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The subject of narratives is popular these days. It's a theme in a number of disciplines, including literature, philosophy, the social sciences, cultural studies, and even theology. Psychoanalysts have been interested in narrative theory since the early 1980s, when Donald Spence (1982) and later Roy Schafer (1992) grappled with the question of whether or not one can rely on the veracity of people's accounts of their pasts as they emerged in the clinical setting. Was truth historical—something to be uncovered? Or was it narrative— a construction?
More recently, psychoanalysts have focused on a different aspect of narrative, namely its healing potential in the aftermath of trauma. It is this subject, the power of telling our own story to define us and to transform us, that I will be discussing here using autobiographical material as illustration and case example. I hope that in sharing my personal experience I can offer some insight into the important role of narrative in our lives, whether our story unfolds in the consulting room in the presence of an analyst or in private as we write an account of our life.
Narrative is a neutral phenomenon; it can be used in the service of deception and manipulation (note the political scene today) or in the service of authenticity and repair. My life illustrates both the destructive