What does Storytelling Have to do With Therapy?—Life as a Story

People tell stories and stories shape our experiences. Dreams are stories, older than verbal language, a kind of mother tongue of the soul. They encounter us as a mixture of memory, expectation, and imagination. They allow us to try out action options and test experiential possibilities without endangering our lives or our position in a group. They can re-regulate our reactions to experiences and thus bring us back from overwhelming experiences to the ability to act. Psychotherapy can use this circumstance to dissolve burdensome stories and develop ones that expand possibilities.