Film Courage: What is story therapy?
Jen Grisanti, Speaker/Story/Career Consultant, Author: Story Therapy is something that I
developed with the recognition with how psychology and story are so connected whether it's the
psychology of the writer the psychology of the protagonist or the psychology of the audience,
it is all about the transformation that happens so it's therapeutic. Story Therapy was a term
that came to me with the recognition. I knew about narrative therapy that was something
that I studied when I was taking a deep dive into looking at story from all sides. I'm all about the
idea of how do we draw from meditation? How do we draw from spiritual books? How do we look at the
healing books that help writers that help us also take a deep dive into the psychology of the
character through looking at a wound that didn't heal in the past that is creating a block in the
present and preventing the character from hitting the dream in the future? The recognition of this
was that through the pursuit if the pursuit is an opportunity for the character to become
aware of the flaw that is holding them back and an opportunity for them to go one step toward healing
that earlier wound then we get how the story is therapy does the viewer also become healed
it's interesting we just watched a show by Abi Morgan called The Split on Hulu
and it's interesting that you say that because when I was an executive at spelling television I
went through my parents divorce after 25 years then I went through a divorce myself so I was
in this bubble of of pain and of hurt and I remember going to the president of spelling
and saying we should do a show on divorce this is something that would help the audience heal this
is something that 50 of the us is going through and if they're not going through it then they
their family is going through it or they know it through their friends so the audience is massive
and at that point so many shows dealt with divorce but they did surface level and The Split by Abi
Morgan takes a much deeper dive into divorce where I felt like being in a committed relationship and
watching three seasons of The Split was amazing in that it brought up questions for couples to
ask each other by showing through the character transformation of what if somebody has a secret
that could get in the way of the marriage and the idea of through a family law firm you have Hannah
who is a sought after divorce attorney and then you she has two sisters and a single mom that
raised them we find in the series Arc that the father returns after a 30-year absence so you have
three characters who have the same wound you're going through the main worldview of Hannah and
Hannah has a secret and this secret could shatter her marriage and the secret also involves a love
triangle which is another great thing for writers to recognize when we look at love triangles
and you see that the love triangle makes the audience die to know what the answer is and to
know which direction which leads from dilemma as well that the character is gonna go in so
yes I believe that story is therapy that can heal the audience and for those of us who are
latchkey kids myself included watching Kramer Vs. Kramer yes as a young person was definitely
probably I was too young to be watching it but that was one that you could identify with
if you were in a situation like that and it stayed with you like Kramer Vs. Kramer
stayed with you you forever remembered like I in my mind immediately go to that scene by the
toaster where he is unfamiliar in this space with this child and suddenly has to learn something
and you immediately feel the vulnerability and it helps you understand the transformation and then
when you're in it that type of pain which could go into everybody's biggest fear who's ever been
in love is what is the consequence of loving deeply and that is the idea of the breakup the
idea of The Split and and so when you create story like Kramer Vs. Kramer and and The Split which
was shocking to me that I had never heard about this show and yet this writer Abi Morgan wrote a
show called river that I explored that was also brilliant so it it when I find shows like these
I love exposing people to them and telling people about them so that they can find them because it's
all about right now as an audience member looking for a story that speaks to us a story that we know
what the writer is trying to say through the concept and how the central character feels
about the concept in terms of the main conflict what is the creative concept within a story
the creative concept could go into the intention of the writer when you look at things like
the external concept the plot versus the internal concept having to do with the
character transformation and what the character has to learn and the creative concept of how
does one uniquely affect the other for example when you look at a show like Ted Lasso I look at
a show like Ted Lasso and I think oh my gosh the brilliance of taking a show and grounding it with
the idea of two people who have to figure out how to move forward when a marriage doesn't work and
then you add the external plot of a U.S football coach being brought over to London to teach I mean
to coach a Premier League soccer team brilliant because you look at and you go story is going to
come in first you have the agenda of Rebecca who her motives for bringing Ted Lasso over are more
antagonistic however seeing the transformation between their dynamic and two people who have
parallel life traumas that are going on and then you add a soccer team where story is coming in and
then you also add an amazing flaw with optimism and the idea of someone who is overly optimistic
getting in the way and then you thrust them into the British audience where this character
is considered a wanker because he doesn't have the skill set and that's where growth happens so that
goes into the idea of a creative concept where the external and the end internal are working.