For the most part, therapy is a matter of telling stories and listening to stories. A therapist needs an acute ear because she has to hear the stories within and behind the stories told and reach so far in her hearing as to grasp the mythic tale, the one that only whispers in the background and yet expresses the essence of the story. Myth describes the basic human experience, the archetypal level, that undergirds the story of events in time. The client tells the stories of her life, but the therapist listens for the rumble of myth deep within the simple stories of life. Adventures of the soul are bigger in scope than the vignettes of ordinary days. They are captured in myths, fairy tales, and legends, not in personal stories, unless you probe these deeply enough to glimpse the myth. So I always look for the greater story within the simple, literal details of daily life. I listen beneath the surface for the great and ancient tale, the story of the soul. To do this kind of listening, it helps to know mythologies and fairy tales and folk stories. If I were establishing my own school of psychotherapy, I’d include classes on mythology and folk tales, the stories of the spiritual traditions, and even novels and short stories, all of which educate the imagination so that a therapist is ready to hear the deep rumblings of primal narratives within the telling of a personal experience. A therapist should be an expert in stories, one who not only listens well but also helps clients tell their stories vividly and meaningfully.

“This is not casual curiosity, which is on my list of forbidden responses, but a loose thought, not entirely unrelated, but not logical.

I want to hear those voices, too, when I listen to a client narrate a life story or a recent troubling episode. I want to hear the voices of the inner critic and the influential parents, the voices of conscience and inspiration. I want to hear the mythic narrative that hums in the background of more immediate tales of woe.

If you can stop fighting your history and find workable ways of staying connected to it, you might be free to respond to new opportunities. But if you’re busy struggling with the past, you won’t be available to the present.

It would better not to look for the one and only person to blame or the ultimate explanatory tale but rather to focus on the stories as narrative. The idea is for you to discover the play you are in, not a theory that explains your life.