Here's an article for all my pals who are storytellers or storytelling fans, especially the lawyers, mediators, and other helping professionals. Excerpt:
[Dr. Lewis] Mehl-Madrona ... is one of the nation’s leading proponents in the use of narrative psychiatry, a practice that blends centuries-old and indigenous concepts of "story" with current-day neurobiology and medical practice. "The narrative paradigm in medicine and psychology is so compatible with contemporary neuroscience," Mehl-Madrona explains. "It’s a paradigm that says that the brain evolved as a comprehending, understanding, story-telling organ—because all human information is saved in the form of a story. And when you apply that to psychology, then, instead of thinking that people are intrinsically defective or that there’s something wrong with them, we start to think that the people are fine. They just have stories that don’t work."
Mehl-Madrona’s interest in story-telling and
narrative healing stems from his early childhood. Born in Kentucky and raised by Cherokee grandparents, he understood early on the role that stories play in our everyday lives and our histories. “I grew up in a world saturated with story,” Mehl-Madrona says. "Anything you asked of my grandfather, he’d tell you a story [laughing]. And if my grandmother wanted you to do something, she told you a story. Or she’d say, 'This reminds me of a time….'"
Intrigued by the power of story in his own life and culture, he would later spend years researching and studying with indigenous healers in North America, and would later use these experiences, and his knowledge of modern-day medicine, as a basis for a series of books he authored, including Coyote Medicine: Lessons from Native American Healing (Touchstone, 1998); Coyote Healing: Miracles in Native Medicine (Bear & Co., 2003); and Coyote Wisdom: The Power of Story in Healing (Bear & Co., 2005). His publications have been continually praised by authors and practitioners of integrative medicine, such Dr. Andrew Weil.
His studies wouldn’t end here; while pursuing the sciences at Indiana University, ... .
Click to read the rest of "Healing through Narrative" (Inside Union).
Image credit: (Inside Union).
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