Advanced Transformational Storytelling
A Workshop for Counselors, Coaches, and Change Agents
with David Lee
September 21st | 8:30-3:30 | Westbrook, Maine
Click to download printer-friendly PDF
What is Transformational Storytelling?
Transformational storytelling is different from “basic” storytelling in that it brings far greater precision and power to storytelling. While many counselors and coaches use stories to illustrate important points, transformational storytelling brings a whole new level of precision and clarity to finding, creating, and using stories and analogies that address specific problems and issues.
By understanding the structure of the different transformational story genres, helper, healers, and change agents can generate stories that can bypass the filters and limiting beliefs of the conscious mind, and impact at a deep, unconscious level.
It is based on the work of Dr. Milton Erickson.
Dr. Erickson is often considered as the originator and master of hypnotic storytelling. His ability to both use therapeutic metaphors and hypnosis to catalyze healing was legendary, and was the subject of many books. For an example of his work, check out this article.
And Why Am I Teaching This?
Transformational Storytelling is based on my training in hypnotic storytelling that started 30 years ago. I studied with several of Dr. Milton Erickson’s most prominent students–Stephen and Carol Lankton, Bill O’Hanlon, and Dr. Jeffrey Zeig.
Since then, I’ve applied this modality to counseling (in a previous career), coaching, and teaching. I’ve taught workshops and presented at conferences on this topic throughout the US and have one of my therapeutic stories included in the book Tales of Enchangement: Goal-Oriented Metaphors for Adults and Children in Therapy
When I learned how to use therapeutic storytelling in my work, everything changed. Not only did it help me facilitate change when traditional “talk therapy” was not able to, it helped invite people to look at their world in a new way far more effectively than did more direct approaches.
When I left the counseling field and moved into the corporate world of consulting and coaching, I found stories to be extremely useful in making one’s ideas more interesting and impactful.
I also LOVE storytelling because it enables each person to use their innate creativity and artistry.
One of the coolest things for me is to have people tell me how they never realized they could tell great stories with a purpose until we met. BTW…”with a purpose” is a key here.
Being an effective transformational storyteller isn’t about holding forth or being a raconteur. It’s about knowing how to capture everyday life experiences and turn them into stories that can make a point him home, challenge a limiting belief, offer a new perspective, and even catalyze deep, unconscious healing.
You can read more about my journey with storytelling in the About section of this website.
Why Is Transformational Storytelling Such an Important Tool for Counselors, Coaches, and Change Agents to Have?
Stories enable you to…
- Challenge people without coming across as confrontational – Stories help you challenge people’s limiting beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes without triggering defensiveness and resistance, because you’re not challenging them. You’re simply telling a story. Thus, telling a story can often reach a person for whom direct approaches have only triggered defensiveness and resistance. Thus, storytelling is an especially powerful way of helping people who are defensive about a particular issue (or defensive in general).
- Open people’s minds to new possibilities in ways that direct approaches can’t – Because stories well told act like virtual reality, they provide people a non-threatening environment to vicariously experience new ways of acting and responding. Rather than dismissing a direct recommendation, the listener can listen to this new way of acting without defending their perceived limitation. They don’t need to say “You don’t understand, I can’t do what you’re asking me to do” because it’s “just a story”. That receptive state of mind enables them to entertain new possibilities.
- Make your ideas and recommendations more understandable, compelling, and memorable. This increases your ability to influence others—In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath identify storytelling as one of the key components of messages that are “sticky”—i.e. make a strong visceral impact and stay with the listener long after.
- Make new concepts and complex ideas understandable to the novice—Simple stories and analogies help you translate foreign concepts into ideas and experiences familiar to the learner. This translation of the foreign into the familiar dramatically accelerates understanding.
- Make your presentations more fascinating, compelling, and memorable—Whether you are leading a small educational group or presenting at a conference, stories grab your audience’s attention, impact them at an emotional level, and make your presentation more entertaining. They also give your message staying power by making it live on in the listener’s mind.(note: the above is excerpted from Storytelling Techniques for Trainers by David Lee)
What You Will Learn in This Workshop
- When to use storytelling as your preferred communication approach.
