<P> Therapeutic storytelling is the act of telling one's story in an attempt to better understand oneself or one's situation . Oftentimes, these stories affect the audience in a therapeutic sense as well, helping them to view situations similar to their own through a different lens . Noted author and folklore scholar, Elaine Lawless states, "...this process provides new avenues for understanding and identity formation . Language is utilised to bear witness to their lives". Sometimes a narrator will simply skip over certain details without realising, only to include it in their stories during a later telling . In this way, that telling and retelling of the narrative serves to "reattach portions of the narrative". These gaps may occur due to a repression of the trauma or even just a want to keep the most gruesome details private . Regardless, these silences are not as empty as they appear, and it is only this act of storytelling that can enable the teller to fill them back in . </P> <P> Psychodrama uses re-enactment of a personal, traumatic event in the life of a psychodrama group participant as a therapeutic methodology, first developed by psychiatrist, J.L. Moreno, M.D. This therapeutic use of storytelling was incorporated into Drama Therapy, known in the field as "Self Revalatory Theater ." in 1975) Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas developed a therapeutic, improvisational storytelling form they called Playback Theatre . </P> <P> The art of narrative is, by definition, an aesthetic enterprise, and there are a number of artistic elements that typically interact in well - developed stories . Such elements include the essential idea of narrative structure with identifiable beginnings, middles, and endings, or exposition - development - climax - resolution - denouement, normally constructed into coherent plot lines; a strong focus on temporality, which includes retention of the past, attention to present action and protention / future anticipation; a substantial focus on characters and characterization which is "arguably the most important single component of the novel"; a given heterogloss of different voices dialogically at play--"the sound of the human voice, or many voices, speaking in a variety of accents, rhythms and registers"; possesses a narrator or narrator - like voice, which by definition "addresses" and "interacts with" reading audiences (see Reader Response theory); communicates with a Wayne Booth-esque rhetorical thrust, a dialectic process of interpretation, which is at times beneath the surface, conditioning a plotted narrative, and at other times much more visible, "arguing" for and against various positions; relies substantially on now - standard aesthetic figuration, particularly including the use of metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony (see Hayden White, Metahistory for expansion of this idea); is often enmeshed in intertextuality, with copious connections, references, allusions, similarities, parallels, etc. to other literatures; and commonly demonstrates an effort toward bildungsroman, a description of identity development with an effort to evince becoming in character and community . </P> <P> Storytelling festivals feature the work of several storytellers . Elements of the oral storytelling art form include visualization (the seeing of images in the mind's eye), and vocal and bodily gestures . In many ways, the art of storytelling draws upon other art forms such as acting, oral interpretation and performance studies . </P>

Traditional stories involving the history identity and religious values of ancient cultures