Therapeutic Life Story Work, as an intervention, helps people:

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• make sense of the story of their life
• see how their past may impact on the present
• aims to help people make positive change moving forward
• promotes resilience 
• supports good communication and relationship building and stabilisation

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The life story work process starts with an assessment of the needs of the client to gauge their suitability and willingness to engage with the work.  Following assessment, the practitioner will start the important process of collating information in relation to the clients's life history.  Information is drawn from birth records, social services files, court records, medical/educational institutions and any viable source. Stories are sought from significant individuals linked to the client's life, pre and post birth up to the present day.

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The information gathering stage is necessary to gain a rich and holistic picture, from data and stories, that gives the client a greater insight into early childhood experiences. It provides a lens from which they can view themselves and with the support and guidance of the therapeutic practitioner they can begin to contextualise.

 

Sessions are usually hourly and can be scheduled weekly or fortnightly. The average number of sessions varies, dependent on the intended outcomes of the intervention. Working in a triad, the young person, their stable parent/care giver and the practitioner share and explore all elements of the life history and the social, emotional and physical responses to this. The practitioner's work is underpinned by psycho-dynamic principles in safely containing and aiding the young person's trauma .

 

The body of the work is predominantly  done on wallpaper offering a visual tableaux of thoughts, feelings, stories and psycho-social activities with other tangible, age related, activities and games interwoven throughout.. The wallpaper acts as the story board.  The work undertaken on the wallpaper, the communication and the meaningful exploration of thoughts, feelings and behaviours offer perspective and insight into the young person's sense of self.  The practitioner will encourage reflection in, and on action for an opportunity of change/development to a more positive and focused state moving forward.

 

The concluding element of work is a Life Story Book that, on completion, will remain with the young person. The Life Story Book is a compilation of all the work, the stories and information gathered and shared within the sessions. Dependent on the age and responsiveness of the young person they will be encouraged to assist with the completion of the life story book to help reflect on the entirety of work and take ownership of their life narrative.