and why they didn't trust them. They were greeting me because of my grandfather and the trust he built up in the community. Okay? So all, I'm getting an education far beyond my own experience. I'm starting to share their experience. And through their experience, I'm sharing everyone's experience as a human being. Not the only little town in the universe.
When a client starts to tell a mythic story, or a story from a mythic space, let me suggest that one of the first and great responses as a therapist is respectful silence. This isn't because they said something bad, it’s because they said something important. Something that does not need to be rushed. When a mythic story is told, whether that's me with pancakes in a café, or the myth of Theseus in the labyrinth with the minotaur, we enter into sacred story. That specialness that needs to be recognized. It's like, “Oh, yeah.”
And let me suggest, as a therapist, your next move after the silence is to greet this other human as a human. Because the point of telling a mythic story is that it connects us with humanity. And if you're a therapist, you want to also connect with humanity as your next move, is the next thing you say. If you can't connect with humanity, then the person will stop telling you mythic stories; they’ll go back to the autobiographical. If you can't connect as a person in the autobiographical, they'll go back to the historical. So unfortunately, our response in some ways makes the space either safe or unsafe for different stories spaces.
It, maybe it's my bias, but I think that there's some really powerful healing in the mythic telling of the story. As I told that story from a more mythic standpoint, not just from my standpoint of being a little boy, but my standpoint of being a man now, and how they mix and how, what it told me about being a human, I began to feel that sense of what it's like to leave a place and not go back. What it's like to lose something important and yet to see the shell of it when you drive through and don't stop because it's not there anymore. That reached a whole different part of me. Not an autobiographical part. It wasn't just about me, it was about all of us. And I started dealing with, I'm joining humanity at that point.
Now, it's hard to be depressed and join humanity. It's hard to feel worthless and join humanity. Okay? You can. I've got some very, you know, I've been very skillful at being depressed. I can, I can be depressed even joining humanity. But it's harder. It's much harder. when I'm talking about all of us, instead of just me.
So I want to make some space for people to raise their hands and ask questions, because I've unloaded a whole bunch of stuff on you. And I, and I do so with a flurry of words. But I'm really interested in your words, and your reactions, and your questions. So I'm going to back up for a minute. And if someone wants to, like, wave a hand, and then I'll call on you, and you unmute.
Oh, yeah. Hi, Kim. I just wanted to let you know that I'm not a therapist so I don't have any of those questions. Well, you know, Kim, let me let me talk about the question that I wished you’d ask. As a non-therapist, can I still use this stuff? And let me suggest that you can, because we all tell each other stories for healing. And you don't have to be a therapist to get someone's story. Okay. You know. And sometimes, we tell our most important stories to the people we love, not the people we employ as therapists. Yes. You’re right.
So I have a question then if you don't mind. Sure. How do you-. Is there a way to, when someone is engaging you in the story, that you don't become so involved in the story? That you kind of pick up their emotions, and things like that with it. Because I get that a lot of people who they just share. There has always been that since I was since I was a child. And now that I'm older, I'm noticing that I kind of carry or pick it up. I don't know what I was doing as a kid to put it down. But I, I struggle now more as an adult to actively and intently say, “I can't take this. I need to get this off me.”
Sure, sure. So there are a couple of there a couple of things you can do. One, is you can start setting up some boundaries and just not go into those. Because it may not be good for you. And that's okay. If it’s not good for you, don't go. No harm, no foul. But there's another thing you can do. You can see if the person you're talking with, who's telling you the story, will move up to a more mythic story space where you can join them as part of humanity and not as Kim who is worried about what's their name. That's very personal. And it, it's, it's, it's tricky because you can get lost in there. But if you can begin to tell the story and get them to tell the story of how we are alike as humans, and how you relate as a human to that, then there's a little cushion there. Because I also think that as human beings, that's how we're meant to respond to some of these things. That's why the old folktales, the old myths, are so rich, is because we can enter them as another human being, and not as me worried about you. Okay, so, you know, I don't always answer questions, but I talk a lot. So,
[Laugh] You answered that very well, thank you. And I know that moving forward, I'll even attempt to do that when I'm telling other people's stories. That I'll try to make sure that I kind of engage them more from the humanistic part, mythical part, versus Kim's personal XYZ. That made a lot of sense, thank you.
