Journal May 2026 Release_Full Edition - Flipbook - Page 26
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Breaking the Frame: Aesthetic Encounters with Narrative Practice – Part Three
Lucy Merrill Cotter, MFT
As an artist and narrative therapist, aesthetics energize my narrative practices.
“The Breaking the Frame” series discusses a brief selection of artworks that
highlight alternative ways to engage with life. Each artist’s vision offers novel
perspectives for clients’ stories, psychology, and world-making. In this globally
challenging time, many people experience stories as fighting for dominance and
for reality itself. Art invites us to perceive differently, reminding us that reality has
multiple dimensions for thinking, seeing, and imagining. I question the effects of
psychology’s implicit categories, divisions, and prevailing beliefs. Aesthetics can
help free client stories from the confines of the known and the familiar.
The philosopher Deleuze has said, “There is no work of art that does not indicate
an opening for life” (as cited in Times Flow Stemmed, 2023, para. 4). This vitality is
embodied in my favorite narrative therapy quote, which has inspired my work
with clients for over twenty years. Reflecting on Foucault, White and Epston
(1990) write that when space is provided for “alternative knowledges” that resist
techniques of power, “‘Docile bodies’ become ‘enlivened spirits’” (p. 31). Through
art and story, we can break through mediating frames that inhibit clients’ energy
and agency. Deleuze (1966/1991) drew on Henri Bergson’s idea of “Èlan Vital” to
view life as multiple creative expressions of becoming (p. 107). Avoiding fixed
identities or finalized conclusions allows life to unfold through experimentation
and play. As an artist practicing narrative therapy, my primary goal is to
collaboratively transform the constraints of preconceived notions, inherited
concepts, identity conclusions, and client stories into ‘enlivened spirits,’ alive
through dialogue, process, and re-visioning.
An aesthetic retelling of narrative therapy fosters interchange between different
‘media of thought.’ Words and the story metaphor may constrain imaginal
options, whereas art often challenges common-sense conventions,
problematizing naturalistic accounts of space, time, identity, language, and fixity.
Breaking the Frame: Aesthetic Encounters with Narrative Practice – Part Three
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, May 2026 Release, p. 25-51.
www.journalnft.com
