_edited_edited.png)
Chapter 3: The Story Within
Cultivating the bibliotherapeutic ear
We will focus on a basic question that we, as therapists and educators, constantly ask ourselves: What is the story, really about?
That is – what lies beneath, at a deeper level, in the behavior of that person, in what they tell us? What connects the external world to the internal world, and how does what we see on the surface tell us what’s happening inside?
April 28, 2026
👉 The Session Continues
Session Slides
Assignments
We will try to apply the four methods of listening as well as our ear for core themes and subtext on journal writings. Here you have a few options: either work with an extract of your own journaling, or select a passage from Franz Kafka’s or Anaïs Nin’s diaries uploaded to the website. Select three optional methods of listening out of the following:
● Identifying the core theme of the text.
● Trying to extract the subtext – by finding a title or the key sentence of the text.
● Listening to the plot.
● Creating an “I‑poem.”
● Identifying various voices.
● Listening to what is not said – Is there a question (one or more) that you are left with after reading the passage?