Storytelling Is Useful In Teaching Morality

Reading a moral tale teaches ethics

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An enlightened therapist comfortable in their own skin must remain flexible in helping people change. Storytelling is an addition to treatment.

There is often a moral component to a presenting complaint. However, if a client feels judged, they will terminate.

Why storytelling matters in therapy or socialization.

A practical method to reduce resistance is storytelling to open channels of communication and establish therapeutic rapport. Many violated socialized codes of conduct unwittingly, in good faith, believing they did the right thing.

This makes moral philosophy a thorny topic. You can tell a client what to do or allow the client to infer the same reasoning deduced from a story linked to the presenting problem.

Before written language, humans passed on essential information orally. The same knowledge and wisdom are now codified onto databases and through forms of literature.

The religious sermon is storytelling well-received by the congregation.

In religious congregations, the sermon serves a similar purpose and is more accessible than scripture language. Preachers know this is a trick of the trade, and so should therapists, but we are not trained to do this in any coherent way. And some schools of therapy frown upon the therapist becoming too active or involved, so using storytelling must feel right and natural based on your experience and the specific goals of therapy.

A moral tale is like a therapeutic sermon.

Often the moral tale is assigned as homework during cognitive-behavioral therapy and then discussed at the next session. This discussion usually lightens things up, lowering resistance to more pressing issues.

There is a significant loophole in moral reasoning.

There is a significant loophole in moral reasoning. An amoral choice is not considered moral or immoral until the consequences of the option are fully known, if ever, only later in hindsight defining the original good faith choice as an absolute, the field of amorality. We hate the fact that morality is black, gray, and white, but there are few absolutes in human nature. You can claim there are, but you are naive.

Dogmatic teachings reduce the complexity of moral philosophy to the tenets of the faith.

Dogma makes amoral into moral by definition reducing moral ambiguity if what the scripture insists is true. The pious can quote by chapter and verse biblical linked to most life situations.

This acquired ability to remember how to behave using the scriptures as a guide links logic with emotions. Presumably, it builds good character at a faster rate per unit time than secular socialization. To keep it simple, kids are taught good, and evil is binary. There are proscriptions (do) and prohibitions (don't) and legal and illegal.

Some good faith decisions are unethical in the long run.

Here is the problem we all discover the longer we live, linking formal education with "live and learn." I could tell you, "Some good-faith decisions are unethical," or you can read a story whose moral is the same. "in other words." You decide the role of storytelling in teaching morals, especially ambiguous principled choices.

Storytelling is useful in teaching morality.

One day, while jogging on a back road, a young man happened upon a whiny, newborn golden retriever pup no more than a few hours old. Its owner had abandoned it. The young man feared that the rightful owner might misinterpret his positive ethical actions claiming the boy stole the abandoned dog.

The practical problem was what to do with the dog while waiting to hear from its valid owner. Over the years of waiting, the young man provided only the bare essentials of food, water, and nothing more. No one ever claimed the dog.

The dog learned to hate its master, who would never throw it a ball or do things other owners did. In hindsight, the young man was honest to a fault. His moral choice became immoral since he psychologically abused the very dog he saved.

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Later, when the young man became older, he came to understand the folly of his ways. He should have raised the dog as his own and adequately cared for it.

What create a story when simply telling right from wrong is more direct?

This moral tale teaches that even well-meaning choices done in good faith can backfire, making seemingly principled decisions unethical.

Kids learn right and wrong directly (admonitions) and indirectly (fairy tales). Storytelling is simply another way to get the point across. In this way, storytelling is an addition to teaching morality, and in psychotherapy is used to explore options in decision making.

A moral tale is " the "in other words" to a principled tenant.

An ideal moral tale is if you read the story and summarize it in one sentence, as in Aesop's Fables, it would equal what you meant to say in the first place.

An ethical choice is usually the more difficult course of action.

Ethics are based on derived social constructs and principles. Here is where principles and ethics diverge. An ethical choice is paradoxical. An ethical choice is when the preferred code of conduct is the more difficult of the two choices. And ethics depend on your world of experience and fiduciary responsibilities. All licensed professions have "ethical standards" higher than the population they serve.

Ethics are also acquired through contingent feedback and distant, vicarious observational learning.

The principles of learning also interact with ethical norms. If a reward follows a proscription, it is more likely to be repeated. If nothing happens after engaging in a prohibition, that act is more likely to be repeated since it was not extinguished through negative feedback. Or observing the beneficial consequences of a moral choice the act is acquired.