What is foundational to Me?

As I do the reading, I understand that our life and experiences creates many different stories, not just one. Our stories are separated from each other, but often they occur at the same time or even overlap. That means that no single story can summarize our life, our self, and our identity – who we really are.

So what is dangerous about a single story? A single story limits the person and the therapist in understanding the big picture and the real healing process. As Novelist Chimamanda Adichie says in the clip, “Stories can break the dignity of a person, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.” Adichie adds to this by telling the story of how she found her authentic voice and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. A single story has the power to overshadow who we are and limits the alternatives and possibilities that make us grow and develop.

I will write more later…but want to leave you with what has, now, become a funny story to me, but at the time it wasn’t funny at all. Years ago I was living in St. Louis, MO for a short time with my three little children (8, 10 & 12). One day my eldest son, Elias, came running in the house after school and said “Mami,, mami… is it true that in Colombia, our home, everybody sells drugs?” I was upset that the perception of my country (everyone knows it’s sadly famous for producing drugs) was that EVERYONE sold drugs. My reaction? The next day I went to the person who told my son this and said, “Yes, we sell Cocaine, but do you know who buys the most? You and your country….! Hence, we can never see only one side or one story about a person or the country they come from. Lately, I’ve been very distracted from writing, but the study group gives me hope for the future and gives a bigger picture of our lives. I’m reading the site everyday … and I’m here!

Martha

Peggy Sax: February 12, 2010

Martha, thanks for giving us this wonderful link to Chimamanda Adichie’s talk about the dangers of the single story. Watching it, I was so struck by the similarities with narrative therapy. I had the opportunity to talk over the weekend with David Epston (Skype is amazing!) and he also spoke about his delight in discovering Chimamanda Adichie. This makes me think of the earlier conversations about Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.(Gabo) and Magical Realism. Maybe we should start a new section just to share favorite writers?

All week, I have been noticing the danger of the single story. For example, I am working with a young woman whose 2 children are now in state custody because of her addiction to oxycontin, and violence in the home. Almost everyone in her immediate family is addicted to drugs. After 2 trips to residential treatment, she has been clean since December. I usually meet with her and her much-devoted outreach worker from the local parent/child center. “Lucia” is working to get the boyfriend out of her apartment. She very much wants her children back. Meeting with her social worker, it’s a challenge to open up space for a new story. We’ve made some real head-way…but then this week she confessed to smoking pot (which showed up in her urine test). And the boyfriend is not really out of the house. The temptation is to go back to the “can never trust an addict” story especially since we know too much to be naive. And yet she is only 23. Doesn’t she deserve a second and third and even fourth chance? What other stories could we tell about her?

Peggy

Elly Majonen: February 12, 2012

Thank you Martha for sharing link to Chimamanda Adichie’s talk about the dangers of the single story. It made me think about the many single stories that exist, who created them, how they are perpetuated everyday by media, education, …. I am struck by Chimamanda’s early reading and writing experiences and thinking about the experiences we provide for preschoolers, with hopes of providing culturally diverse experiences. What an important place to start and teach about openness to multiple stories, multiple points of view.

Martha: February 13, 2010

I’ve been preoccupied, lately, thinking about my situation and perhaps others who are going through the same thing in their places of work. The “single story” becomes the dominant story if we don’t see other possibilities or alternatives. This led me back to The Danger of a Single Story and how, if we allow the single story to dominate it blurs our vision of the world around us and leads us towards stereotypes and denies us the beauty that’s inside us. With this in mind, I found this YouTube video linked to others being influenced by this single story. It happens to be about visiting Colombia. If you recall the story I shared about the person who asked my oldest son, who was12 years old at the time, if everybody in Colombia sold drugs. It is a wonderful example of the influence of a single story. I hope you enjoy it:

Jordi Freixas Dargallo: February 13, 2010

Dear Martha, I agree with you when you say that you believe that Intentional States of Identity is one of the basic key concepts to understanding Narrative ideas. And I think that Shona Russell & Maggie Carey should agree with you, too, because in chapter two of their book “Narrative Therapy: Responding to your questions” They state that:
Quote
“We do not exclude conversations about internal ‘strengths’, ‘resources’ or ‘qualities’, as these are usually identified as positive elements of a person’s life.” but “Locating identity as something internal to us generally limits the possibilities for re-authoring conversations. If you identify the reason someone acts as due to internal qualities such as their ‘strength’, their ‘compassion’, their ‘determination’, it can be difficult to know where to go next with the conversation.”
And it can be difficult because identifying the reason why someone acts as due to internal qualities belongs to what Bateson called “dormitive explanations”.
The notion “dormitive” comes from a medieval student’s joke about scholastics. The joke is quoted by Molière in “Le Malade Imaginaire” and it reads like this:
Quote
“Mihi a docto doctore
Demandatur causam et rationem quare
Opium facit dormire.
A quoi respondeo,
Quia est in eo
Vertus dormitiva,
Cujus est natura
Sensus assoupire.”
That I translate in English by:

