Healing

Abstract

This chapter, per the author, is to convey the significance in facilitating healing through storytelling empowering individuals to reclaim and build sustainable lives for themselves. People will feel the force of passion and commitment in their stories as they reflect and become inspired to act. When we help identify a way to transfer hurt to healing, we move people to consider what they might become if they are “more” than the hurt—more determined, more prepared, more confident, and more empowered. The purpose of this chapter is to advocate the use of storytelling as an effective medium to embrace in the positive power, benefit, and effect that stories have in the healing cycle. Stories may appear to be simplistic yet are purposeful. However, developmental psychologists point out that stories are not innocent as they always have a message. These emotionalized messages have been told over centuries and yet the messages are often lost, unappreciated, and unheard in the clutter of assumptions, caveats, data, and the fear that the storyteller will not be taken seriously.