“When the brain is healthy we are compassionate, thoughtful, loving, relaxed, and goal directed, and when the brain is sick or damaged we are unfeeling, impulsive, angry, tense, and unfocused, and it is very hard for our souls and our relationship with God to be at peace.”
(Amen, 2002, pp. 5-6)

I love to tell stories. Recently, a gentleman told me that he heard me speak 20 some years ago in Detroit. This person remembered a story I told about a dog named “Lucky” but little else of what I said that day. This incident and many like it leads me to consider the importance of stories in the process of personal integration and recovery. For more then 30 years, stories, metaphors, and anecdotes have taken large and important places in my educational style and therapeutic approach.

I believe that within everyone is a story to be told. Our stories are who we are. This is nothing new. According to Dan Siegel, “anthropology shows us that every culture on earth tells stories. For the last 40,000 years we, as a species, have been trying to bring what is inside of us out — to make sense of what we see and put it out there for other people to hear” (Wylie, 2004).

Why is telling “The Story” so important? The answer is obviously complex but many researchers and clinicians are finding pieces to the puzzle. For example, Mary Main and colleagues devised an instrument called the Adult Attachment Interview. The interview invited parents to recount their own childhoods. What the research found was that the way that a parent told their story and how they made sense out of (or didn’t make sense of) their life was the best predictor of whether their own children securely attached to them (Wylie, 2004). It was not so much what really happened during childhood but how they came to make sense of it. In other words, a coherent personal story is an indicator of emotional and intellectual integration.

At an AA meeting, you hear people tell their stories. These are often stories of great dereliction culminating in hope and gratitude. In group and individual sessions, patients talk about their hopes, dreams, and fears. The most amazing aspect of those whose early developmental years were compromised by neglect and other forms of trauma is their inability to tell a coherent story about their past. They often seem to lack the ability to put their feelings into words or get confused about the difference between “thinking” and “feeling.” Somehow their brains have not integrated what has happened in their past.

So let’s weave neuropsychology and neuroscience into “The Story.” It is well known that psychopathology doesn’t exist in specific brain areas but is the result of unhealthy interactions among mutually participating circuits. Information flow and integration in the brain involves top-down and left-right integration. In top-down integration our frontal (prefrontal) cortex inhibits the impulsivity and excitability of the lower parts of the brain (example-brain stem). The lower parts of the brain may react and want to “hit him in the nose.” It is the function of the frontal cortex to say, “Maybe that’s not such a good idea since the guy is much bigger and stronger than I.” The frontal cortex is responsible for processing, inhibiting, and organizing reflexes, impulses, and emotions generated by the brain stem and limbic system. It is our conscience from which we derive “right from wrong.”

Left-right integration allows the individual to put words to their feelings, consider feelings in conscious awareness, and balance the left and right hemispheres of the brain (Silberman & Weingartner, 1986). The frontal cortex serves as the brains Chief Executive Officer. It mediates the many transactions that take place between the various regions of the brain including the left and right hemispheres.

What if the developing child is neglected and/or physically, sexually, or emotionally abused? This same frontal cortex tries to understand and explain what has happened. One of the ways that the frontal cortex reduces anxiety and helps the developing child/adolescent explain the horror in their life is to install protective defenses. According to Cozolino (2002), “In the absence of adequate assistance in making sense of emotions, the brain organizes a variety of coping strategies and defense mechanisms” (p. 32).

What does a coherent story about one’s life accomplish? As Main described in Wylie (2004), it allows for the opportunity to attach with our offspring and start the process of healing multigenerational wounds. When one tells their life story, it causes the brain to perform many simultaneous tasks.

These tasks include the bringing together or integration of affect, behavior, conscious awareness and sensation. In other words, it facilitates top-down and left-right integration. During this process, the individual realizes life events, behaviors and emotions in a different, more insightful and healthier fashion.

Integration takes place in safe places. Fritz Perls used the term “safe emergency” to describe an environment for change where challenges for integration are conducted within an environment of caring, consistency, and support. Said in another way, when an individual is placed in a treatment setting where the staff genuinely portrays a surrogate (healthy) family, the opportunity to take risks is dramatically elevated.

Research studies support the hypothesis that positive outcomes in therapy occur when thought and emotion are engaged within an environment of challenge and support (Orlinsky & Howard, 1986).

After approximately a half century of research, one of the most consistent findings is that the quality of the therapeutic alliance (relationship) is the best predictor of treatment success. I think this means that if you are a good, consistent, and personally healthy individual, the chances of a positive clinical outcome increase. It also describes the setting that is created. A place where the clinician can help the client find meaning in their autobiography. A safe place where a client can take risks, knock out a few defenses, and hear a soft whisper in their head as they gain new insight about themselves and the world they live in.

Some may call this an “epiphany” or an “ah ha” experience. Regardless of what you might call this phenomenon, the client is now more in touch with themselves — more connected and less defended.

“The Story” is never really completed. It is an autobiography with only an earthly ending. The Buddhists describe the self as an endlessly peeling onion. Every layer is a new chapter to explore and integrate.

Cardwell C. Nuckols, PhD ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) is President of Cardwell C. Nuckols and Associates, LLC, a national and international training and consulting organization.

References
Amen, D.G. (2002). Healing the Hardware of the Soul. New York: The Free Press.
Cozolino, L. (2002). The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy. New York: Norton.
Orlinsky, D.E. & Howard, K.J. (1986). Process and Outcome I Psychotherapy. In S.L. Garfield and A.E. Bergin (Eds), Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change. New York: Wiley, 311-381.
Silberman, E.K. & Weingartner, H. (1986).Hemispheric lateralization of functions related to emotion. Brain and Cognition, 5: 322-353.
Wylie, M.S. (2004, September/October). Mindsight. Psychotherapy Networker, 28(5): 36.

This article is published in Counselor,The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, February 2005, v.6, n.1, pp.18-19

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