At the heart of any therapeutic encounter there is always a story. Patients seeking help bring with them stories, spoken or untold, fragmentary and whole, that collectively make up their own personal narrative, their lived autobiography. Whatever else their tasks, a central part of the doctors or therapists job is to facilitate the telling of these stories, to make meaning out of them and find the patterns within them. The aim of this book is to rehabilitate stories and storytelling within medicine, psychiatry and psychotherapy and to consider a narrative approach both as a theoretical paradigm and a practical, therapeutic tool.
A story of stories, an introduction; The psychodynamic narrative; Defensive and creative uses of narrative in psychotherapy:: an attachment perspective; Gender issues:: Freudian and feminist stories; ; Sacred Tales; Creating a coherent story in family therapy; The rehabilitation of rehabilitation:: a narrative approach to psychosis; Holding onto the story - the older people, narrative and dementia;