| Previous Message | Return to Archive 2001 | Next Message |
Archive Number 92 | ||
|
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 04:27:48 +0000
Storytel (Julie) wrote: Dear Dvora, You're right, most, if not all personal stories are very healing and they don't always need to be told for audiences. The women who started Cornelia Place were mostly therapist and nurses who watched women tell their stories as a part of individual and group therapy. In time as they, therapist and nurses began to share their observations of the process they discovered that they were seeing similar behaviors among women who didn't know each other. The women would share their stories in either individual or group therapy, but upon leaving the sessions they had to "put on the *let the world see faces,*" thereby pushing down the truths they'd just revealed, because they had to face the outside world. To face this world they were to fearful for others to see their real pains of sadness, fear, anger, shame, etc. And, pushing them down again blocked healing and healthy process. Cornelia Place gives the women chances to be heard, accepted be accepted, by others pain, warts and all. Folktales, fairy tales and other types of stories might have helped a few of them some. However, they would never never given the women the validation of the "realness" of their abusive experiences. Nor would these types of these genre of stories have given them the courage to continue their inner growth and healing. It's the reason that the women who labored to get funding, get a building and much more labored for several years before the doors of Cornelia Place actually opened. Now some of the insurance companies and also State welfare pay for some of the treatment at Cornelia Place, because it's proven that many the women getting better, heal, etc. And, hospital stays on psych wards, either become less and/or disappear. These reductions were one of the things that the founders of Cornelia Place had hoped would happen. Not all have done well, nor would all do well. Cornelia Place has proven itself and the contributions it makes to the community. And, I hope everyone understood that the stories that the women tell are their personal stories. They aren't tales for a performance, nor are they tales that are easily told. However, for a good number of the women they do cathect healing. If they didn't, the various state agencies and insurance companies who pay Cornelia Place wouldn't continue to support it. I'm sure the same types of facilities could be replicated in other areas if anyone were interested. It's highly cost effective. Finally, as a therapist, and from my own inner work, I learned to equally value therapeutic and performance storytelling. Both can be beneficial and produce healing. If your travels bring to Minnesota or close to it, please let me know and maybe we can get together. You'd enjoy our state. Whether we meet or not, have a wonderful trip! Peace, Julie > Julie, Robert Lifton in work with Vietnam vets, and others following > validated personal storytelling as healing. The Cornelia House story is very > important to me. I belong to a volunteer organization, and a former > psychiatric social worker [I think that's her title] is working with groups. > I am forwarding this to her, hoping she and I can pursue it. > > My personal quest for my upcoming 76th birthday year is to integrate my > skills, storytelling, journaling, Brain Gym and kinesiology, into a > wholistic healing/telling path, todo it, write it, and share it, as I go on > healing me and helping others to heal. > > Dvora S | ||