Narrative therapy approaches every situation of counselling with the understanding that the individual seeking help (i.e. the care-seeker) is the expert in her/his own lived experience. This mentality could enhance the approach to providing formative feedback on a retreat leader’s talk assignment and the way one accompanies student leaders. The care-seeker works closely with the care-provider, the latter acting as a resource to help elicit a wide variety of stories from the former to paint a fuller, more authentic picture, rather than a closed, dominant narrative. In the context of forming retreat leaders, the student leader can be seen as the care-seeker and the retreat directors are care-providers.
In narrative therapy, a pivotal element of the process is the care-provider seeking to accompany the care-seeker in re-authoring or re-storying stories. This practice invites people [care-seekers?] to uncover experiences that are out of the (presumed) ordinary. In re-storying, one’s “dominant
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The first stage is “The telling of the significant life story by the person for whom the definitional ceremony is for.” In this stage, the care-seeker shares the story that they wish to share with the outsider witnesses acting as an audience. The outsider witnesses actively listen so as to fully engage in the upcoming response.
After the care-seeker has shared their significant life story, the next stage is “The retelling of the story by the people invited to be outsider witnesses.” With the roles reversed, the outsider witnesses repeat the story that they heard in their own words.
Outsider witnesses engage one another in conversations about the expressions of the telling they were drawn to, about the images that these expressions evoked, and about the personal experiences that resonated with these expressions, and about their sense of how their lives have been touched by the