Storied Identities: Cooperative Inquiry with a Group of Future Psychotherapists

The paper analyses a process of cooperative inquiry in a group of trainee-psychotherapists, who became researchers of their own life for one year. In the process, self-narratives were used to create space for reflection, critical thinking and empowerment. Experience was explored through narrative and fictional writing, photographs, conversations, heterography and play. The different materiality of these media highlights the storied nature of identity and builds multiple descriptions of one’s life, hence a deeper understanding of its complexity. Performative and expressive languages were also used to call the body into narration. New meaning was then developed, beyond individual boundaries and fixed stories. This research questions narrative inquiry as a word-based activity, fixing meaning in interviews or texts, silencing the body and taking for granted the context of research.