As those of you who read this regularly know, I'm a strong advocate of the power of stories, the use of narrative, to engage audiences and open them to your messages.
Today's edition of USA Today contains an interesting article on the use of dramatic narrative, in this case ancient Greek tragedies, to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. It's a creative use of narrative to get troops to recognize the issue and be willing to talk about it.
I had the opportunity to take several ROTC classes as a civilian in college. In addition to the ROTC students and very few civilians in the classes, there were also active duty Marines who were taking classes to become officers. There were occasions when we would study particularly gruesome battles where the active duty marines would just laugh. I thought it a bit bizzare that you could laugh about blowing people up but I wonder now if this was how they coped with the things that many of them had seen and experienced.
Posted by: Aaron J. Aisen | September 05, 2009 at 12:47
Great post. It just goes to show that the power of storytelling is a skill that is timeless.
The Greek plays are a fantastic source of material, I wonder if there are any more modern sources that could be used also?
- Dr. Jim Anderson
http://www.TheAccidentalCommunicator.com/
The Accidental Communicator Blog
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Posted by: Dr. Jim Anderson | September 02, 2009 at 15:01