ABSTRACT
We have consistently drawn attention to the importance in psychotherapy of implicit communication processes between therapist and client and the need for the therapist to be able to understand these processes as well as develop ways of working with them. Since key issues that the client brings are likely to be out of his or her awareness they may emerge through stories containing a variety of symbols and metaphors. Indeed, we might view the entire process of therapy in terms of `stories', an approach adopted by writers on narrative approaches to therapy (e.g. McLeod, 1997; Etherington, 2000). McLeod (1997) suggests that: `People seek therapy because their life-stories are confused, incomplete, painful or chaotic. Through careful listening and sensitive interpretation of what is being said, the therapist facilitates the emergence of a more satisfying narrative, a ``good'' story' (p. 86). McLeod draws on the distinction suggested by Spence (1982) between `narrative truth' and `historical truth', making the point that historical truth cannot be precisely known and the therapist's job therefore is to work empathically in the present with the narrative truth that the client brings. For example, the client who describes herself as `a tree without adequate roots' is clearly saying something about her early experience as well as expressing her sense of herself in the present. The question then arises as to how the therapist might respond to a metaphor of this kind. While a more classical psychoanalytic approach would be to interpret such metaphors in a desire to piece together the puzzle that it poses, we would advocate a careful response and a willingness to work directly with the metaphor that is presented by the client.
