Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Defining the Territory of Story: With a Special Focus on Young People’s Mental Health

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Storytelling in Participatory Arts with Young People

  • 205 Accesses

Abstract

There are many ways in which stories can create territory for participatory exploration. This chapter takes as its jumping-off point three possibilities suggested by Michel de Certeau (The practice of everyday life. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, CA and London, 1984): (1) stories ‘organise walks’, guiding listeners through landscapes of experience; (2) they mark out ‘theatres of action’ or worlds within worlds; and (3) they create frontier zones of No-Man’s-Land, a ‘Spielraum’ or ‘play space’ available for anyone to make their own. This chapter has a special focus on practice within mental health settings, because our understanding of the role of stories in therapeutic settings influences how we frame our relationship with young people. Thus, while our stories may share our counsel or wisdom, or mark out safe therapeutic space, it may often be more productive to view a story as a ‘Spielraum’, a half-empty ‘play space’ in which a group can make its own realities.

The territory of story

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Bakhtin, M. (1981) The dialogic imagination (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barthes, R. (1975). The pleasure of the text (R. Miller, Trans.). New York: Hill and Wang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benjamin, W. (1973). The storyteller: Reflections on the works of Nikolai Leskov. In H. Arendt (Ed.), Illuminations (pp. 83–109). London: Collins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boal, A. (1995). The rainbow of desire: The Boal method of theatre and therapy (A. Jackson, Trans.). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boal, A. (2000). Theatre of the oppressed (2nd ed.). London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boost Rom, R. (1998). Safe spaces: Reflections on an educational metaphor. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 30(4), 397–408.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, D. (2014). It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruner, J. S. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Calvino, I. (1956). Italian folktales. London: Penguin Classics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carter, A. (1991). The virago book of fairy tales. London: Virago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carter, A. (1993). The second virago book of fairy tales. London: Virago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chambers, E., Hoskins, M. L., & Pence, A. (1999). Hansel and Gretel at the millennium: Shifting multiple identities in youth’s search of self. Child & Youth Care Forum, 28(6), 393–410.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chatwin, B. (1987). The songlines. Franklin, NC: Franklin Library, Franklin Center.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coleman, J., & Hendry, L. (1990). The Nature of Adolescence. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crawford, R., Brown, B., & Crawford, P. (2004). Storytelling in therapy. Cheltenham: Nelson Thomas.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley, Los Angeles, CA and London: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dickinson, E. (1998). Tell all the truth, but tell it slant. In R. W. Franklin (Ed.), The poems of Emily Dickinson (Reading ed.). Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dickson, M. (Ed.). (1995). Art with people. Sunderland: AN Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eco, U. (2006). Politics of the open work. In C. Bishop (Ed.), Participation (pp. 20–40). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Emunah, R. (1994). Acting for real: Drama therapy process, technique and performance. New York: Brunner/Mazel Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox, J., & Dauber, H. (1999). Gathering voices: Essays on playback theatre. New Paltz, NY: Tusitala Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gersie, A. (1997). Reflections on therapeutic storymaking: The use of stories in groups. London and Bristol, PA: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hatton, C. (2003). Backyards and borderlands: Some reflections on researching the travels of adolescent girls doing drama. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 8(2), 139–156.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heinemeyer, C. (2014, March 11). A meta-narrative of a storytelling workshop with adolescent young people. At Narrative and Adolescence. York Theatre Royal.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heinemeyer, C. (2015a). The eloquence of non-engagement. http://storytellingwithadolescents.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-eloquence-of-non-engagement.html. Accessed March 2020.

  • Heinemeyer, C. (2015b). Who owns the story? http://storytellingwithadolescents.blogspot.com/2015/11/whose-story-is-it.html. Accessed March 2020.

  • Heinemeyer, C. (2015c). Epic distance and the rupture in experience: Bakhtin, Benjamin and me! http://storytellingwithadolescents.blogspot.com/2015/09/epic-distance-and-rupture-in-experience.html. Accessed March 2020.

