It seems that whatever we do, we tell (our) story.
"man is a story-telling animal"
MacIntyre (after Šugman Bohinc 1998)
We were all raised with stories. The fairy tales that were read to us, anecdotes, jokes, legends, myths, fables, parables, parables and even metaphors themselves have a tremendous influence on us. There are several reasons why stories work.
"There is something about stories and metaphors that leave a deep impression on the listener: they teach, they inspire, they guide, they communicate, they are remembered and, most of all, they are everywhere."
Lankton (after Šugman Bohinc 1998)
Stories allow the listener to identify with the characters in the story. The condition for having any kind of emotional response to characters in a movie or book is to identify with them on some level. They can offer us role models, examples and ideas about solutions. It is also possible that they act regressively, we experience an event from the past more simply. Compared to direct instruction, which most often encounters resistance, stories do not command anything, the listener has no reason for conscious or unconscious resistance.
"Metaphors work because our minds are metaphorical."
In an interview with the user (client), the social worker (therapist) tells his story and co-creates a new, alternative story in dialogue with the user. It deliberately uses (personal, user, mythological, therapeutic) stories and metaphors with the aim of creating favorable circumstances for the user's reframing of the story and also tells stories about the users' stories. (Šugman Bohinc 1998).
At this point, I would like to point out that it is a memory of an experience, a new experience. Every time we access state-dependent memory, learning, and behavioral processes that contain a problem, we have an opportunity to reorganize and re-associate or reframe that problem in a way that resolves it. (Rossi 1986)
In the book My voice will go with you (The teaching tales of Milton H. Erickson, MD 1982) there are about 100 stories about stories created by the master of reframing Milton Erickson. Each of them is special, the simplest ones at first glance carry extremely strong and valuable messages, for me, especially about trust in the subconscious, my own and the client's.
I also got many such stories in the book Stories at the Kitchen Table: healing stories / by Rachel Naomi Remen, Healing with stories by John Wiley & Sons and Storymaking and Creative Groupwork with Older People by Paula Crimmens.
When telling stories, whether written or improvised, it is undoubtedly important how we tell them, to whom and when. If we tell a story that does not move us, it is difficult to expect that the listener will be, but if we vividly imagine what we are telling, the listener will be attracted to the story, even if he does not understand all the words.
"The power of storytelling is as old as man. People have been telling stories
Igor Ledocowsky
before they could even speak. All you need to do is to look at the old cave
paintings to realize they're really telling a story about daily life in that particular
era. »