And one of the ways you can do is you can tell a story back from a more mythic space. I occasionally do some business consulting and some business workshops. And way back when, I was working with a group that was really holding back all their best stuff. You know. They had the all these ideas, but no they wouldn't, no. And they were like, “oh, we're not gonna say,” you know, “we don't want to put it out there.” And so the second day, I walked up first thing I said, “Hi there,” and I told them the story of Rapunzel. Now, this is a roomful of business executives from a major corporation who were looking at this bearded guy telling him a fairy tale. You wouldn't believe the looks on their faces. But partway through they began to get it. That what I was talking about is how the old woman selfishly, but also with some good intent, took the innocence of Rapunzel and locked it in a tower so no one else could have access to it and so that innocence would stay innocent forever. And how now we see that is a big mistake she was making, and maybe even a source of evil that she wasn't letting things unfold. And they began to realize, “Oh, my God, that's what we're doing. We're locking all our stuff in the tower and refusing to let it out.” See, I just told the story back, but on a more mythic level. Plus, it was my, it was a lot of fun telling a fairy tale to a bunch of guys who, you know, had MBAs from Harvard and Carnegie Mellon. I mean, what the hell? How many times you get to do that?
So I'm getting a chat from Bree with a question. Says, I'm not a therapist either, but I am a client. My question is in terms of healing, what is the optimal way to tell a memory story, ie a trauma memory in history, versus the same trauma memory in autobiography, in terms of healing from the trauma.
Let me just say that all three of these storyspaces are completely valid. And they're good for certain things. There are times when we just need a therapist to under-, to get what happened to us. Just the facts, ma’am. You know, like the old dragnet thing. Just the facts, ma’am. History is great. Two reasons, one of which it gets the facts out in a very condensed and efficient way. And sometimes we just need to set up that context with our therapist before any of the rest of the story is gonna make sense. “So I got to tell you, da da da da.” I mean, it wasn't a trauma story. But I could have said that, you know, I grew up as a little kid in a town in Southeast Texas with less than 1000 people, and where everybody knew each other. And I mean, I could start with that kind of history and tell you who my grandfather is. And maybe, you know, if you're a therapist, you might need that history. There's nothing wrong with it. There is some healing there knowing that someone else knows the facts. Okay?
There is also healing and being able to tell your experience. But if you’re a client, you need to work with your therapist in that telling because that gets very experiential. And as it gets experiential, it gets where it can overload you. So one of the things that happens sometimes in autobiography, when I'm with the client, is I'll help them move to a more autobiographical tell story space, where they're telling it there. They'll get a little frustrated because I'll stop it. Before we get [indistinguishable], I said, “No, that's enough for today. Because it's a big experience. And I'm going to make notes and we'll come back to that next week.” Okay? Now, that infuriates them. And infuriates me when I'm a client with my therapist, because I just want to tell the whole thing. But I have a pretty smart therapist, and she understands that if I did the full autobiographical story about something that was really painful, it might be more than I can handle, right?
And so history, absolutely. It's fast. It's easy. Let's get this out. Let's get some context. That way I know the therapist knows what the heck I'm talking about. That's great. Autobiography, great. It brings the experience out, puts that in the therapy room. But you got to go slower. That's the trade-off. You got to go slower. I hope, Bree, I hope I answered your question, or at least approximated an answer. Yeah.
