Opening up a Crack: An Account of Narrative Practice in the Context of Pastoral Therapy— Kim Barker

This paper explores some of the possibilities and challenges of therapeutic conversations with people who hold strong religious beliefs and/or find themselves under the influence of oppressive religious discourse. With particular reference to one woman’s therapy journey, it shows how the articulation and deconstruction of one’s ‘belief story’, in the absence of any prescriptive or proscriptive constraints, can render visible various possible entry points into alternative storylines.