By Laura Ludowyke
Humans are story tellers. Our stories are the threads that weave through our life. Strings and threads of doing.
We have stories of attachment, stories of connection, stories of disconnection, stories of doing, being and becoming and stories of trauma. Like a neural network, the brain uses these stories to give our lives meaning, purpose and connect emotions with experiences in an effort to make sense of our experiences.
The last two years I have spent immersed in stories. Inspired by the work of Polkinghorne, Dewey, Clandinin, Connelly, and Mattingly and White I have learnt the value of stories.
Stories give us as therapists a deeper understanding that simply can not be obtained through observations, surveys, or checklists. They help us comprehend the why and how someone is hurting, and enable us to project a future where that person can see where it is they want to move towards or away from.
Dynamic and Fluid Narratives
Stories are not just our own; they include our parents’ stories and their parents’ stories. Our stories are our core, the neural networks and our genes. We have stories of place and culture. These stories form narratives. Narratives which are dynamic, fluid, layered, and complex.
In my practice as an OT and as someone who teaches from lived experience.
I use stories to provoke thought and reflection. I use stories to make people feel uncomfortable. I use stories to help people experience and try to understand the world of another. I use stories to help people think about their own narratives, how they align or differ from mine.
By listening to stories, we are moved to a position of sense-making. We question: what happens next? How does this influence me? How should I change my practice? By telling our own stories we live and re-live our experiences from different standpoints as our experiences continue to influences our experiences.
The Storied Therapist
As occupational therapists, it is essential that we use stories to connect, understand, and help people move beyond their current narratives. We need our clients to recognize the value of their stories and experiences.
Borderline Personality Disorder and the Importance of Stories
Stories should be one of the primary methods for working with people who have experiences stories of trauma. Why because through listening to someone’s story we must truly listen with our eyes, ears and bodies.
As therapists we should be encouraging people to think about their stories
For without a story:
- Self-harm is seen as an extreme and disordered way of coping rather than a response to self-loathing from domestic violence.
- Sexual promiscuity is viewed as destructive behaviour rather than an attempt to understand one’s place and body in the world.
- Drug use is labelled as an addiction rather than a method of numbing emotional pain.
Without understanding the story, we seek to change the behaviour without addressing the underlying experience.
Without stories we fail and the weight of the diagnosis is all too powerful.
From personal experience the diagnosis overshadowed the richness of my life experiences. Stories of who I was and becoming became replaced with the title of “disordered”. Maybe you can recall a title, a word, a label and how this impacted you negatively and what you did.
For young people living through trauma, they often rely heavily on experts for solutions to their experiences. However, labeling someone can foreshadow their other identities, stories, and experiences with assumptions.
Why, because reductionist, quantitative, and mechanical ways of thinking are easier to quantify in an overworked system. They are more comfortable. They don’t require introspection. But we must look beyond these methods and consider the stories that give meaning to our lives. We must come to a relational space.
Coming to a Relational Space
Stories mean there is a storyteller and a listener, creating a relational space. In allowing someone to share their story, we build a relational space where we come alongside one another, contributing to the narrative. This relational space allows past experiences to inform current actions. The client’s story and the OT’s story come together to make sense of their experiences, strengthening the person’s and the OTs ability to do, be, and become.
Without stories, our goals are meaningless and inconsistent with the person’s global narrative and self-concept. Without acknowledging our own stories we contributions can be meaningless.
So what?
I encourage you to come alongside me as we reflect and make a story together. I want you to think of the labels we give people and how these may predict or foreshadow a person’s occupational potential.
I encourage you to share your own stories with me personal and practical so that I can continue to learn and be challenged. And encourage others to learn too from a position of narrative and storied knowing.
Thank you for reading my story. If you would like to share a story of experience please contact me via email at Laura.ludowyke@monash.edu
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