The Healing Power of Stories - Hardcover

Taylor, Daniel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385480504 ISBN 13: 9780385480505

Publisher: Doubleday, 1996

Synopsis

Stating that the key to psychological healing is in the telling of life stories, a guide to recovery blends the avant-garde therapy of narrative psychology with literature, religion, ethics, and philosophy, citing the lessons that can be learned in classical works.

About this title

About the Author

Daniel Taylor, Ph.D. is a professor of English at Bethel College.

From Kirkus Reviews

Although the title implies a self-help book, this is no pop psychology how-to but an old-fashioned moral essay that speaks of character and values. Taylor (English/Bethel College; Letters to My Children, not reviewed) believes that stories make it possible for us to be human; they ``tell us who we are, why we are here, and what we are doing.'' We learn them as family stories and as school and religious lessons; strangers surround us with their stories on television, in movies, and in books and magazines; and we tell our own stories about ourselves. They preserve our memories, explain our present, and help us imagine our future. With tales such as Huckleberry Finn, Taylor illustrates how exposure to characters in stories helps to mold one's own character, and using Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, he demonstrates how stories shape one's view of the world. They teach us that character is more important than personality, and they challenge us to be characters engaged in life, not simply passive spectators. The values of every human society are captured in its stories, says Taylor, and to be civilized is to internalize those values; thus we are defined by our stories and by the stories we choose to tell our children. The healing power of stories, he says, comes from their power to reconnect us with others, for a story implies a community of at least two, a teller and a listener, each with responsibilities to the other. An appendix includes questions about readers' own stories; in answering the questions, says Taylor, readers will find better understanding not only of the stories but of themselves. Makes a trip to the library seem more rewarding than a session with one's therapist. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0385480504
• ISBN 13: 9780385480505
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 182