Tag Archives: Narrative Therapy
Personal Reflections, Writing
On Being or Becoming a Writer (Again)
September 8, 2013 johnsommersflanagan	Leave a comment
While I was taking notes on Mary Pipher's "Writing to Change the World" book, a bug flew in my eye. It was at the precise moment I was typing the following quotation: "When we equivocate we lose an opportunity to build our identities as writers. If you are not doing it already, I advise you to learn to say you are a writer" (p. 76).
Shall I really say "I am a writer!" even if it doesn't feel quite right?
Or should I be more honest and describe the complete situation by saying, "I am a writer who is trying to write, but I have a bug that just flew in my eye and that's making it more difficult than it might otherwise be."
Didn't someone once say that honesty is the best policy? And isn't there a story about George Washington honestly confessing that he chopped down a cherry tree that he had no particular business chopping down. Of course that story is a lie and as it turns out Betsy Ross didn't really sew the first American flag, but she had some fairly effective promotional people who either thought she did or decided to lie on her behalf.
What if I just tell a microscopic white lie to myself? Is that a problem?
Or maybe I just need an agent who will lie willy-nilly on my behalf? I've sort of always wanted somebody who would do something will-nilly just for me.
After all, honesty will only take you so far and the only advice my father gave me about being married was that "You don't have to always tell your wife EVERYTHING you're thinking." That's good advice, except that it contradicts with what Carl Rogers said about maintaining a transparent relationship and how he learned the most from being completely honest with his wife about the things that were most difficult to talk about.
Wouldn't it be true, however (this, I understand, is how attorneys like to begin questioning the person who has just taken the stand), that lying destroys relationships and can take you to prison where you might share a cell with Piper Kerman. Then again, she wrote a book (Orange is the New Black) that got made into a television show and that's pretty cool.
It's very difficult to find clean and straight answers upon which everyone agrees. I've noticed this and thought I should honestly articulate this observation.
When I'm doing counseling with young people who have anger problems or who are cutting or who are embracing a negative and unhelpful identity, I sometimes ask them to consider thinking differently about themselves. The technique is a little bit of a knock off of Alfred Adler's Acting As-If. I don't ask them to pretend or to tell themselves bald-faced lies, but instead to tell more of the complete hairy-faced narrative truth. For example, when a girl tells me she's got a "terrible temper," I suggest and implore and encourage her to capture the WHOLE DARN NARRATIVE and instead tell herself something like, "I believe I've had a terrible temper in the past, but I'm working on it."
Pipher (not Piper) says I should learn to call myself a writer. Obviously that worked for her and she's been immensely successful and now she's sharing it as a writing strategy. But what if that doesn't work so well for me? What if my mantra is that I'm a writer who's got a bug in his eye and that darn bug is making it terribly difficult, but I'm working on it?
What if I prefer a different hat style?
Here's what I like instead: "I am becoming a writer."
I most definitely like that better. I am becoming is a better fit for my tentative always in flux and change and self-reflective in-moderation identity.
I am becoming a writer.
And I hope you are too.
Acting As-IfAlfred AdlerMary PipherNarrative TherapyOrange is the New BlackPiper Kermanprofessional writingWriting