The Healing Art of Storytelling: A Sacred Journey of Personal Discovery [Paperback]

Richard Stone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1996

A professional storyteller shows readers how they can achieve self-understanding and improve their relationships with others through the habit of putting their memories in story form, reflecting on them, and sharing them with others. Original.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Storytelling is not merely an art, Stone argues; it is a lifeline to understanding, both between persons and within an individual psyche. Stone is passionate about storytelling and its possibilities for human healing, and he carries us along with that fervor. Our culture, he contends, currently suffers from "destorification," a process parallel to desertification (the slow drying up of previously fertile land), in which our lives are slowly losing vividness and meaning, while banal or vulgar sit-coms and worse stand in for the stories we have lost. Stone's book is not merely a jeremiad, however; it also offers a series of exercises to help individuals reclaim and polish the stories our real lives are waiting for us to tell. Not just for storytellers, this may prove an excellent resource for teachers, seniors, and spiritual seekers, too. Patricia Monaghan

Review

Storytelling can be used as a therapeutic tool to improve family life and personal relationships: this explains how readers can use stories to uncover the past and invoke self-healing and family and social interactions. Enjoy an excellent review of how storytelling techniques can be blended with psychological healing processes. -- Midwest Book Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 238 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion Books (Adult Trd Pap); 1st edition (October 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786881070
• ISBN-13: 978-0786881079
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,965,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Healed by storytelling., October 21, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Healing Art of Storytelling: A Sacred Journey of Personal Discovery (Paperback)

Storyteller Richard Stone relates specific
steps to bringing the richness of storytelling
to our lives. With personal examples and many
exercises, he leads the reader down the ancient
road of story. This road leads past the quick
fix mentality of the '90's and the stuckness of
pop psychology toward the creativity which
has sustained cultures for generations. Buy
this book to help you reconnect to your story
and the story of those around you.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A View From a "Self-Help Book" Junkie, April 26, 2003

By 

Steven (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Healing Art of Storytelling: A Sacred Journey of Personal Discovery (Paperback)

From "The Healing Art of Storytelling" Richard Stone writes,
"When we recognize that our deepest aspirations cannot be satisfied by a culture that has reduced life's meaning to a smorgasborg of the senses and material possessions, we must search for new sources of meaning, struggling with the same questions that challenged our ancestors" (Page 3).
"Our longing to find our place in this world is more than just a feeling." (Page 3)

If all these self-help books did what they claimed to do,
I would be at peace with myself, with my family, and even with my enemies, but this is not the case. We in the West have forgotten our philosophical roots: "Know thyself."

In order to bypass my rational mind where I have formed certain prejudices, I need stories to help me slip past the "rational" guards standing there protecting my ego.

Initially, my quest toward using stories to heal began with James Hillman's book "Healing Fiction." Richard Stone in his book "The Healing Art of Storytelling" offers a simpler and more understandable approach.

I certainly appreciate Mr.Hillman motivating me to look to fiction to aid me, but his critical and academic approach confused my simple layperson's mind. Mr. Stone's approach is more understandable because he offers his views in simple everyday language.

I am a realist at heart. I do not expect Romantic endings in life, but I do expect to find my way in and out of circles and through the many mazes of mysteries in my life. Richard Stone's book "The Healing Art of Storytelling" could be an aid for those looking for satisfaction that materialism has not been able to acccomplish or will ever able to do.

Thank you Mr. Stone.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Questions for Family History, December 22, 2010

By 

William Corsair "Will" (Leavenworth County, KS USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Healing Art of Storytelling: A Sacred Journey of Personal Discovery (Paperback)

Stone's book allows readers to gain a better perspective into our lives through the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and stories about those around us. Stone helps us get a better, larger grip on those stories--particularly the unexamined stories that we carry around with us like so much old, unopened baggage.

The book is also a great starting point for those who want to interview family members for oral history purposes. Stone's book has dozens and dozens of questions, grouped by various themes or topics in people's lives, that can serve as the basis for interviewing family members, friends, etc.--anyone we have an interest in.

I have the Hyperion Press version of the book from 1996. I'm not sure if this version is a revision or simply a reprinting by another house.