Africa

This therapeutic story can be used for supporting learning in general, as well as re-learning abilities after a health problem. For example, it can be applied quite beautifully with stroke patients. Obviously, it is also indicated as a story supporting change and developement with anyone who has got a strong biographical link to Africa. Of course, instead of Africa, other continents or regions of the world can be used, in order to adapt the story to individual needs. The reason why I chose the mapping of Africa as the key focus of this story is, that on maps Africa has the shape of a head or scull and thus points to brain functions.

Maps have existed for millennia but there a big differences between modern maps and those from dating from earlier centuries. For example, three hundred years ago, if a publisher printed a map of Africa, it had big white patches on it. ‚Terra incognita’ was marked on it; unknown territory. The coasts were then largely free of such white spots, but the interior of the continent was still a single, large white patch. However, many researchers undertook trips into the heart of Africa and what they learned there, they reported to the cartographers who diligently recorded everything. Land and water routes were discovered. The turns of each river were researched and drawn. The names of the settlements were recorded and the names of the tribes written down. The white patches on the map became smaller and smaller. The parts of the country that were explored and known steadily grew. Finally, the white spots disappeared completely. The whole of Africa was mapped.

Everything Else

In a land in our time there lived a man, who read a book and found lots of wonderful stories therein. There were true and invented stories, experienced and pensive, enjoyable and painful stories. There were stories which contained stories, and such which were actually not stories. For every story he read, there occurred to him nearly five which he had either experienced or thought up himself. So the thought came to him, that a lot in the world was a story which could be healing for himself and others; he only needed to absorb the healing stories well and to forget the terrible ones immediately. Then he would learn which story he had used when and for what. So he organised his own stories which he knew, and which had become a help to himself and others, or could become so. Sometimes he noted it down when a new story came to his ears and sometimes when a helpful story occurred to him, he memorised it.

Then he saw before him in a picture the storystories of this life arranged in long shelves, as in a large pharmacy. And behind the counter there sat a man who had learnt to listen to himself and others. He was a master of his subjectspecialty. His talent was that he understood how to tell the right thing at the right time to himself and to those who visited him.