Oh, yeah, Crystals. Thank you for sharing. I am at work. I do a group called Telling Your Story about how to tell a recovery story and break stigma and all that. I think for me, one thing that stood out was when you told the autobiography story, I was like really into it. But then when you told the mythic story, I almost felt like I was gonna start crying or something. Just like the way it connects to humanity and to belonging, for some of the larger concepts that make us human. And also, I think that's part of the reason why I really like fiction. Because I feel like it can like, um. And everybody wants a true story. Everyone wants it to be true. But it's emotionally true. Or it tells truths that can't be told in facts. Yeah, so, I really appreciate it. And also just thinking about, like, my experience in therapy and how my therapist might do something like that, or slow you down, or. Which means you have to feel stuck. Yes. We just like are telling it. And maybe if I just told them—though I'm taking over your presentation—I just tell the whole story, at some point in there it's going to become too much for me, then I'm going to shut off. And my therapist has totally figured it out right now but, you know, at first she wasn’t. You might think that you're doing all this stuff with the client, but really the clients not even in the room and the story’s just getting told.
Yes. Yes. And if the teller is not there for the story, it doesn't count. Yeah. So we got to keep the teller in the room while they're telling the story. And someone who dissociates thoroughly can literally tell the story and not be there to tell the story. And that's a big problem.
The other piece in talking about truth and stories, it reminds me of a story. A true story. In 1935 anthropologist went out to the Lakota tribe to see if they could gather some of their stories to preserve them and to get to know them. And the anthropologist learned that there wasn't there was a very wise old man named Black Elk, and he had a lot of stories. So the anthropologist sat with him for several days and listen to the stories about creation, about the tribe, about what things meant. And at one point the anthropologist said, “But, you know, are these stories true? I mean, did they really happen?” And Black Elk thoughts about it for a moment. He said, “None of these stories really happened. But if you listen carefully, you'll realize that all of them are true.” So one of the things of why I love that story is I remind myself as a therapist that there's a difference between accuracy and truth. There's a difference between objectivity and full rich experience. And sometimes it's a trade-off. I mean, it'd be lovely if we could have them all at once, and occasionally we'll make a hole in one, and then there'll be something that's-. But you know what? Humans being humans, sometimes we have to select. I can give you more of my experience, but it may not be as accurate. Or I can be super accurate, but my trade-off is I'll have to leave out some of my experience. Okay. So things true. And I, you know what, as a therapist, I often talk about, talk to my clients, and we'll use the word accuracy versus true. I reserve true for something that really means heartfelt thoroughly human rich experience, and accurate for that kind of linear objectivity. And there are times that you need to say, “Okay, I need you to be really accurate about this.” That happens. But you know, when I'm in the therapy room, I'm not pushing that one too hard. I am mostly interested in how true can this story be? How much of yourself can be reflected in this story? How much of your attachment to wider humanity can be reflected and grasped and developed in the story? I'm way more interested in that than whether it is just accurate.
Okay, women, I'm getting I'm getting a chat from Emma. Follow up question to that. How do you let many tell the story when there are several storytellers? How does that work? Thank you Emma. I think, okay, knowing that I'm just a therapist. I'm a guy who likes stories. I'm not even the brightest therapist in the room here. I think that's the core of working with dissociative identities. Is letting there be many storytellers. Okay. I think one of the big mistakes that therapists make is they want to push it down to be one story with one storyteller. And already we're in trouble here. Okay? Why have you had a space where all stories were greeted, and all storytellers were greeted. And each storyteller was worked with to see if they could actually retell both an autobiographical and a mythic story space? And what if each part was able to connect to wider humanity? What if each part was able to connect to the humanity of all the other parts? Okay. So I think there's some healing going on in there. It is actually less different than people suspect from having a group of all these outside people who are all telling stories, and they're all related to hearing stories, and they're all trying to relate as human beings. Okay, that's good. Well, if you just got a bunch of people in one body doing the same thing, I don't, I don't see a major difference other than you know, it's cheaper because you only have to buy one chair. Because that's kind of, you know, a real cost savings. Okay.
Okay. There's Maddie’s chat. Do you want to say that, or do you want me to read it? Or do you just-. So sure. I'm just, so part of what I think can be so difficult for some survivors, and I'm not sure I'm going to accurately capture everything in this is that-. Especially when harm comes from, and that can either be overt harm, or we're not attending to somebody who has been harmed, right? True. Yeah. But is that they have to make really difficult choices around disconnecting from their families, or, and that can sometimes mean like generations, right? And lose access to their stories, and their families stories. And so I think I'm understanding what your-. I am understanding what you're saying. But in that situation, there's something about that for me that makes the mythic story and the connection to the mythic story even more important, but that there's potentially also a source of pain. Oh, yes. Involved in that level of storytelling as well.