- How to use “If I could handle THAT, I can handle THIS” stories–These are great for helping shift people from feeling dis-empowered and hopeless–a state that makes it nearly impossible to see potential solutions and opportunities–to feeling strong and hopeful.
- How to Use “So I said to him/her…” Stories To Challenge Someone W/O Being Confrontational— These are fun, powerful stories that allow you to deliver a potentially hard-to-hear message or piece of advice in a non-threatening way.
- How to Use Perspective Shift Stories When Direct Attempts to Help Someone See Their Situation Differently Are Met Resistance–We’ve all had those frustrating experiences where our attempts to help a client see their situation differently are met with resistance and defensiveness. In these situations, Perspective Shift Stories shine. hese stories are especially useful when you’ve found that direct approaches only result in your client doubling down on their insistence that there is other way to look at a situation than the one they have.
About the Presenter: David Lee is the founder of HumanNature@Work and a career coach at Heart At Work Associates. He has been using and teaching transformational storytelling for 30 years.
He has taught workshops, and presented at conferences, on this topic throughout the US, Canada, and Australia.
His work on therapeutic storytelling was included in the book Tales of Enchangement: Goal-Oriented Metaphors for Adults and Children in Therapy.
If you want to get more of a sense of David’s work, you will find videos and audios from a resource page created for a counseling graduate school class he guest taught at.
Date and Time: Sept 21st, 8:30 – 3:30 (lunch on your own from 11:45-1:00)
Location: Husson University, 340 County Rd, Westbrook, Maine
Fee: Early Bird Rate Ends Sept 11th $149, Procrastinator Bird Rate (after the 31st) $199
To Register:
Comments from program participants
“The highlight of the Maine Career Development Association conference this spring was David Lee’s workshop on Resiliency. I found his ability to captivate and engage the audience, from the moment we walked through the door until the very end, impressive and rare. David’s dynamic, storytelling presentation style both teaches and inspires through his sharing of humorous, relatable stories that speak to the opportunity for personal growth and transformation throughout our lives.” – Kathy Bouchard, Career Advisor, Goodwill Industries, ME
“David Lee spoke during a class I took on career development as a graduate student. From the beginning of his presentation, David had my rapt attention. He was engaging and attentive as a facilitator and modeled the content about which he spoke, which was on how to use storytelling as a counseling and presentation tool. I saw David a couple of years later in a different context and immediately remembered him and his workshop – it stuck with me because of its impact on my development as a professional.” – Holly Khiel, Career Advisor, Goodwill Industries, ME
“David, thanks again for coming in to talk with my counseling students about the power of storytelling as a counseling modality. One of the things I noticed most about you is your ability to reach all of my students, even those who weren’t interested in the topic prior to your coming. Your presentation demonstrated storytelling as a powerful way to connect with people in a deeply personal way.” – Greg Fall Adjunct Professor, USM, ME
“David Lee is a creative storyteller who can translate simple everyday life encounters into engaging stories that impact at a visceral, experiential level.
He also creates archetypal, mythic stories carefully designed to dissolve limiting beliefs and facilitate deep unconscious healing.
I had not heard of storytelling as a therapeutic tool when I first attended a therapeutic storytelling workshop of David’s more than 20 years ago, at a national conference.
His work has had a huge impact on me both personally and professionally. Personally, because I was a demo subject for his workshop, and the story he told played a major role in my willingness to leave a successful practice as an oncologist and embark on a whole new career.
Even though the mythical story he told had nothing to do—at the conscious level—with my particular dilemma, or even modern day life, the deep archetypal themes clearly impacted at the unconscious level. I believe it played an important role in my deciding to make the leap.
At a professional level, his teaching and coaching on storytelling helped me change my belief, created from years as a practicing physician, that I was not capable of the more right-brained process of storytelling.
I have found myself over the years becoming extremely comfortable, and intentional, in my use of storytelling as a way to invite people to see their world in new, more possibility-filled ways.
I highly recommend you experience his unique, imaginative approach to this powerful communication medium.” – Dr. Bonnie Vestal, ID
