Stories in psychotherapy – orality and writing

Abstract

The article considers the differences between spoken and written storytelling and the impact that orality and writing can have on the therapeutic use of storytelling. Research and literature on the functioning of oral and written cultures (based on oral and written hearing) and the use of storytelling in psychotherapy, with a focus on Positive Psychotherapy, are reviewed. To answer the question of how to most effectively reach the client with the message of storytelling, observations and recordings were made of two cases in which the content was communicated in two ways (orally and in writing). The clients' way of perceiving reality (dominance of the senses), self-narratives and psychological condition were analyzed in search of relationships with susceptibility to oral and written messages. The article uses two stories written by the author. The first story contained in this article was told during a speech at a First International Caucasian Conference on PPT “Positive Transcultural Psychotherapy as a Bridge between Cultures” in Georgia in October 2023. The purpose of the story is to show the differences between spoken and written storytelling (looking at these differences in the context of the anthropology of words). The second story (Kintsugi) was inspired by the client's experience and written for use in the therapeutic process.