Thank you for pushing me to a little more nuanced, you know, into my into my more nuanced material. I gave a very, very simplified—oversimplified—ideal story. In fact, one of the challenging pieces is that we all grow up in a sea of stories. Okay? So I'm sitting here and I have the story of Bill, and tell you about my grandfather. I'm also Bill who has a story about being therapist. I'm also Bill who has to fight off all those stories told by John Wayne in those 1000s of Westerns that I saw as a child. I mean, it's not just one story that would be so simple and so wonderful. And I know I told you that, “Oh, yes, hey, it’ll be just one.” Like, no, that's not the way it works. Because part of what happens when someone decides to leave a, an abusive family, is they're also trying to leave an abusive story of who they are, and of why that happened, and what they should do next. I mean, there's a script. And sometimes I've had people say, “You know, I, I love my aunt. I would love to be, you know, to go back and visit her. But she'll just tell me those same stories again.” And then they'll say, “But she's safe because she never did those things.” I'd say, “She never did those things, but I'm not quite sure about her safety if she's still telling the stories that came from the family that abused you.” Okay.
So that I love stories. And I tend to see stories as all wonderful and all enriching. But there's some bad stories out there. And there's some hurtful stories out there. And there are some, some ways that people can tell stories to themselves that hurt themselves. Okay. So I don't want to, I don't want to be too naive here.
One of the things that I want you to keep is that sometimes when people say they need to not speak to a family member, or the leave of family, what they're trying to do is leave the story too. And if that family still has access to give them the story, then it's still gonna hurt. In other words, you can not go home for Christmas, but if you read the freaking emails-. You know, I mean, it's six in one and a half dozen in another. You might as well go home for Christmas. You gotta also insulate from the destructive stories. Or, if you can—and this takes a brave person and a skillful therapist—you can sometimes take those stories, deconstruct them, reconstruct them with using the same parts as kind of like a kit, and tell them out in a different way.
Now, I don't know, I'm going over time, but you're still listening so I'm just gonna keep going because I'm having a good time. Let's imagine that there was a destructive story. And the way it was destructive is it took the client, that little, that person or that little person they were, and put them in a very subsidiary role. They were just a bit player in their own lives, in their own experience. As in, “You don't know your experience,” and “you don't know what really happened,” “you don't know da da da da da da.” That's that story. But what if through telling a more autobiographical story, the client was able to move themselves to center stage where their experiences count, and what they saw counts in the story. Okay. How healing would that be to go from this, you know, bit player in the movie that stands in the back and has no lines, to the star of the show who has an opinion, who has ideas, who gets to see what happens, who maybe, maybe, even gets to tell the truer more mythic part of the story. A story about suffering but also a story about tenacity. A story about endurance. A story-.
You know, one of the things that I find so sad in so many of the stories I hear from both trauma clients and non-trauma clients, is there's no hero in the story. I mean, what do you do with a story that has no hero? I'd love to try to get people to retell the story where they are the hero in the story. And heroes don't always succeed all the time. Certainly not the first times. And heroes do suffering. Heroes do have pain. Okay? So unfortunately, the word hero in our Hollywood context often means, you know, supernatural, they never get hurt, da da da da. And so they're, a little bit of hero education has to happen here until they can talk about the hero that is wounded. They can talk about the hero that endures, even if they cannot change it.