“I asked a wise doctor
What is the cause and reason why
Opium causes sleep.
To which he answered,
Because it possesses a soporific virtue,
Whose nature is
To stifle the senses”

Where does such an assertion take you?

Here’s the solution that Shona Russell & Maggie Carey propose in their book:
Quote
“While we do not exclude conversations about internal ‘strengths’, ‘resources’ or ‘qualities’, as these are usually identified as positive elements of a person’s life, we seek to trace the history of these qualities: explore how they came to be meaningful to the person; place them into story-lines; and link them to the person’s values, hopes and commitments .

“We are always interested in inviting people to speak about their identities in terms of ‘intentional states’ because this makes story-making more possible. If we seek out the values, hopes and dreams that are guiding someone’s actions, there are ways to trace the history of these, to link them to the hopes and dreams of other people, and to forecast what future actions will flow from these commitments. Intentional states of identity include:

• Intentions or purposes
• Values / beliefs
• Hopes and dreams
• Principles for living
• Commitments

The ways in which we engage with our commitments, purposes, beliefs, values and dreams shape our actions and how we live our lives. Inviting people to think about these intentional states and linking them to alternative story-lines (formed from unique outcomes) provides a fertile ground for re-authoring conversations .”

Rachel Williams: August 18, 2010

Thanks Martha for posting this link – it was a fantastic talk and I really enjoyed watching it!

Cate Ryan: March 18, 2011

HI Martha,

i realise this post was made over a year ago though I feel compelled to reply as I am a new member and just watched the clip. firstly, thanks for sharing with us this amazing clip, so much of the talk resinated with me and the work i do with young people who have troubles staying at school until graduation. there are so many structures in their lives who rigidly hold onto a single story about the young people and at times it feels like these power brokers invest more of their energy into keeping the single story rather than seeing the alternatives.

what stood out for me most however, was how much this story resinates with the experience of Australians, especially the history of Aboriginal Australians and in the current times, the experience of asylum seekers who come to our country seeking safety, inclusion and freedom and the governments continue to place them in detention. Listening to this youtube clip, I have found energy to continue my work in schools to support people to identify the multiple stories of their own lives as well as the lives of others and that this idea really has to be an underlying principle of Australia’s journey towards reconciliation.

Hola Cate and welcome,

Your response has gotten my thoughts flowing into what I’ve been reading recently. Have you read Russell Meares’s book, Intimacy & Alienation (2005)? This book has inspired my interest in fostering a kind of conversation and my clinical skills towards a creation of meanings in my client’s life to help to build a personal reality. Increasingly, I see psychotherapy as the connection between self and narrative. I believe one of the most important things about re-storying a person’s life is the one thing connected to the development of self and the restoration of a person’s memory. Meares says,
Quote
“The development of self is related to a form of memory in which the past can be metaphorically seen. States in which the sense of self is deficient are dominated by forms of memory in which the component of visualization is lacking.”
So the danger of a single story is opposite to this declaration: its darkness and blindness in the wonders of person’s life. I’m so happy, Cate, that this post resonated with you and that you can go into those deep structures of young lives, where they can be opened to see what they haven’t seen before, which has alienated them from that which is precious and values to them.
A hug,
Martha

Cate: March 19, 2011

Hi Martha,

thanks for your reflection. I haven’t read that book, though the title is intriguing. your comments about restoring memories or in fact, looking at events for the first time with people, resonates for me with what i see as the power in narrative practice because there is nothing like feeling heard, nothing like really articulating something so both yourself and those around you understand what the meaning of the experience is for you and nothing like feeling the energy from clarity of thought on where you feel your place in life fits.

