When I visited the Pisa Baptistry close to the city’s cathedral, I thought to myself, ‘They’ve turned it into a temple to commerce!’ It raised my hackles to pay to enter a church and then find myself surrounded by hundreds of frantic tourists rushing around and taking photographs of everything. Many kept checking their watches, because a singer was paid to perform every hour in order to demonstrate the building’s wonderful acoustics. Should a church not be a place of prayer and devotion? After climbing up to the gallery, I thought, ‘Surely no one will object if I turn this temple to Mammon back into a house of God.’ It took me a while to screw up the courage, but finally I sang the opening line of a psalm loudly and clearly into the open space, ‘Laudate omnes gentes, laudate dominum.’ The acoustics really were superb.

Everything went quiet in the church, and although everyone looked around to find out who was singing, the echoes made it difficult for them to locate me. The security staff searching frantically for the perpetrator also found had a hard task on their hands, but by the end of the verse one had spotted me. He waited for me to start singing again in order to catch me red-handed, since it would otherwise have been easy for me to deny my act of sacrilege. I looked around the building in a daze. “Thank you,” said a woman standing next to me. “That was wonderful.” I too felt better after having sung the psalm. When the last echo had faded away, I left the house of God, giving a sly grin to the security guard who was still watching me.

The story “Sacrilege” illustrates that standing up for your values represents a value in itself. In cases where these values are opposed to the interests of others, it is often necessary to find a balance between defending your ideals in public and taking a less conspicuous approach. The story can also be used to encourage clients not to hide their light under a bushel and to present a self-confident image during interactions with others.

(From: Stefan Hammel: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling. Sories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision, Routledge 2019)

A number of researchers wanted to find out why salmon die after spawning, so they fished a number of specimens out of the river, fitted them with radio transmitters and placed them back into the sea. And what do you think happened? The animals stayed alive.

The story “Renewed Life” makes it clear that life plans and goals play a vital role in an individual’s happiness, health and life expectancy.

(From: Stefan Hammel: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling. Sories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision, Routledge 2019)

Someone once told me, “When I was growing up my family kept hens and a cockerel named Gockle. The cockerel and the hens ran around in the yard together, scratching and pecking at grains. Once we decided to give Gockle a special treat, and so we picked him up and put him down right in the middle of the box where the grain was stored. That must have been heaven on earth to a chicken! Yet even though Gockle was now standing on thousands upon thousands of tasty grains, he simply looked at us with a surprised expression and did nothing. He did not eat a single grain. Finally we took him outside again, where he scratched and searched for grains like he had before.”

The story “Gockle’s Good Luck” reminds us that we cannot always recognise and accept happiness and that some people have reasons of their own for not improving their situation. It also reminds us that we need goals for which we fight and that unexpected success may overtax our capacities. In conversation with parents, for example, the story can be used to make it clear that children and teenagers should not be allowed to become accustomed to taking an affluent lifestyle for granted, and that they need to experience achieving success and possessions through their own efforts. The story can also be used to alert listeners to the fact that they are taking skills for granted and overlooking opportunities for action, even though – or perhaps because – they are present in abundance.

(From: Stefan Hammel: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling. Sories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision, Routledge 2019)

“My aim in life is to leave as much healing and joy in my wake as possible,” I said to a friend. “That’s a lofty goal,” he said. “I’m happy if I can avoid causing too much harm.”

The story “My Aim in Life” calls into question the absoluteness of existing life goals, and encourages the listener to formulate his or her own values.The story “Renewed Life” makes it clear that life plans and goals play a vital role in an individual’s happiness, health and life expectancy.

(From: Stefan Hammel: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling. Sories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision, Routledge 2019)

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The case study “The Pruned Tree” investigates how people can come to terms with losing their voice. The story can however also be used in other situations such as amputations and surgical interventions of all kinds, in particular mastectomies, the operative removal of sexual organs and sterilisation. In these cases the metaphor expresses the idea that the removal of the body parts which symbolise fertility (or the loss of their functionality) furthers goals aligned with fertility. Fertility is reframed as innovative energy and creativity, and the parts of the personality associated with the body part are asked to consent to the operation and to reconcile themselves with the consenting personality parts.

I recently met a Russian man in hospital who had undergone a laryngectomy. His son had painted him a picture of a tree bearing red apples, with the following caption in big letter; “The tree was pruned, and now it bears more fruit than ever. Dear father, we loved your voice. But we love you much more!”

The story “The Sailor on Shore” provides patients with instructions on how to deal with dizziness by optimising their sense of balance, for example if they are suffering from seasickness or travel sickness. A spirit level can be used as a metaphor in place of the nautical instrument referred to in the story.

“I’ve just come off a ship after spending five days out at sea,” explained the woman. “My head is trying to make me believe that I’m still out on the waves. Everything is swaying and rocking from side to side.” “I once visited a naval museum,” answered the man. “I saw a candle holder there which was specially designed to hold candles upright all the time, even out on the open sea. It consisted of three interlocking rings which were connected to each other but which could each rotate independently of the others. The outer ring hung on a chain and was positioned vertically, and the next ring was also positioned vertically, but at right angles to the first. The last and innermost ring was positioned horizontally, and supported the actual candle holder, whose centre of gravity was below the ring. No matter how much the ship swayed and rocked, the rings moved in such a way that the candle stayed upright.” “I’m not dizzy any more,” said the woman.