And there's a scene from a movie that always comes up when I think about this. It's actually pretty good movie, many years ago, about the Scottish Highlands and the fight of the Scots against the British, the English at the time. And the theme of the story is “that which cannot be changed must be endured.” That which cannot be changed must be endured. Really struck a chord in me. In the climactic scene, the hero of the story, who has a large and somewhat clumsy, strong with clumsy sword, is facing off with an adversary that has a light, sharp and wicked sword, and really knows how to use it. And he cannot compete. And at the climax of the scene, the hero grabs the blade of his opponent's sword and holds on to the sharp edges and immobilizes his enemy at incredible cost. That which cannot be changed must be endured. And that is the way he wins and walks out of there and goes on to have a life. That's much more the story of a trauma survivor than it is “Oh, and I, you know, and I'm Superman and I fly up buildings, and I beat up people.” No, it's about being the unSuperman, the not Superman. But can it still be a hero? Can you still tell your story as the hero who is not super. The hero that must endure that that cannot be changed. The hero that has triumphed through endurance, even if it meant not doing some things, or not saying some things, that you dearly wanted to say and do. It's a different kind of hero.
Other questions? Other ideas? We will probably have to sign off at some point. But you tell me, because I'm having a good time.
I wanted to. Oh Sorry. Go ahead. I wanted-. I'm, just having recently gone through some just psychodynamic training, the idea of-. Right. So, a client and their story, the therapists in their story, and then they co-create a third story together, which I just wanted to put out there. I think that's, that's, I think that's therapy. And I think that's healing. And I think that we have lots of different names for it. And what I tried before in psychodrama is what I try in storytelling, it's what it's, it's what good talk therapists do. I mean. But I think that if there's not a joining of stories, if there's not some new story that comes out of it, I don't think it's very healing therapy. Now again, I'm the story guy, so I'm biased. But that's what I truly believe.
Well, I, what I'm thinking is we’re always, um, there's always a co-creation of a story. It can just be a harmful story. Right? Sure. Yes, yes. Yes. So you have to think about who you are in the story. In your own story. Are you the hero? Are you the villain? Are you the victim? You know, all of those are different places to be in story. And being able to move your role in a story is an incredibly powerful thing. And you can you can see all sorts of people throughout history who have moved their role from the victim of oppression to someone who is worthy of being recognized and listened to. It's a triumphal story. And what it's about on a story level is changing from one role to another role.
So I'm going to launch off on some new content just because we're sort of there. You know, there are also four ways to tell the story. And that makes a difference in how it comes out. And you can help clients shift between them and get different things out. And it's not like one's right and one's wrong. You get different things out.
You know, one way to tell the story is as a tragedy, which is to focus on the pain and suffering. And what you're hoping is that triggers empathy both in the people that hear it and also in the heart of the person who's telling you. That's the purpose of good tragedy, is “this happened, let me tell you about the pain and suffering so I can feel my own empathy for my condition, and I can see that mirrored in your eyes, and we can connect through empathy.” And so it's about understanding. It's about acceptance. That's where the strength comes from a tragedy.
But you know, you can also tell the story as an irony. This is where you focused on kind of the acknowledged humanity of the thing, how we all kind of feel that way. You know, one of my, one of my favorites is that there's that great comic line is “I don't mind dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens.” It's a joke. And it's ironic. But it also sums up what so many of us are thinking as part of the human condition. You know, like, what am I really scared of? I'm not scared of being dead. I'm scared of the journey to get there. You know? I spent my life, you know, working on healthy food and exercise and doing the right thing. And I suddenly discovered I'm gonna get old anyway. That's irony. You know, it's kind of a cross between tragedy and comedy. But it puts the focus on humanity. This is what we all go through. I'm joining you, you're joining me. You know, when I said that, I saw Crystals smile, and I thought, “yeah, okay, see? We're together on this. We're both human beings right now.”
You can also tell the story as a romance. That's a focus on, yes on love, but also on loss and reunion. On those connections that come and go, and what it's like to have one and to lose one and to regain one. And it triggers deeper connections and people. You know, if you ever want to see this in this in marvelous black and white, the movie Casa Blanca is all about this. That's why it's such a great romantic. Okay, so one of the threads through this, if we follow one of the main characters, it's about this guy that finds the love of his life and he loses it, loses her for a bad reason. And then he finds her and loses her for a good reason. And nothing really changes. He loses her. That's the deal. But what changes in that is it's a great romantic story because the meaning of it changes, and the why changes. So he loses her for bad reason and he loses her for good reason. And then he goes on with his life, she goes on with her life, and you realize that there's something good and affirming that's happened here. And that's, that's a terrific healing room.
