What is the Problem?
Once you have defined the outcome of the story and the means or resources needed to reach the
outcome, then you can ask, “What is a problem with which the child might identify?” In our anal-
ogy of the outcome being the destination on a map and the resources the various means for getting
there, the problem represents the challenges to your departure: getting time off work, affording the
accommodations, deciding what to take, and so on. Once you have defined the outcome, and ex-
plored the resources necessary to reach that outcome, it is easier to ask what matching problem will
engage the child, and move the story toward its therapeutic goal.
The types of questions that are helpful for the therapist to ask here are: What metaphoric prob-
lem will match the problem of the child? What is a crisis, or challenge, with which the young listener
may identify? I find it helpful to keep in mind that the problem is simply the vehicle, or starting point,
to the story. It serves as the basis to move on to the essence of the metaphor—developing the re-
sources and reaching the outcome.
Story 73, “Collaborative Problem Solving,” presents a matching metaphor that is designed to
parallel the child listener in age, gender, and experiences as well as in the problem, which, in this case,
is insomnia. Having engaged the child in the storytelling process, it then becomes possible to explore
the resources necessary to reach the outcome. A similar example can be found among the children’s
stories in Chapter 13, Story 99, “When There Is Nothing I Can Do.”
Who Is the Character?
The next thing you need to ask in planning your metaphor is, “What character or characters will best
communicate these therapeutic messages to the child?” If the outcome is greater confidence or self-
assertiveness, and the child needs to learn skills to achieve this, the problem then could be one of fear
or lack of assertion, so you may choose a timid mouse, afraid of the dark, who through observing
what others do learns to sleep comfortably (Story 69), or a boy, afraid of snorkeling, who discovers
he can swim safely with the world’s biggest shark (Story 30), or a ghost who cannot scare but learns
how to do so (Story 91). In the character you need a figure that can represent the problem, has the
ability to build on existing resources (or develop new ones), and can reach the desired outcome.
Given these three basic requirements, you have considerable choice. You may choose from the fol-
lowing possibilities:
■ An animal, as in Story 8, about a mule making the most of what it is given; Story 19, about
a giraffe learning to accept itself; or Story 75, about a bird solving a problem;
■ A child, like a boy reminding his father he is only nine years old in Story 84, a girl negoti-
ating a solution in Story 35, or a teenager facing a moral dilemma in Story 62;
■ An imaginative character, such as Captain Empowerment of Story 64, or others like Wally
the Wacky Wizard or the grumpy genie that we have discussed previously;
■ A sports or hero figure, as described in the section “Metaphors Built on Heroes” in Chap-
ter 15; or
■ An archetypal character, like the jester in the struggle between a king and queen that results
in their learning to share (Story 77), the spaceship captain who teaches empowermentPRO-APPROACHHow Do I Plan and Present Healing Stories? 261