Storytelling: A Vehicle for Psyche

Abstract

This purpose of this study was to discover whether storytellers experience transformation while telling a nonpersonal story in front of an audience. This study shows that important psychological shifts emerged in the process of telling stories. Six storytellers were interviewed regarding a transformational experience that occurred before, during, or after telling a nonpersonal story. The methodologies used were phenomenology, narrative, and transpersonal. Investigating the researcher’s internal experience of the storytellers after the interviews included what the researcher called “sixth-sense somatics.” This process gave rise to somatic and imaginal phenomena that increased the apprehension of implicit information conveyed during the interviews, which also became a means of validating what the storyteller was communicating. The phenomenological findings were approached using the lenses of depth psychology, the imaginal approach of archetypal psychology, and alchemy. These held in check the traditional limitations imposed by phenomenology’s meaning units and thematized essences and opened a new avenue to discuss the storytellers’ transformational experiences. The use of the symbolism in alchemy in conjunction with Hermes and Mercurius became the means to discuss the relationship between the story’s archetypes, the storytellers’ shadow material, and their personal narrative. The intercultural dimension was embarked on as a result of interviewing an African American storyteller. The combination of the researcher’s internal observations after the interviews and Afrocentric research led to a deeper understanding of the African American culture.