Therapeutic Storytelling for Therapists, Counselors, Coaches, and Educators

Therapeutic storytelling is a powerful, yet gentle and non-intrusive, way of inviting people to see their problems from a different perspective, package hard-to-hear feedback and ideas in a non-threatening way that doesn’t trigger defensiveness, and help people break free from inertia and a sense of helplessness. It also adds a tremendous sense of freshness to the helper’s work because it helps them add more of their creativity and personality to their work.

The approach to therapeutic storytelling taught in this seminar is based on the work of Dr. Milton Erickson, who was renowned for his ability to use hypnosis, storytelling, and “curiosity-inducing homework assignments” to help clients find their own unique answers to their problems. His work was strengths-based long before the strengths-based movement and positive psychology had been born.

Instructor David Lee has studied with most of Dr. Erickson’s students, including Ernest Rossi, Jeffrey Zeig, Bill O’Hanlon, and  Stephen and Carol Lankton. He has taught hypnotherapy and therapeutic storytelling throughout North America and Australia.

Note: This seminar focuses on helping practitioners and educators become more effective storytellers and add storytelling to their toolkits. It does not focus on guiding clients or students in the telling of their stories.

Participants will be able to:

• Help clients shift from a disempowered “I can’t" state to an empowered “I can do this" and "I can see options now" state using storytelling
• Make their ideas and teaching points more understandable, fascinating and memorable, using stories and analogies
• Challenge clients’ unproductive perspectives without being confrontational and triggering defensiveness.
• Help clients “try out” new behaviors in their mind, by creating “virtual reality training videos”, enabling them to see new waves of acting and responding.
• Recognize common everyday experiences that could be used to create teaching and therapeutic stories
• Identify what stories to tell to help clients achieve specific goals or make a particular teaching point

6.0 Category A Continuing Education hours for licensure have been applied for through NASW-NH.