Avoid Using the Stories Exactly as You Have Read Them
If I may offer a suggestion, it is this: Use the stories I have offered as ideas rather than as tales to re-
cite verbatim. In saying this, I am mindful that some colleagues I respect as competent therapists have
told me that they read stories from my previous metaphor book, 101 Healing Stories(Burns, 2001),
with therapeutic success for a given client or in a group. While this may work at times, generally it
is more personally relevant for the child if the metaphors are individually directed, and are part of the
conversation taking place in the therapeutic relationship at that point in time. The stories I have told
were designed for a particular client with a particular therapeutic outcome in mind, at a particular
point in time. What might be relevant or helpful for one child at one time may not be so relevant or
helpful for the next child, even if he or she seeks the same outcome. It was not without difficulty that
I found myself putting these stories in writing, because most of my healing stories are told verbally.
They are adapted to the subtle verbal and nonverbal communication and feedback that I observe from
a client. They may be developed collaboratively through questions I ask or comments that a young
listener makes. They are, in the tradition of storytelling, fluid and flexible—a quality they tend to
lose when printed in black and white.
Preceding each story in Part Two are the therapeutic characteristics I see in the tale. Of course,
there may be others you observe and I would ask you do not be limited by my perceptions. These
therapeutic characteristics include the problems each tale addresses, the resources it seeks to develop,
and the outcomes it offers. I refer to this as the PRO (problem, resources, and outcome) approach.
As a practicing clinician, I find it more useful and pragmatic to keep this three-point skeleton of the
story in mind than attempting to memorize a whole tale and repeat it verbatim. With the skeleton,
and a little practice, it soon becomes possible to flesh out the details in a personally relevant manner
for the individual child. Indeed, a core quality of metaphor therapy is its ability to adapt to the
uniqueness of each client, whether child, adolescent, or adult.
Question the Use of Storytelling for Every Problem
The greater the range of therapeutic tools therapists have available, the better they can serve the needs
of any particular client. Metaphor therapy is just oneof those tools in the therapist’s tool kit, and it is
appropriate to ask on what occasions it may be beneficial and on what occasions it is not.
I once organized a conference in which one of the presenters stated that he had learned only one
form of therapy and that it was all he had ever needed. I feel concerned when I hear such statements,
which imply we need to put the client into our model of the world, rather than that the therapist must
adapt to the client’s model. This is particularly concerning for child therapy.
While metaphors are one—and not the only—way of working, they have a universal appeal that
can be incorporated into many therapeutic approaches. It is possible to tell a healing story in a psy-
chodynamic model, a cognitive-behavioral framework, a solution-focused strategy, or any other in
the extensive range of therapeutic approaches with which we may work. However, we need to stop
and ask whether a story is appropriate, or even necessary, for this particular child. There is, simply, no
point in making therapy more difficult or complex than it needs to be. If it is possible to use direct
suggestions with a child, do it. If you have, say, a lonely and withdrawn child who will respond to a
directive like, “Before our next appointment, I want you to join a sporting club or deliberately make
USING METAPHORSHow Can I Use Metaphors Effectively? 237