How To Tell Stories That Heal Handout

HOW TO TELL STORIES
THAT HEAL
With Dan Jones
INTRODUCTION
• Course objectives:
• Know how to identify what to tell stories about

• Know how stories and metaphors can be healing
• Know how to tell stories and metaphors in a healing way
• Course Structure:
• Educational lectures
• Live client demonstration
• Metaphor creation practice exercise and quizzes
• Access to my free Hypnotherapy Training Tool where you can practice

metaphor creation
WHY USE STORIES AND
METAPHORS IN THERAPY?
• To lay down and update neurological patterns
• To allow problems to be seen from an observing self position
• To stimulate neurological patterns
• Making something more memorable
• Engaging all the senses
• Absorb attention
• Shared language
• Bypass resistance
HOW THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND
WORKS
• Pattern matching
• Dreaming brain – learning brain
• Conscious – analytic
• Unconscious – patterns
STORYTELLING THROUGH HISTORY
• Dreams – shared dreams, transitional dreams, insightful dreams,
prophetic dreams
• Conveying information – oral/written
• Learning, development and growth
• Higher awareness
OBSERVING SELF
• Disassociated
• Non-judgemental
• Looks at the patterns
• Emotion and content free
FINDING METAPHORS
• Metaphors run deep
• Listen and observe for common everyday metaphors
• Words and phrases
• Actions
• Individuals will have their own personal metaphors and everyone has their
own personal interpretation or meaning to metaphors
• Cold shoulder, pain in the neck, scratching the surface, stuck in a rut, get
perspective, dig heals in, skin crawl, sharp/stabbing/burning/etc.
• Your own metaphors and stories you know
• Things in the environment and information you know about the client
• Use the Hypnotherapy Training Tool to practice finding and using metaphors
MY PROCESS IN THERAPY
• Ask the client what they would like to achieve – you want to know the
goal, not what they don’t want. They may also give you some
description of the problem
• Listen and observe for metaphors (actions, words, phrases)
• Observe for the pattern of the clients situation
• The content can give you metaphors and resources you can use to
help the client, but the pattern presented will give you the information
needed to help move the client forward
• Start with the pattern, this will be your story or metaphor structure
• Then use the content, client metaphors and your own ideas to build
up a story around that pattern (you may also use ideas from the
environment and what you know about the client)
PRESENTING YOUR THERAPEUTIC
STORY OR METAPHORS
• Have the client gaze off at something or close their eyes
• Take a few moments to help the client relax and get comfortable and
focused on you as the therapist
• Present your story and metaphors while closely watching the client
and their reactions so that you can judge pacing and wording
• Use multiple sensory systems and use smart vague & specific language
• Present associated stories for experiences and disassociated stories for
perspectives
• Associated is more emotional, disassociated is more analytical
• Multi-layer stories and metaphors to repeat patterns in different ways
or to present multiple patterns and to encourage amnesia
ENDING YOUR THERAPEUTIC
STORIES AND METAPHORS
• Bring the experience to a conclusion, it could be ending where it started,
or ending at a different point
• Suggest that the client can drift back to the room at their own rate as
speed when their unconscious mind has made all the necessary changes
• If at all possible make drifting back to the room contingent on changes
being made, not just saying ‘and now you can come back to the room’
• Don’t allow the client to analyse the stories or metaphors
• Talk about unrelated things or something you spoke about before
‘therapy’ began
• Set tasks, if appropriate, to do following the session. These can be
metaphorical, noticing, or doing something specific and can be linked to
the metaphors or stories told
EXAMPLE CLIENT SESSION
• This is a session with someone I had never worked with or met before.
Notice what metaphors and patterns are presented by the client and
what I then do with the client
• Write down all the different patterns and metaphor ideas you have
when watching this and think about what kind of story or metaphors
you would use if you were helping this client
• After you have watched this session I will share some of what I noticed.
SOME OF WHAT I NOTICED AND
USED WITH THE CLIENT
• The client wants to successfully run a • Step out of that
business doing various therapies • Ground is not level
• Has a blockage • Not sure where I am
• Guilty earning money • Fear of ageing, too old to do a new
• Buddhist background career
• End up at an impasse – can’t go • Seed, cone, break it open, fly
forward, yet good gifts to give • Seize it, taking opportunities
• Can’t push self – not got ego • Boat with oars, still water, not
• Sends self round in a circle of being enough – boring, want boat to rock,
stuck but not to capsize
• Fear of letting go of fixed situation • Patterns – Journey, Growth,
Excitement, Giving & Receiving
CONCLUSION
• What you have learned is:
• Why metaphors and stories can be helpful in healing and therapy

• How to identify clients stories, metaphors and content
• How to use what you have identified therapeutically
• Keep practicing:
• Listen to everyday conversations and things people say and do

• Start gathering stories in your mind, from books you read, to films, anecdotes
and personal experiences

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HOW TO TELL STORIES

• Know how to identify what to tell stories about

• Access to my free Hypnotherapy Training Tool where you can practice

• Why metaphors and stories can be helpful in healing and therapy

• Listen to everyday conversations and things people say and do

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