And then last one is a comedy. And in this one the focus is on spontaneity and on play. But it's also on the rightness and the sort of good-, what my graduate school professors used to call the “goodness of fit,” where things just really fit. You know, they say Shakespeare, you can tell it's a tragedy because someone dies at the end, and you can tell it's a comedy because there's a wedding at the end. You know, and that's a little glib, but it's also a little deep. In other words, you know, for there to be a comedy, then there has to be a joining together, there has to be a celebration. There has to be something creative and spontaneous about these two people getting together and forming a life for them. You know, I mean, yeah. I mean, it can look like “oh, well, it's just a nice happy scene.” It's more than just a happy scene. It's what comedy is really about, which is creativity, and generativity.
So, notice that you can tell the same story from any of these four viewpoints. And sometimes having someone change their viewpoint can tell them a lot about the story. I mean, we've all had clients who come in and they're attempting to tell a comedy, and right in the middle it becomes a tragedy. And it surprises them more than surprises us. Because they had intended to tell it as comedy. And then they realized that this is not a comedy, that there was pain and suffering. This wasn't all about creativity and generativity. Yeah, that might have been in some, but oh, wait a minute, Um. And one of the things we know is therapist is it's a sign of—I hate the phrase, but I gotta use some phrase—good mental health if someone can be telling a comedy, and when it's no longer a comedy they can shift spontaneously to telling it as tragedy. They don't keep telling it as a comedy when it's clearly not a comedy to anyone in the room. Okay? But what if they can shift and go into tragedy and get that rich piece that you get from good tragedy? Okay. That's cool. That one move may be an incredibly healing move for the client. That I can, I don't have to tell this as comedy all the time, I can tell this is tragic.
Or to be able to tell something as irony. To realize this happened to me, and you know what, it happens to everybody. You know? And maybe, maybe it's not, maybe I can move it from tragedy to irony and help me connect with all the other people in the world that have gone through this. And now I don't feel alone. Now, that doesn't mean there wasn’t pain and suffering, but now I'm not alone.
Oh, by the way, I love to tell folktales and so I'm always talking about Celtic folktales. And you know, the difference between, you know, a happy Celtic folktale and a sad Celtic folktale. In a happy Celtic folktale-. Sorry, in a sad Celtic folktale, the lovers die far apart. And in the happy Celtic folk tale, the lovers died together. Okay. That's partly funny, but it's also partly that sort of like, wait a minute, what's the difference? Well, the difference is connection. And the difference is loneliness. And the difference is meaning. And sometimes, the healing of a tragedy is to move it a little bit into irony and realize, “yeah, this hurt me and it's suffering, but I can now join with others who have felt the same thing and been to the same place. And that there is something affirming, and there is something about having that identity that I didn't have before that makes this better or something.”
So it makes a difference, how you tell it, and whether you can move back and forth between these four. And if you can do that with some suppleness, that's the sign of somebody who's really healing. And a therapist who can help people do it with a certain amount of suppleness is a pretty skillful therapist.
Okay, I'm getting lots of chats. I don’t see questions, though. But there's some cool comments on the chat box. Thank you guys. Does anybody have question? Oh, Crystals, yeah.
This isn't a question. But you were talking about the, or someone asked a question about like doing therapy with multiple people in one body. And that I think that for a lot of our therapy was everybody had a different story and a different perspective. So we could not talk. Because every time we thought of something to say, someone else said, “No, that's not really true. This is true.” And then it was just like this whole thing that like, I think we still do that. It's like, “Oh, this person was saying this and this and this. I don't really feel that way. Like what are they talking about?” Well, you’re two different people. You don't have to feel the same way.
