Stories for empowerment

Abstract

Over the last years, within the scientific com-munity, school actors and the whole education and training world there is a growing aware-ness of the importance of narrative thinking in people's life. Through narrative thinking people are able to make sense of what they have do-ne, to imagine the future and to provide struc-ture to their present life. Through reading, wri-ting, dialogue and active listening it is possible to improve both our ability to organize thought and action and sense making activities. Nume-rous disciplinary fields such as narrative peda-gogy, literary theory, cultural psychology, eve-ryday life sociology, anthropology have contri-buted to the development of the narrative counselling methodologies. In this way narrati-ve counselling has developed tools that are suited to transform people's counselling com-petences such as decision making, planning, facing difficulties, sense making, pacing. Such competences can be useful in the course of the entire life cycle, in any context, from trai-ning to professional environments. Within counselling training, narrative counselling me-thodologies employ qualitative, non-directive, people centred methods. Its explicit aim is peo-ple empowerment, i.e. the development of their ability to identify their own objectives and to find the resources needed to reach them.