I’m reading a very interesting and inspiring book at the moment, Healing the Mind Through the Power of Story: The Promise of Narrative Psychiatry by Lewis Mehl-Madrona. I love the concept Lewis describes below:
“Holding Space is an important and rarely discussed concept. When we hold space for someone, we bear witness to them, their stories, and their pain.
We serve as a supportive audience member, sometimes a coach, sometimes a warm shoulder for comfort.
We hold the vision of the person being well, being happy, having recovered. The more people who hold that vision, the more possible recovery becomes.
Having a good story to describe the person’s travails helps us all to hold hands and look in the same direction. It gives us a sense of coherence, of being on the same page with as each other.
These are powerful feelings that make us feel that we belong to something greater than our single bodies, thereby creating the expectation that a miracle is about to happen.”
