Relationships in Counseling and the Counselor's Life by Kottler Jeffrey A.; Balkin Richard S.; & Richard S. Balkin

Author:Kottler, Jeffrey A.; Balkin, Richard S.; & Richard S. Balkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781556203572
Publisher: American Counseling Association
Published: 2016-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

The Desperate Need for Relational Storytelling

Eighteen seconds is the answer.

What's the question?

How long does the average patient have to tell his or her story to a doctor about what's wrong before the narrative is interrupted?

In the past 30 years, incredible advances in the technology of health care (robotic surgery, MRI scans, stem cell transplants) have taken place in the practice of medicine, yet nothing much has changed in terms of relational connections. Only 1 in 50 patients is allowed to finish his or her story to a doctor, and more than half of patients leave the office not understanding what was explained to them and why (Levine, 2004). No wonder doctors are often so frustrated with noncompliance when their patients don't follow their orders—their patients never got a chance to talk about their full concerns and didn't understand what was expected.

We suppose that result is very good news for the future of our profession, because, more than ever before, people are desperate to find someone to whom they can tell their stories without constant interruptions. Given the widespread use of mobile devices, we rarely have anyone's undivided attention today. People check their phones constantly throughout the day—during meetings, conversations, counseling sessions, even during sex. Regardless of what you are doing, the frequent bings and buzzes of mobile devices beckon. Even if the people you are with have the good sense to ignore the alert and stay with you (which rarely seems to happen), you can see the look of temporary distraction in their eyes as they split their attention between whatever heartfelt subject you are talking about and the life-changing message they imagine is waiting for them as soon as they can extricate themselves from your presence.

With everyone's constant distractions and multitasking, counseling sessions will likely continue to serve a primary function of providing relational space to honor stories with full and complete attention. Perhaps the biggest and most frequent mistake that a counselor or any storyteller can make is to fail to adapt and personalize the story for the particular audience, culture, context, and situation. People frequently memorize jokes and recite them verbatim, just as counselors have a catalog of greatest hits that they may rely on without taking the time to refashion the narrative to fit the situation. Yashinsky (2004), for example, considers himself an accomplished storyteller who is used to beguiling audiences with his craft, but he recalled sharing one of his best anecdotes with a group of Inuit children in northern Canada and getting no response whatsoever—just blank looks. In one part in the narrative, the character falls into a mud puddle, which was always guaranteed to generate hearty laughter, but this time it elicited shrugs and boredom. Then he realized that these children lived in a snowy world and had never seen a mud puddle; it was unfamiliar to them. When he retold the tale with the character falling into a pile of snow, he got the expected reaction of delight.

This illustration highlights the critical

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