At the Confluence of Memory and Meaning—Life Review With Older Adults and Families: Using Narrative Therapy and the Expressive Arts to Re-member and Re-author Stories of Resilience

Abstract

In this article, the author focuses on ways in which counselors can adapt narrative therapy and expressive arts therapy techniques to cultivate and support their clients’ creativity for use in the life review process. The counselor acts in a cocreative and consultative role, drawing on the client’s expertise about his or her own life and constructing a collaborative process that also can engage the client’s family, caregivers, and important others in the client’s community. The writer suggests expressive arts techniques such as bibliotherapy, journaling, and the making of memory books, self boxes, life maps, and time capsules, along with videography as among a myriad of ways to tap into an ongoing creative meaning-making process necessary for life review. The collaborative process described facilitates deconstructing problem stories and constructing unique outcomes in their place for the client and quite possibly for the family and important others.