Editing Storytelling (section)

== Therapeutic ==
Therapeutic storytelling is the act of telling one's story in an attempt to better understand oneself or one's situation.  Oftentimes, these stories affect the audience in a therapeutic sense as well, helping them to view situations similar to their own through a different lens.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Women Escaping Violence: Empowerment through Narrative|last = Lawless|first = Elaine|publisher = University of Missouri Press|year = 2001|isbn = 978-0-8262-1314-3|location = Columbia and London|pages = 7}}</ref> Noted author and folklore scholar, Elaine Lawless states, "...this process provides new avenues for understanding and identity formation.  Language is utilised to bear witness to their lives".<ref>{{Cite book|title = Women Escaping Violence:Empowerment through Narrative|last = Lawless|first = Elaine|publisher = University of Missouri Press|year = 2001|location = Columbia and London|pages = 123}}</ref> Sometimes a narrator will simply skip over certain details without realizing, only to include it in their stories during a later telling.  In this way, that telling and retelling of the narrative serves to "reattach portions of the narrative".<ref>{{Cite book|title = Women Escaping Violence: Empowerment through Narrative|last = Lawless|first = Elaine|publisher = University of Missouri Press|year = 2001|pages = 90}}</ref> These gaps may occur due to a repression of the trauma or even just a want to keep the most gruesome details private.  Regardless, these silences are not as empty as they appear, and it is only this act of storytelling that can enable the teller to fill them back in.

Psychodrama uses re-enactment of a personal, traumatic event in the life of a psychodrama group participant as a therapeutic methodology, first developed by psychiatrist, [[J.L. Moreno]], M.D.  This therapeutic use of storytelling was incorporated into [[Drama Therapy]], known in the field as "Self Revelatory Theater". In 1975 Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas developed a therapeutic, improvisational storytelling form they called [[Playback Theatre]]. Therapeutic storytelling is also used to promote healing through [[transformative arts]], where a facilitator helps a participant write and often present their personal story to an audience.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Harter | first1 = L.M. | last2 = Bochner | first2 = A.P. | year = 2009 | title = Healing through stories: A special issue on narrative medicine | journal = Journal of Applied Communication Research | volume = 37 | issue = 2| pages = 113–117 | doi = 10.1080/00909880902792271 | doi-access = free }}</ref>