Therapeutic Storytelling in a Pupil Referral Unit: The story of intersubjectivity A dissertation submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Professional Doctorate in Counselling Psychology in the Faculty of Humanities 2013 Nici Long School of Education Acknowledgements For my children I would like to acknowledge the academic support given by Prof. William West and Dr Terry Hanley. My Edinburgh Storytelling Mentoring group inspired me to begin this journey and helped me find the confidence within myself (Narrative Consultant Michael Williams; Storyteller, Children’s Author and Researcher Alette Willis; Storytelling Bard Daru Mcaleece; and Environmental Storyteller Paula Cowie) and all the children and Storytellers that have inspired me through their skilled and enthusiastic sharing of story. I wish to thank the staff at the Pupil Referral Units, for facilitating this research and fostering an environment conducive to quality research and therapeutic intervention. In particular I wish to thank Jane Parkinson and Dominic Nolan, in Dominic’s words…for just ‘knowing it was right.’ Jaqui Morais provided a warm, golden shadow as we delivered the programme together, and John Lancaster and Tom Hogan who warmly accommodated my work at the Units. I am grateful for Clare, Terry, Michael Williams and my mum for enabling me to take the steps on this journey. I am not sure that any other journey in life could have provided me with such rich personal and professional development, much thanks goes to William for being my guide. The support and friendship of others travelling on this path has been invaluable and …appreciation goes to many fellow trainees and in particular William’s tutorial group, Joan, Jonathan, George, Krista for their support, warmth and humour; and of course, Laura…for being ‘Laura’ and Cathal for the soul food and spiritual road trips. Most importantly of all, my thanks go to my children for their patience and understanding when I was not always as available to them as I would have liked to have been, I hope that in achieving this goal I did not neglect my most important role in life as a mother. 2 Contents Acknowledgements 2 Abstract 6 Declaration 7 Copyright Statement 8 Introduction 9 Buying a Suit 9 Thesis design and rhetoric 9 Ontological tensions 12 The Key Flower 14 Aims and objectives 15 Research Questions 16 Epistemology 17 Picasso 17 Qualitative research 17 Operationalizing qualitative research 18 Ontological perspective 19 Critique of phenomenology methodology 21 Social Constructivist epistemology 23 Psychological constructivism 23 Methodology 25 Heuristics (Moustakas, 1990) 25 Contrasting Sela-Smith’s approach with that of Moustakas 26 Heuristic guidelines (Moustakas, 1990) 33 Introducing Therapeutic Storytelling 38 Initial engagement 38 The Hideous Hag 41 Literature Review 47 The Hatmaker and the Monkeys 49 “Everything is story” 50 The History of Therapeutic Storytelling 52 Story processing 60 Engaging with stories and “story attachment” 60 Empathic attunement 64 Metaphor 66 3 The relational elements of storytelling and intersubjectivity 69 Intersubjectivity 72 Attachment 79 Therapeutic interventions with young people 87 Integration as a function of the therapeutic change process 93 Conclusions from the literature 96 The Study of the Storytelling Programme 98 A ‘thick description’ of the participants 98 The participants 101 Ethical considerations and access 102 Conducting research with ‘hard to reach’ young people 103 Supervision and self-care 106 The Storytelling Programme Procedure 108 Data Collection 111 The Watermelon 111 Heuristic data 112 Summary of data collection points 113 Reflective journal 114 Interviews 117 Data Analysis 121 Reflections on the analysis process 123 Trustworthiness 125 The Pot of Dirt 125 Findings 132 Individual Depictions 132 Wise-man’s individual depiction 132 Story Girl’s individual depiction 134 Leaf’s individual depiction 136 Riddlemaster’s individual depiction 137 Riddle Me This 138 Bike Guy’s individual depiction 138 The individual depiction of staff 139 Storyteller/researcher’s individual depiction 140 Summary of storyteller/researcher’s findings 147 Composite Depiction 148 The Soul Bird 150 Creative Synthesis 151 The Dwarves’ Quest 152 Post script: answers to riddles 154 Discussion in the light of the RQ 155 The relational dynamics of storytelling 156 Calming influence: Containment and attunement 161 Intersubjectivity 167 Secondary intersubjectivity 168 4 Systemic working with young people with disorganised attachment styles 169 Emotional literacy and new personal narratives 173 “Stories are good, helpful” 174 Maybe 174 Self-reflection 175 “Feel better about yourself” 176 Duke Huan and the Marsh Goblin 177 Hui-tse’s Useless Tree 178 Hope 178 Empowerment 179 Stories as a trans-theoretical medium 181 The capacity of stories to produce therapeutic change 183 Conclusion 187 The way of the storyteller 188 An integrative and theory-driven approach with young people 189 Future directions 191 The hope of the young people 192 The Pedlar’s Dream 193 Contribution to academic knowledge & professional practice 194 A contribution to qualitative research practice 195 A contribution to the therapeutic storytelling literature 196 The role of Counselling Psychology in working with young people 196 Limitations 198 Subjectivity (the role of the researcher /facilitator) 183 Ethical Issues 200 Improvements 201 References 202 Appendices Appendix 1 Information for participants about the study 222 Appendix 2 Consent sheet for participants 225 Appendix 3 Extract from my reflective journal 226 Appendix 4 Data 234 Appendix 5 List of stories told during the Storytelling Programme 265 Word count = 54,037 5 Abstract Background: This thesis reflects upon a heuristic study of a Storytelling Programme which took place in a KS3 Pupil Referral Unit. Previous experiences in the field, as a community storyteller, revealed the power of stories to calm and engage young people. In my community work I had seen that storytelling particularly engaged those considered ‘hard to reach.’ This research was designed to explore the storytelling process further with the aim of understanding more about the impact of the process and to understand the key components as identified by the young people themselves. Methodology: A heuristic research methodology was adopted within this study. The Storytelling Programme was delivered to twelve young people at a Pupil Referral Unit in the North West of England. Five of these participants were interviewed along with their teacher, and their reflections were integrated with my own to create a crystallized understanding of the storytelling process, whilst also remaining true to the unique experiences of each participant. Findings: Heuristic analysis of the Storytelling Programme revealed that young participants developed new personal narratives that reflected new ways of being and thinking. Change was demonstrated by the young people expressing a more positive sense of self. A striking finding, echoed by all participants, was the significance of the relationship in facilitating the therapeutic change process. Discussion: Whilst some of the changes could be linked to particular stories, the participants could not articulate whether their increased sense of well-being came from the stories or more generally from the programme or my ‘way of being’ (Rogers, 1980). It appears that stories and the therapeutic relationship intertwine within the storytelling process to create opportunities for therapeutic change. The findings of this study suggest that story is a particularly useful indirect medium to engage ‘hard to reach’ young people who have disorganised attachment styles. Storytelling offers the opportunity to place the intersubjective relationship as central, fostering an implicitly nurturing and co-regulating dyad that can offer reparation as well as the opportunities for catharsis and the development of emotional literacy through the processing of the story material. Conclusion: It appears that storytelling intertwines the interpersonal relationship with the stories to create a process which is both interpersonal and intrapersonal. The storytelling process appears to facilitate dyadic co-regulation, which may be an essential first step in the therapeutic change process. Once in a state of calm the young people could connect to the story stimuli and develop new ways of being and thinking. Whilst stories appear to promote changes at both the relational and semantic level, the findings from this study suggest that the implicit relational changes had primacy in facilitating significant therapeutic change. Key words: Therapeutic Storytelling, Adolescents, ‘Hard to Reach’ Young People, Attunement, Intersubjectivity, Moments of Meeting. 6 Declaration No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. 7 Copyright Statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate,