The Stories We Are: An Essay on Self-Creation

Cynthia Whissell is a psychology professor at Laurentian University.

It is only recently that academics have begun taking the art of
storytelling seriously. In this meaty, heavily referenced, and
insightful book, William Lowell Randall, a professor in English Studies,
speaks to both literary and psychological establishments about the
importance of stories to our definition of ourselves. The fact that we
enjoy vicarious stories (in television plots, novels, autobiographies,
and so on) is a direct outgrowth of the fact that we view our own lives
through the medium of a story. In our life stories, we may at different
times take on the role of protagonist, narrator, or reader. Our choice
of stories to enjoy is potentially revealing of the type of story that
we would tell about our lives. Furthermore, psychotherapy is nothing
more nor less than an extended storytelling experience, with the
therapist serving as an uncritical audience in some therapies, such as
Rogerian client-centred therapy, and as an active editor in others, such
as Freudian psychoanalysis. Randall’s writing is both psychologically
and poetically (his word) sound. The Stories We Are is not a self-help
book; its audience is most likely to be found among students and
teachers of literature and psychology, and among those with an interest
in the interpretation of human behavior.