Stephen Andrew

Since I was a very small boy, I have always been captivated by stories.

I remember my mother walking me down to the end of our street where, once a fortnight, the municipal library bus would bestill its rumbling diesel engine and hiss open its hydraulic doors. Through these doors were more tales than could be read in a lifetime. Deliciously overwhelming. I was generally a quiet kid, but I do recall hassling repeatedly for an upgrade from my ‘child’ library ticket to an ‘adult’ one. Following a number of knockbacks (due to the trifling matter of my age) my nagging finally paid off and a deal was struck. I remember the heady power I felt the day all the big people’s books were finally unlocked and available to me.

Along with the library tickets, I also coveted my Uncle Will’s huge, two volume, leather-bound "Enquire Within" encyclopaedia set. These books smelled wise and musty. I don’t know how they came into my uncle’s possession, but there was an otherworldly quality about these volumes that suggested that the physicality of the books was a story in itself. The cream coloured pages held grainy, black and white photos and words and phrases that I didn’t understand. This only made these tomes more mysterious and interesting.

One day, possibly inspired by a couple of door-to-door spruikers, my father decided to buy the twenty-one volume "World Book" encyclopaedia. This was an expensive purchase and I didn’t actually believe he was telling the truth about them until the boxes of books actually arrived at our house. We kids had to wash our hands before we removed any of the snazzy, green-spined volumes from the bookshelf.

To me these encyclopaedias held the stories of the world. I remember reading the entries to every American president, from George Washington to the then incumbent Richard Nixon. President by president, I chronologically charted my own nine-year-old course in American political history. When the Watergate scandal broke, I KNEW that Nixon was innocent. He was The President. I’d read his story. What they said about him just couldn’t be true.

Nearly fifty years on, my work life is split between listening to stories and telling stories. I trained as a psychologist and spend half my working day sitting in a chair, listening, tracking, reflecting and seeking to understand the stories of my clients. In this role I’m an archaeologist, a midwife, a translator, a demolition worker, a detective and a novelist. Kind of like the Village People, but with only one person on stage. It is challenging, satisfying work. There is something mysterious, universal and eternal about the act of voicing a story. This courageous tale-telling is deeply therapeutic. It is an act that opens the possibility of change. My position description (‘to sit and listen’) describes a deeply rewarding occupation.

The other half of my work life is spent as a teacher educating trainee counsellors ‘to sit and listen’ to stories. I know of no better way of offering the curriculum of psychotherapy than to turn its concepts and theories into stories about the psyche. I toss tales of Freud, Jung, Rogers, science, art, literature, mystery, doubt, failure and triumph into the circle of students and wait for their stories in return. If I get nothing back I have probably failed to convey the facts and spirit that sit behind and within the theories. Alternatively, if I hear the students’ narratives rebound dynamically around the classroom I know some of them, at least, have made a connection and have understood. I learn a lot about what I am teaching when I listen to the students’ stories too.

This year I wrote a book about telling, writing and disseminating stories: autoethnography, memoir, life writing, biography, personal/social/political narratives of the lebenswelt, the dasein. Words of the ‘I’ speaking of the ‘me’, the ‘us’ and the ‘we’. The book is not so much about how to write or tell a story; more a guide for those who care about themselves and the people that they are writing about.

Sometimes stories get too much. Like that second or third glass of dessert wine. So I tell myself a tale of ‘enough’ and retreat to a quiet corner and take out my guitar. I tune it up, pick out little melodies and strum the strings. Sooner or later, however, the instrument is accompanied by me pulling a tune from within the chords. Inevitably, it’s not long before I’m singing: snatches of lyrics and phrases, sometimes whole songs. It’s the same, inescapable story, inhabiting another form.

Education

Clin. Sci. D., La Trobe University, 2015

B. Ed. (Couns), La Trobe University, 1993

B. A. Swinburne University, 1991

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

Worklife

I am a psychotherapist with over 20 years experience working with individuals and couples. This work dovetails perfectly with my career as a lecturer and supervisor. I am deeply interested in person-centred psychotherapy, existential concerns, workplace burnout, and the demystification of psychological science. I have come to believe that psychotherapy and pedagogy are fields that depend primarily on the interpersonal relationship between all parties if these endeavours are to be successful.

Personal Interests

My great passion (aside from psychotherapy and teaching) is playing, singing, performing and writing about music. I play a number of instruments and write my own material. I am musical director of the Stereo Stories musical troupe and have a number of stories published on their website, www.stereostories.com