Interminable knots: hostages to toxic stories
Citation
Sagan, O. (2011) ‘Interminable knots: hostages to toxic stories’, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 19(1), pp. 97–118. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2011.548992.
Abstract
This paper presents one case study from a five-year psychosocial
exploration of the auto/biographic activity of a small group of mental
health service users. Each individual voluntarily took part in a weekly
basic expressive literacy course in which they were encouraged to improve
their writing skills. Biographic narrative interviews which employed a
free-associative approach were conducted with the participants over the
research period. In addition, the literacy sessions were observed, and the
written products analysed to track changes in auto/biographic
representation. Interviews gradually developed to reveal insights into the
way auto/biography, narrative, learning and writing were being used by the
participants, each of whom was a 'newcomer' to both expressive writing
and auto/biographical activity. This paper will give a brief overview of
some of the findings across the group which suggest the possible reparative
processes involved in auto/biographic writing. However, it appeared that
both a constructive and destructive use was made of the thinking processes
in the transitional space which was constructed by the literacy sessions, the
written product and the interviews. Biographical data suggested the
deployment of various defence mechanisms, triggered by a complex
interplay of psychological and socioeconomic factors but also by the
impacts of particular forms of mental illness. Despite the literature
documenting the sanguine effects of much auto/biographic engagement,
from the 'talking cure' to current records of expressive writing amongst
mentally ill individuals, this research unearthed some evidently more
troubling processes. These sometimes enmeshed the writer and researcher
in the interminable knots of remembering and repeating, incarcerating the
individual in the claustrophobic plot of a toxic story.