And that's one of the real challenges with dissociative identity, because there's a built in denial of the other stories. In the original design-. Now not the way it has to always be. But the original design wasn't just to be able to carry multiple stories, but for each story to be able to deny the other story. Because you never knew When you might need to come up with a story that was going to keep you safe by denying the other story. So, I mean, it's not as easy as a bunch of storytellers who are all patiently waiting in line to tell their stories. I'd be nice if it was, but that's actually not the way it is. It's a bunch of people who are waiting in line to tell stories, only the other guys don't want them to tell the story. Yeah. It’s like being a stand-up comic at a nightclub of really drunk belligerent people. They don’t want to hear your next joke. You know. This is not good.
So some of this therapist is making a space where stories can be listened to and accepted. And that's also why I stay away from words. And notice I said “accepted,” not “believed.” That's, that's a big ask. Okay. I don't start with a big ask. I start with the small ask, which is, can we just accept other parts right to tell their story? Yes. Can we just start there. Or even sometimes, even just the fact they have a story? I mean, can we start there? I mean, I'll start as simple as we need to start to get this rolling. Okay. Other parts have other stories? Really? Yes. And we're just going to let that be okay. Now, I just said that in a sentence, and it's like six months with therapy. Exactly. You know, I mean, I'm pretty glib and I make it all sound like “Yeah,” but no. It's but it's a lot of hard work. But pretty soon there's this idea of “No, I hate ‘em, I don't like ‘em, but yeah, I guess if they want to talk to you and tell their story, you know, I guess it's okay.” I consider that like super progress. I'm all into that.
But what if one or two parts can hear a story from another part, accept it, and move away from believe it, to experience it with the other part? The way a storyteller and listener get together to create this space for the story. Where there's something going on between the two that is connecting. And it's not believe it or not believing? It's can you tell it? Can you accept it? And can you accept the humanity of the person that's telling it? Can you contain the feelings of challenge of their experience? And get past that to maybe a little more mythic piece to realize that maybe all human beings have to grapple with what they're grappling with? And they've got one solution to that problem, but there are many right solutions. There are a lot of right answers in this world. That may be one. And that may be the rightest answer that they've got for themselves right now.
Nice, Bree, that it's okay to have different stories. Matter of fact, dissociative identity is all about being able to contain different stories. Well, if you're a storyteller, that's what you say. How many stories do we need to contain here? Well, okay. Let's contain a bunch of stories. And not little wimpy stories. Like, big, hairy, awful stories that have to be contained. But if they were all laid out at once, they would all crash into each other. And so I trust the system that maybe there's a reason, and I don't demand that somehow we all come up with a single story. Now, one day, maybe, okay? I mean, I’m all for it. But it's not something you have to do. Okay? You don't have to do it. This is about making space for all of the stories. And being able as a therapist to do a little bit of air traffic control so they don't run into each other on takeoff.
Okay, other questions? And how do we move that out of the therapists office and into the “real world”? Well first, I'm glad to put-. Thank you, Emma. How do we move out of the therapists office and into the “real world”? I'm glad you put air quotes around “real” because I don't see that. What I see is that we've got stories in the therapist office, and those stories are going to go outside and bump into other stories. And there's a certain weird Darwinian sort of thing that happens. But that's why I want people to have strong stories. And that's why I sometimes challenge stories. Not the truth of the story, but the depth of the story, the commitment to the story. I want to develop commitment to the story, the deep truth of the story. Because when they walk outside, they're gonna be bombarded by other stories that want other things to happen. And they-. And you gotta, you got to be true to your story.
And again, I grew up in the world of John Wayne, and, you know, that was the story about how to be a man. And I could be whatever I wanted to be in my room as a boy. But when I went outside, I had to deal with that story. Because it was going to be everywhere every guy was. Okay. So I had to get some sort of grip on my own alternate story, and I had to learn to be loyal to it and not sell it out, and be able to defend it at least inside, because I was going out into the landscape of a bunch of different stories, some of which would do me harm. And that's not even counting trauma. That's just culture. It gets weirder and worser when we talk about trauma. That's just, that's something everybody can identify with is-.
