ABSTRACT

Narratives are fundamental to the ‘talking cures’, whether psychoanalytic or ‘systemic’ in all their many variants. In these forms of psychotherapy, patients come and talk about aspects of their lives, past and present. Therapists offer a space for them to talk, listen, and in one way or another suggest fresh ways in which they can think about themselves, from reflections on what they have said, or communicated in other ways. Although the differences between psychoanalytic and family systemic traditions can, from closeup, seem very preoccupying, they are small by comparison with what divides all these ‘talking cures’ from those which ‘objectify’ human beings, and aim to change them by interventions (pharmacological or behaviour-modifying) which bypass or ignore their understandings of themselves as complex sentient beings, or as participants in ongoing conversations with themselves and others.