the quote from the book is interesting and has me thinking of just how much of my work i do through visualisation. i’m always asking questions of how things would look…can you draw what that’s like…can you describe what that’s like…imagine a time when…imagine what you’d do when… and then there are the actual meditation/relaxations i use with people as well to connect to their breath, imagination and creative mind. this quote has me thinking of struggles people might have in putting description to this or perhaps the feeling that come out of gaining an identity for these ‘deficient’ times.

thanks for the hug!
Cate

Barbara Harris: June11, 2011

Hola, Hi And Good`ay
I am a new student to NT in the Adelaide group
We have just had our first frost for winter and comimng from the UK I am so excited as I cannot stand the heat

I am very enthused about learning something every week in my readings and dailly work/Disability
I have some catching up to do and
Iam keen to make contact more frequently
In response to your interesting comments I had some thoughts about my experiences
I am finding that sometimes the “thin” stories as described are developing into :”The Never Ending Story” ( no critisism intended)
I understand and believe that with the correct support and patience a person can be gently assisted to develop a positve sense of self and develop the enrichness. I am working on improving a person`s self esteem as a pre requisite to positive self concept and this follows a huge task of putting it all into context for the person to enpower some action in small steps.
Your discussions also connect me to our philosophy of people`s dignity – this also being “dignity of risk” in that ” the scaffolding” strategy in externalising is an excellent tool in support of these.
Thankyou ALL – I am connecting the dots ( lot of maps ! ) and hope I can improve the quailty of life for others

Martha: June 11, 2011

Hola Cate,
I’m sorry for the late answer – and Barbara, welcome to the “island of belonging.” I’m passionate about this topic of the “single story.”
Developing a second story as you say, Cate, is the power and the core of narrative practice. I keep reading and practicing a lot from what I received from Russell Meares book, Intimacy & Alienation. I can see a better road of doing therapy when my eyes and my heart are focused on how the self can be created with narrative. Even though self is a peculiar idea for all of us, it’s also intuitively obvious to common sense. I wonder why we would need to tell ourselves about ourselves. On this, Meares makes a good point. His thesis is that we constantly construct and reconstruct ourselves with the guidance of our memory, and in this way we can have a proactive vision of therapy when we visualize what our clients can become. White and Epston say “one of the great deficits of most therapy is the lack of a proactive vision of what people need to move towards instead of a sense of what they need to move away from.”
Remember in the video, Chimamanda Adichie says: “the problem with a single story is not that they are untrue, but they are incomplete”… so helping people to define their self with alternative stories opens doors to healing and rich descriptions of how they can be and become.

Martha

Jo Vilgoen: June 13, 2011

HI MArtha

I loved what you said about the single story being incomplete. I sometimes think of our magnificent stars in the Karoo; they look like diamonds, millions and millions of diamonds lighting up the dark night. if you go to Johannesburg,and you look up at the sky you might see some stars, but they are somehow dimmer and smaller and definitely not to bright. Further away, even. This is what the problem story does, to my mind. In the Karoo there is no smog or neon lights to obscure the stars, whereas in JHB the smog and high buildings and neon lights blind us to their beauty. This does not mean that Johannesburg has any fewer stars than the Karoo, does it, perhaps more problem stories? With this introduction we are able to start looking for the stars in the lives of the group members that might be obscured by the smog and neon lights of their lives.

Does that make any sense? Jo

Sarah: June 13, 2011

Sarah Hughes

Hi Jo
I just wanted to jump in and say that yes your image makes a lot of sense and is quite beautiful – thank you for that.
Thanks for this conversation too – everyone.
Sarah

Martha: June 13, 2011

Thank you for such a beautiful illustration, Jo. I always enjoy your metaphors, your responses, and your reflections.

Martha

Cate: June 20, 2011

hi everyone,

martha, thanks for your continued reflection on this topic. since having my eyes opened to this way of describing the diversity of experience i too have become affectionately attached to the topic of ‘single’ and then ‘multi’ stories.

jo, this was such a fantastic way of describing this topic and my mind went racing into the many lines of enquiry that could be taken to explore the impacts of the neon lights, smog and buzz of city! the weekend just gone, i spent in a most beautiful part of queensland – the bunya mountains – and though it was very icy when i poked my head out of the tent at night, i did have myself looking up at the stars and thinking of your metaphor and of all of the stories in the night sky that were visible and waiting to be explored.

barbara, it is also so lovely to hear your comments as you ‘join the dot’s (or perhaps stars!) i look forward to catching up more when in adelaide next month.

sarah – just wanted to say hi and not leave you out

cheers, cate