2021.05 61-3 Theoretical and Practical Implications of Narrative Healing of Psychological Trauma

This article considers the problem of healing of psychological trauma from the narrative perspective. Narrative is a way to travel through the trauma of concealing memory, and even pain. We should not stick on the technical side, but rather look into the narrative theory. It includes the temporal structure of narrative formation (narrative time), and the meaning that a narrative composition of a series of events is based on (narrative meaning). The former involves how to form the time of narrative, and the latter involves the reason why narrative can heal pain. These are expounded in Ricoeur's "Time and Narrative," and refer to Augustine, Aristotle, Heidegger, and Arendt.
 

  The narrative time is a synthesis of subjective and objective time, beyond the subjective time on the one hand, represented by Augustine, and Heidegger's authentic time, and the objective time on the other, represented by Aristotle and Heidegger's vulgar time, and on the basis of Heidegger's concept of "within-timeness." Arendt's commitment of human immortality is also related to that. The meaning of narration can be recurred to Aristotelian "catharsis," and Freudian "mourning". Respect or love for forgiveness is not a condition of narrative, but they involve the issue of narrative integration, and can back up the narrative meaning to explain the healing of trauma.
 

  Theory is examined by clinical experience. In the practical part, I first clarify the two ways Der-Heuy Yee emphasizes on narrative based on the hermeneutic phenomenological psychology: narrative presupposes distanciation of a client from his or her involvement in a trauma situation, and narrative can constitute cultural psychology. This can be verified by the practical research conducted by him and An-Bang Yu, and can be supplemented by the narrative methods proposed by Michael White and David Epston who recently have been introduced into Taiwan. Distanciation is a way for narrative to travel through trauma concealing painful memories. This is also clear from the discussion of a research report by Yaw-Sheng Lin who carried out narrative research on  the case of the September 21 earthquake and demonstrated how the narrative could begin from the traumatic situation. In addition, according to this research, the importance of narrative exchange and integration can be verified. The meaning of narration can be linked to Aristotle's Poetics, but the research shows the particularity of Chinese culture, which also proves the way that narrative constitutes cultural psychology emphasized by Der-Heuy Yee.
 

  To put it concretely, narration is after all a way for people to devote themselves to self-satisfaction, but as far as narration is concerned, because the mother in this case lives in a network of relationships with her eldest son to whom her psychological trauma is imputed. It is necessary for her to establish a narrative relationship with him to exchange memories to achieve narrative effect. In this case, the eldest son himself, and his wife, should also tell the story through interviews, and the exchange of memories between them and the mother should be the researcher's consulting strategy. Yaw-Sheng Lin has tried to enable this mother to gradually get along with his eldest son and daughter-in-law. However, the establishment of this relationship between mother and son and daughter-in-law has not been realized in the actual process of consultation. Nevertheless, this mother can finally get some healing for her soul, and her life is peaceful because of her psychological shift to take care of her grandchildren. The reason is that Chinese people often suffer due to the break in the relationship between relatives and friends, and their suffering is often overcome by a new connection with relatives and friends. This case in which the psychological shift of a client to the care of grandchildren and so a connection with them leads to a peaceful life shows an example. It is manifested that the peaceful result of mother' soul is not affected by a new narrative relationship; however, this result is acquired though a narrative consulting, which can inspire us to think about how narrative strategy should take cultural background into consideration. This is a viewpoint of that narrative can constitute cultural psychology.
 

  One central theme of this article is: Narrative therapy originates from suffer and aims to release a person from suffer; suffer is the borderline for a person to transcend his/her limitation; narrative is a kind of way to cross the borderline. Der-Heuy Yee aimed to develop the significance of the borderline of suffering in terms of his later foundation of "humanistic clinical practice."

Keywords
Arendt, narrative, narrative healing, psychological trauma, Ricoeur

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