How Family Therapy Can Help Your Family Heal

How Family Therapy Can Help Your Family Heal

By Chuck R Stewart




     Storytelling is now emerging as a critical component of Scottsdale family therapy. There are now quite a number of Scottsdale therapists who have gained positive results in their sessions with individuals facing varied family issues. It is essential that we spend some time and understand some important principles that come into play when storytelling is adopted as a major element of the family therapy approach.

     Storytelling as a major element of family therapy relays ideas and messages holistically. As a result to this, the listeners are able to receive the message in a simple, logical manner and in one single flow.
Storytelling is considered as an age-old form of expressing ideas and emotions. This type of communication is the native language which can be used with persons as young as two years of age. On the other hand, the abstract form of communication becomes effective only to individuals who are at least 8 years old.
     This method of communication allows the family therapist to communicate in a way that allows him to sort out the elements in logical sequence out from a chaotic setting. This approach connects the individual to time and space, and the direction of the sequence of events becomes clearer enabling the therapist to deliver a more sensible idea or message. Family therapists are able to deliver holistic realities once they adopt storytelling as an integral part of the therapy sessions as opposed to abstract method of communication which normally breaks down the message into fragments.
     Abstract type of communication forces on our perceived time and space and sets its own framework and applies such mental framework to another individual. What happens to such type of therapy is that the person is limited to just two options- accepting or rejecting the idea relayed by the family therapist. With the abstract communication approach, one ends up with a yes-no, all or nothing type of confrontation. By contrast, storytelling comes out as a collaborative encounter which encourages the listener to participate in an arm-in-arm activity with the family therapist. This narrative element of family therapy is more of a rhythmic dance rather than a communication struggle.
     What makes this narrative approach a truly effective adjunct of the entire family therapy procedure is that it allows the listener create a parallel event in his own consciousness. This increases the possibility of acceptance more than the rejection that we normally experience in the abstract type of communication.
     Another critical aspect of storytelling has something to do with tacit knowledge. We know more things than we actually believe we have and it is important to acknowledge the importance of tacit knowledge in the overall scheme of things.
     Finally, abstract type of communication is in general described as dry and dull because individuals struggle to relate it to reality. As living creatures with unique characteristics we are easily attached to things that are animate and reject inert and inanimate things like abstracted concepts. Individuals always consider the experience of storytelling as lively and entertaining. It is one great way we can accept ideas as it is presented explicitly by a competent family therapist.
     
     
     Chuck R Stewart recently studied new Scottsdale therapists while conducting research for an article. His new article will pay particular attention to Scottsdale family therapy practices and the results they achieve.


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