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Narrative is today's iconic word. Each of us has a narrative, a personal story. This emphasis on narrative may be a response to the collapse of wider collectives, the grander narratives of the twentieth century, Marxism, Communism and so forth. Narrative gives a sense of uniqueness, of being special: ‘l'état, c'est moi’.
This book sets out to locate the narrative component in selected well-known nineteenth and twentieth century English novels and to see how this interlinks with the therapeutic process. It makes for an interesting project. After all, both enterprises, writing and therapy, share similar perspectives - both are exploratory, to do with the unfolding of a drama, and both aim for some form of resolution. In the authors' own words, the books they have chosen aim to show
the engagement of the two [central] parties to change, the nature of the mutual influence they have upon one another; and the source of directionality in this influence, i.e. what makes the interaction a constructive one. (p. 34)
Here I have a difficulty. The quotation shows the rather dogged language used by the authors, often weighty and jargon-ridden, especially when lain alongside Jane Austen, say, whose prose style is liquid gold. Writers in our field need to lift their prose style to a more engaging and accessible plateau - otherwise our -isms may simply join the list of departing - isms mentioned above.
The first book studied is Pride and Prejudice - a welcome choice for British readers in view of the recent TV serialization, Elizabeth and Darcy now being part of most people's personal landscape. The authors set out their stall:
We will first review the events of the story, to acquaint and remind the reader of Pride and Prejudice, putting particular emphasis on personality, interaction and internal change. We will also refer to those aspects of psychoanalytic process that are suggested by the events of the novel, using standard analytic terms, but also introducing our schema of the therap