The therapy of finding treasure in a dark room

I do not describe myself as a therapist; I am a facilitator, trainer and teacher and have created a technique that draws on practices of dramatherapy, narrative therapy, Processwork and applied theatre.

I unearthed the Inside Story technique through 4 decades of facilitating interactive, participatory group sessions with people who are lonely, marginalised, angry, sad, awkward, hidden, defended, wounded, strong, wise, thoughtful, open, warm and funny. People who want to connect with others, understand themselves better, learn how to be in a group, get support, be heard, change their habits, become happier. People who come to the sessions saying they don’t like drama or they’re not creative. People who discover they have imagination, intelligence and will. People who discover that drama and creativity is an accessible form of communication. Through running drama sessions in many settings over many years I have developed an appreciation of the rules of story, the power of imagination and the innate wisdom of the individual. The Inside Story technique is a joyful combination of story, imagination and listening to wisdom. The riches of our imagination are great and can provide us with an incredible, reliable source for healing and growth.

I recently facilitated a series of 4 Inside Story sessions with a client looking at a recurring, seemingly unresolvable issue in their life. The structure for a course of 4 sessions works well. The first session runs for 2 hours. In this session we identify the issue or wish, choose the Inside Story figurative illustrations that resonate, and co-create an improvised story. The subsequent sessions are an hour long, following a loose pattern; development of the original story, introduction of a new character and reflection on the new perspective about the initial need or wish. Most of this is done with reference to the characters and the action of the story in 3rd person.

It is a structure that works well and the boundary around personal disclosure and emotional vulnerability is maintained through the medium of story. However, reflecting on a recent series of sessions I facilitated, I observed that the holding frame of story was thin at times and one of the dialogues that was created was a gestalt process.  I’m not a qualified gestalt therapist, but I am trained in the skills of facilitation; deep listening, careful observation, keeping my own thoughts and issues out of it, trusting my intuition, openness to ‘not knowing’, willingness to improvise and ability to welcome mistakes. I facilitated my client to describe a ‘sense of hopelessness’ as something outside themselves and through a creative process, we observed and named this sense and explored its power. As in a dramatic improvisation, there are rules to maintain within which there is freedom to try things out. On this occasion one of the things we did was write a dialogue between a character and this ‘sense of hopelessness’.  It seemed like a good idea, it was apparent it created space for the client to envisage themselves differently, more fully. They spoke the dialogue for the character and also for the ‘sense of hopelessness’. A few times the character’s words became a first person monologue and my reminder to keep it third person seemed nit-picking, but I know this is one of the rules of the process that provides freedom from habit and stuckness. Naming a character, having a visual image of that character is incredibly valuable. If you have created a character who finds treasure in a dark room, who felt the weight of the treasure and put it in their pocket, you have experienced the discovery of something valuable and can carry it with you, way beyond the end of that particular story. Yes, the character may be representing a familiar part of you or a part you want to grow bigger, or it may represent something totally different from you, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that although it takes place in the imagination, it is also a real experience of feeling and thinking differently and, for this particular client, an invitation to keep their reclaimed treasure from the dark room for their own marvellous use.