Another stor(e)y: imagining narrative therapy and art Psychotherapy together through the works of kristeva, Clement, cixous, spivak, venn and butler

This chapter raises a set of philosophical puzzles that calls into question what therapy is and does. The theoretical and fictocritical explorations of the previous chapter are taken, metaphorically and philosophically, to another level. I explore the possibilities of the Women's and Other departments of the Store of Poststructural Theory, extending the notion of the fabrication of subjectivity and playfully critiquing the practice of ‘shopping around’ for ideas. I introduce theorists working at the intersection of poststructuralism with feminist and postcolonial theory, and consider what their work might offer to an exploration of art psychotherapy and narrative therapy. As suggested by the leading quotation from Cixous, an acceptance of the Otherness within others and oneself becomes crucial, in this chapter, for thinking beyond the binary of the psyche and the social, particularly as it is staged in the apparent opposition of art psychotherapy and narrative therapy. Butler's work in particular becomes central to my project of thinking art psychotherapy and narrative therapy together. I note how something akin to Butlerss insight that the reiteration of the subject and of language is both citational and productive of difference informs both narrative therapy and (art) psychotherapy, but informs them very differently.