JCNT - May 2025 Release - Full Release - Flipbook - Page 75
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reading the poem now becomes really our own. It takes root in us. It has
been given us by another, but we begin to have the impression that we
could have created it, that we should have created it. It becomes a new
being in our language, expressing us by making us what it expresses; in
other words, it is at once a becoming of expression, and a becoming of our
being. Here expression creates being= (1964b, p. xix).
Such resonances and reverberations that readers experience in the reading of an
evocative text would not be possible unless the reader had not already had
similar experiences—real, felt, or imagined. And when these images take root in
the reader, it is experienced as if it were their own, and then it becomes their
own.
The appealing effect of these stories is evident in the students9 comments about
the ways that the stories moved them emotionally, bringing them to tears,
guiding them to a stirring in their hearts, but perhaps more importantly, this
movement was in the direction of their ethical and moral responsibilities in their
relationship with themselves and their own clients.
As I was reading the story, I felt something stirring in me and I was moved
to tears. I remember being so swept up in emotion that I stopped trying to
understand what I was reading and just let myself feel and experience it. It
was like my senses took over and the ideas found their way inside of me. I
still can’t quite explain it.
Somehow the family in the story had moved me and I felt a sense of
responsibility to honor them in my work with others.
I loved reading the stories because the people in them inspired me and
helped me to see what was possible in therapy. And I need to say that the
clients in these stories inspired me as much as, or more than, the therapists.
The stories were written in a way that invited me to be in relationship with
people whose lives were in them. I cared about them. I was moved to tears
by their struggles and their courage.
One of the surprising effects of reading these stories was that they created
a sense of urgency in me to do more in my work. This was in no way a
A Literary Means to Pedagogical Ends: A Review of Fortuitous Outcomes
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, May 2025 Release, p. 63-78.
www.journalnft.com
