The Healing Heart-Families: Storytelling to Encourage Caring and Healthy Families

by Allison M. Cox (Editor), David H. Albert (Editor), Margaret Read McDonald (Foreword by)

Overview

Stories and narratives aimed at helping families work through an array of subjects like health, illness, grief, adoption, sexual identity, and school.

The Healing Heart provides powerful examples of the use of stories and storytelling in encouraging resiliency, empathy, respect, and healing. These engaging books contain stories, and narratives about the use of the stories in activities with different populations (children, teens, those with disabilities, seniors, inmates, etc.) or which address specific social or community problems (addictions, poverty, violence, racism, environmental degradation, homelessness, abuse).

The books are a collective effort containing the expertise of more than 60 storytellers and health professionals who illustrate the power of story in moving others to commitment and action, in building self-esteem and mutual respect.

The Healing Heart ~ Families focuses on families, dealing specifically with healing through story, health promotion, disease prevention, early childhood intervention, children with medical problems, adopting families, schools, sexual identities, grief, and spiritual healing.

The Healing Heart ~ Communities focuses on community-building, with sections on youth, violence prevention, poverty, domestic violence, substance abuse and addiction, racism, elders, culture, environmental protection, homelessness, and community development.

Praise for The Healing Heart ~ Families

“Both children and adults, sick or well, need the embrace of soulful storytelling. They need to witness and be witnessed, for it is in this state that healing occurs . . . . If newscasters were to read aloud each night to their listeners for 1,001 nights one of the stories from this treasury, we would all be healed and lose our fear, recapturing real security in our homeland.” —N. Michael Murphy, MD, author of The Wisdom of Dying

“An extraordinary work . . . . Hit the bulls eye by providing both process and practice. Thought provoking and insightful theory is intertwined with appropriate stories for direct application. It makes clear that story can be a powerful catalyst for change, giving eloquent voice to what many of us have known for some time but have been unable to express. What a gift for those who work with families!” —Elizabeth Ellis, co-author of Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking about Difficult Stories

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781550923155
Publisher:	New Society Publishers
Publication date:	09/17/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	412
File size:	821 KB
Age Range:	15 - 18 Years

About the Author

Allison M Cox combines her background as a therapist, social worker, health educator and prevention specialist for the health department with 20 years experience as a storyteller, and is one of the founding board members of the Healing Story Alliance - part of the National Storytelling Network. David H Albert is a storyteller, writer, and Senior Planner and Policy Analyst with the Washington State Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse, and a contributor to Spinning Tales, Weaving Hope (New Society, 2002). David Albert is a storyteller, writer, and Senior Planner and Policy Analyst with the Washington State Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse, and a contributor to Spinning Tales, Weaving Hope (New Society, 2002).

Table of Contents

	Foreword	xiii
	Acknowledgments	xv
	Healing Through Story	1
	The Tale-Teller	3
	Once upon a time, there was and there was not...	6
	Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree	10
	Entering in	13
	Guidelines for healing work	15
	Health Promotion and Disease Prevention	19
	The breath of life	20
	The Three Little Pigs of Hog Holler Swamp	22
	There is a balm in Gilead: Storytelling as a Healing Resource for African-American Women	26
	Yonjwa Seeks a Bride	31
	A story of a strong woman	34
	Kimo's Heart	35
	Share stories, pass it on: Women's health promotion through storytelling	40
	Losing and Getting	44
	I Don't Want to Talk About It!	49
	Children with Medical Problems Reclaim Their Lives	55
	Digital storytelling with band-aides and blackboards: When chronic illness--or some other medical problem--goes to school	56
	Sally Goes to School	58
	Kinka: A Story About the Birth of a Very Special Tortoise	66
	Binding the unraveled sleeve: Story and music come to oncology camp	68
	Nobody's Good for Nothin'	70
	Stories in the Hospital and Beyond	75
	I Want to Tell You a Story	76
	The Search for the Magic Lake	79
	Some successful stories and story interactions	82
	The medicine of the heart	85
	Coping with Grief	91
	Storytelling and bereavement	92
	Outwitting Death	95
	Infinite Resource and Sagacity	98
	Writing David's Story	101
	Honoring a Life Through Sharing Stories	103
	Spiritual Healing	107
	Buried Treasure: Sacred tales and healing	108
	Story wrestling: Healing through telling Hasidic stories	116
	Rabbi Gershon's Dream	117
	Teach Your Children Well	125
	Storytelling and resiliency: Why children need stories	126
	The Gift of Good Advice	129
	The Magic Brush	134
	Stories as tools for coping	137
	Early Childhood Interventions--The Parent-Child Mother Goose Program	141
	The heart of Mother Goose: Lullabies, lap-rhymes and stories	142
	The parent-child Mother Goose Program	143
	The stories in the rhymes	147
	Oral literacy: Learning while listening	149
	Miriam's Story	151
	Stories Go to School	153
	The Odyssey Project: Adolescent pregnancy prevention through storytelling	154
	Cucarachita	161
	Listening is the other half of telling: Teaching students with story	164
	Adopting Families	169
	Family trees	170
	The Tree of Creation	174
	The Pincoya's Daughter	178
	Traditional stories that address adoption issues	181
	Exploring Alternative Sexual Identities	183
	Bi-anonymous	184
	The Tackety Boots	186
	Dismantling discrimination, one story at a time	188
	The Best of Both Worlds	190
	Deconstructing Prejudice and Developing Empathy	195
	Kofi's Hat	196
	Compassionate action through storytelling	197
	Kanu Above and Kanu Below	199
	Speaking from the heart: Empathic rapport and the role of the oral tradition in moral development	204
	Bibliography	209
	Author biographies and contact information	229

Editorial Reviews

The National Storytelling Network's special-interest group, Healing Story Alliance, has become increasingly active and important because of the need to access resources for promoting wellness. This two-volume set of stories and accompanying explanations is an invaluable help for professional or nonprofessional tellers, social workers, clergy, mental-health experts, or community advocates. Those who lead groups, whether in organizations, schools, neighborhoods, churches, hospitals, group homes, or family homes, can incorporate the tales and notes in order to sow seeds of understanding, resolve conflicts, and promote peace within self, family, school, community, and the world. The books will serve tellers involved with people of all ages dealing with such widespread problems as grief, abandonment, violence inside and outside of the home, substance abuse, homelessness, teenage pregnancies, loneliness, nonacceptance by peers, hospital or treatment-facility stays, adoption, prejudice, sexual-identity issues, and so forth. These well-organized books share an extensive and excellent bibliography arranged by subject. The stories are original or retellings of traditional tales. Public libraries should have reference and circulating copies for all community social-service agencies; middle and high school media specialists should make teachers and guidance counselors aware of these books. The stories are not lectures, nor are they lessons. They work when they go from the heart of the teller to the heart of the listener, at the listener's own time and readiness. This set best fits the need for accessible and practical guidance materials, and tools for promoting healing.-Judy Sokoll, Florida Storytelling Association, Naples Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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