Narrative dynamics and psychodynamics

Author(s): vonWyl, A., Wepfer, R.

Journal/Book: Psychother Res. 1999; 9: 72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012, USA. Guilford Publications Inc. 258-273.

Abstract: Everyday narratives refer to events, but the act of narrating does not serve merely to retell facts. Instead, in narrating, we recount personal experience. We do this suggestively, attempting to involve the listener emotionally. We tell about conflict issues that are affecting: us as positive or negative arousal, and that-in the service of integration-demand social resonance. We seek the emotional involvement of an empathetic audience in our subjective concerns. Narratives are linguistic stage productions. The storyteller directs the scene and assigns dramatic roles and degrees of involvement to the speaker-listener group. Thus, conflict-laden experience becomes something that can be articulated, and finds emotional acceptance in the social sphere. Using a psychodynamic concept df scene production, this finding, formulated in psychodynamic terms, can be implemented in psychotherapy. Stories presented by clients in the psychotherapeutic setting may be systematically viewed as linguistic enactments of conflicts and subjective concerns. The narrative-analytic program called ''Jakob'' is introduced.

Note: Article Boothe B, Univ Zurich, Inst Psychol, Schmeizberstr 40, CH-8044 Zurich, SWITZERLAND

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