Yeah, I'm looking at a bunch of women on the screen, which reminds me that of course, when a woman goes outside, you hit a bunch of stories. And whatever you think and believe about yourself has got to stand up to those stories. Traditionally, there's been a lot of force behind those stories. Glad to see that that's loosening up some. Long way to go yet.
More questions? Oh, Crystals, thank you. To your own self be true. Absolutely. I think I'll go a little Shakespeare to, you know, make the day good. I didn’t even know that was Shakespeare. I just know it is on my recovery coin. It's on the recovery coin because Polonius said it to Laertes in Act One of Hamlet. So, you know. It’s a thing. I suffer from the burden of classical education. So we're kind of stuck. It's a lot of trivia.
I think it's hard when some of my experience, like, where I found out about trauma, different, like a trauma story when it was told in front of other people. And, and it was spoke casually and like, like it was, I don't know. One, was like it wasn't trauma. And the other one, was just like over driving to the zoo. This horrible thing that happened to you. Anyway.
Sure. Oh, yes. It's really shocking to hear a trauma story told in a very dissonant way of telling it. I mean, if you tell it as a tragedy, kind of works pretty easily. If you tell him as a comedy, you got to kind of wonder. And the weird thing? Is to tell it, is for it to be told as a romance. I get that, sadly, a lot.
Can you explain more about that? Or maybe. Yeah. Remember that romantic telling, romance, the focus is on love, loss and reunion, and it's about connection. And I get trauma stories told as stories of love and loss and reunion, as opposed to I should run like hell. You know, I'd be much more interested in this being, you know, a tragedy or even an irony. Okay? But a romance? I got to think, “okay, somebody taught you-.” Oh, yes. Thank you, Maddie. Trauma bonding. Yes, that's a, thank you. I guess that's my story definition of trauma bonding is an abusive story told as a romance. Thank you.
Well, we're getting down to closing in on 530 and I'm going to go ahead and try to move off. It's hard to do because I'm having such a good time talking to y’all. If you have more questions, I am available and, you know, Emma has my as my email I'm sure she'll relay, or maybe she'll relay questions, and I love questions, and I like to answer them. And I'd be happy to come back someday if you guys want me to.
To close. No, I'm gonna close by telling you a story. And it's a bit of a tragedy and a bit of an irony and it's a bit of a history. But I think it's got some mythic parts to it.
There was a child development center. And one day when all the children were out on the playground, they were fascinated watching a guy across the street who was working on the light pole. And he was up on the big arm in the cherry picker, you know, working on the light pole. Well in the midst of all this, the guy falls out of the cherry picker onto the street and dies. Oh, the teachers at the Child Development Center were like, “oh, what do we do? I mean, how do we explain this? They're five years old. I mean, you know, we can't really explain this to them. What do we do?” What they did is they went out to the toy store and they bought a bunch of trucks with cherry pickers and little action figures, and they spread them out in the room. They didn't demand, but they spread around the room. And the kids went over. And they, they moved the man up in the cherry picker, and then they pushed the man out of the cherry picker. And then they, you know, they've got some ambulances, so grab the ambulances, and they put them in the back of them. And they reenacted the stories with the toys over and over and over. And one of the curious things is it also began to change. Yeah. Where some of the kids, the ambulance went to a place and then the person's family came around and stood around, and they put little action figures as like we're having a funeral, we're having a remembrance. Okay. And some of them, the man falls out of the cherry picker but then he learns to fly and he flies off. And they began to think about ways that they could understand and they could deal with the story so they could carry the story. And they moved it up into that mythical space which is partly magical and partly deeply, deeply real. And the kids’ stress level about it began to go down and down and down as they played with it. And I think that's what healing stories do. It lets us play with these experiences.
And that's why I kind of push away a little bit from history. This needs to be in a space that we can play with it. What happened and what could have happened and what might have happened? And what do we want to happen next? And what might happen next? And what happens if there's magic. So that's what I want to leave you with. And thank you so much. I loved your questions. And I loved being here. And it was so good to see y’all’s faces. Thank you. Thank you Bill. Bye. Bye everybody. Thank you Bill.
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