  • Heywood, S. (2018). Another story for another time: The many-strandedness of a Jewish woman’s storytelling tradition. Storytelling, Self, Society, 14(1), 9–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunter, M.-A. (2008). Cultivating the art of safe space. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 13(1), 5–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelly, O. (1984). Community, art and the state: Storming the citadels. London: Comedia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kinder, M. (1991). Playing with power in movies, television and video games. Oxford: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kundera, M. (1999). The unbearable lightness of being (M. H. Heim, Trans.). New York: Perennial Classics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuppers, P. (2007). Community arts practices: Improvising being-together. In P. Kuppers & G. Robinson (Eds.), The community performance reader (pp. 34–47). Abingdon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Machado, A. (1912). Campos de Castilla. Madrid: Editorial Renacimiento.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mead, G. (2011). Coming home to story: Storytelling beyond happily ever after. Bristol: Vala Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meretoja, H. (2014). The narrative turn in fiction and theory: The crisis and return of storytelling from Robbe-Grillet to Tournier. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morris, P. (Ed.). (1994). The Bakhtin reader: Selected writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev, Voloshinov. London: Arnold.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholson, H. (2005). Applied drama: The gift of theatre. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicolson, A. (2014). The mighty dead: Why Homer matters. London: William Collins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parfitt, E. (2014). Storytelling as a trigger for sharing conversations. Exchanges: The Warwick Research Journal, 1(2), 206–219.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parfitt, E. (2019). Young people, learning and storytelling. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plante, L. (2010). Bleeding to ease the pain: Cutting, self-injury and the adolescent search for self (2nd ed.). Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popen, S. (2006). Aesthetic spaces/imaginative geographies. In Jab Cohen-Cruz & M. Schutzman (Eds.), A Boal companion: Dialogues on theatre and cultural politics (pp. 125–132). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Porter Abbott, H. (2008). The Cambridge introduction to narrative (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pratchett, T. (2002). The science of discworld II: The globe. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Press Association. (2015, August 24). Teenage girls’ mental health overlooked by parents, survey finds. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/24/teenage-girls-mental-health-overlooked-parents-survey. Accessed March 2020.

  • Press Association. (2016, January 7). Online pressures creating “nation of deeply unhappy children”, says charity. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/07/online-pressures-unhappy-children-cyberbullying?CMP=share_btn_link. Accessed March 2020.

  • Reason, M., & Heinemeyer, C. (2016). Storytelling, story-retelling, storyknowing: Towards a participatory practice of storytelling. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 21(4), 558–573.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosen, B. (1988). And none of it was nonsense: The power of storytelling in school. London: Mary Glasgow Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosen, B. (1993). Shapers and polishers: Teachers as storytellers. London: Harper Collins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rowe, N. (2007). Playing the other: Dramatizing personal narratives in playback theatre. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ryan, P. (2008, May 29). Narrative learning/Learning narratives: Storytelling, experiential learning and education. At George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling, Cardiff.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sawyer, R. (1962). The way of the storyteller (2nd ed.). New York: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smucker, B. (1977). Underground to Canada. London: Puffin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stern, J. (2015). Children’s voice or children’s voices? How educational research can be at the heart of schooling. FORUM, 57(1), 75–90.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sunderland, M. (2000). Using story telling as a therapeutic tool with children. Milton Keynes: Speechmark Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tolkien, John R. R. (1966). On fairy stories. In The Tolkien reader. New York: Ballantine Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vice, S. (1997). Introducing Bakhtin. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vygotsky L. S. (1967). Imagination and creativity in childhood. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 42(1): 7–97.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vygotsky, L. S. (1990). Imagination and creativity in childhood. Soviet Psychology, 28(1), 84–96.

    Google Scholar 

  • Willis, P. with Jones, S., Canaan, J., & Hurd, G. (1990). Common culture: Symbolic work at play in the everyday cultures of the young. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, M. (1997). Performance and practice: Oral narrative traditions among teenagers in Britain and Ireland. Aldershot: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, M. (2004). Storytelling with older children: A reflection on practice. Teaching and Learning, 2(1), 20–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winnicott, Donald W. (1971). Playing and reality. London: Tavistock Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winston, J. (2004). Drama and English at the heart of the curriculum: Primary and middle years. Abingdon: David Fulton Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zipes, J. (1994). The trials and tribulations of little red riding hood: Versions of the tale in sociocultural context. London: Taylor & Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zipes, J. (1995). Creative storytelling: Building community, changing lives. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zipes, J. (2012). Fairy tales and the art of subversion (3rd ed.). London: Routledge Classics.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. York St John University, York, UK

    Catherine Heinemeyer

Authors
  1. Catherine Heinemeyer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Catherine Heinemeyer .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Heinemeyer, C. (2020). Defining the Territory of Story: With a Special Focus on Young People’s Mental Health. In: Storytelling in Participatory Arts with Young People. Palgrave Studies In Play, Performance, Learning, and Development. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40581-6_8

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation