Bravo!

"Guidelines for Using Storytelling as a Healing Art" has garnered an array of positive responses from many sources. Here is a sampling of what people have been saying.

"These guidelines are well written and thought provoking. I think they are great. I like both the tone and the content. I am grateful that you are urging people to seek a mentor. I think that is necessary and important. Good luck with your work." Elizabeth Ellis, Professional Storyteller

"I think your guidelines are excellent - at least, they fall in line with my experience....I think that hearing a story, or making something, is in and of itself healing. It's the connection between the teller and the audience, the connection between heart and imagination, that does the job. One of the reasons Arts of Passage has been effective is that it does not focus on therapy, or teaching. Our focus is on making something together, the very best that we can, and there is no way to do that without engaging hand and heart, spirit and imagination. If passion and imagination can be engaged and put into the service of building something - anything - a mask, a story, a song, a poem, a piece of writing, sculpture, the act is healing." Kimberly King, Co-Director of Arts of Passage, a program for at-risk teenagers."

"I think these guidelines have gone a long way toward enumerating some grounding principles for field experience... You can certainly see the groundwork for a field of training and certification coming into focus. I still think it's a worthwhile idea for someone to draw up a plan for training in storytelling therapy, along the lines of the poetry and music therapy disciplines. Seems like a good way to get it on the therapeutic map." Joseph Sobol , Director of Storytelling Program at ETSU

"These guidelines are relevant to all developmentalists using any form of literature. With your permission I will share it with students when we discuss story later in the year. It sounds as though the process of the SIG is yeasting, with a lively and devoted exchange amongst members of the tribe.. Good show! " Ken Gorelic, MD, psychiatrist, biblio/poetrytherapist, and past president of the National Association for Poetry Therapy

“I am fascinated to read the comments on this message. I think as storytellers you are doing for people that which their mothers couldn't do for them. They are able to hear the story from their experience and use the process to mediate unmediated archetypal material, that's why there are so many interpretations to the same story. It is similar to working with dreams, one dream can have many meanings and still be useful over time as it contains the core complex for the individual." Maureen Chapman, a psychotherapist in the UK, has been asked to offer workshops on the use of storytelling in a London hospital.

Newsletter Contents:

Page 1. Gail’s Welcome - Founder Message
Page 2. Board Member Contact & Membership Update
Page 3. Guidelines for Storytelling - Article by C. West
Page 4. Bravo For Guidelines
Page 5, 6, 7. A Healing Journey - Article by Laura Simms
Page 8. Erica Helm Meade Workshop & SIG Website
Page 9, 10. 2nd Meeting Attendee & Member Input
Page 11. Welcome Contributions & On the Wings of Words