JCNT - May 2025 Release - Full Release - Flipbook - Page 76
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burden and did not bring about a sense of my own shortcomings. On the
contrary, the stories had a freeing effect and inspired me to see what was
possible in my own work if I stayed close to the spirits that were so clearly
guiding the work of the therapists in these stories.
The stories affected me in unexpected ways. They were, of course, moving
emotionally and I felt an affinity with the people in the stories. But what I
had not anticipated is the ways in which my affinity with them called me to
consider my own ethical obligations to my clients and to treat them with the
same respect and care that the therapists in the stories treated their clients.
Aesthetic category #4: Epiphany
According to van Manen, another literary effect of writing is that the reader is
stirred up and challenged primarily in the realm of the ethical. Such writing
intends to
