Oldal 121 [121]
120 I Digital Media and Storytelling in Higher Education
documents and photos related to the topic. Confronting distressing personal
events carries risk factors, as in the process of sorting through memories, the
person may be re-traumatized; the trauma may even be more intense due to
the distance in time, or the story may traumatize another group member.
A workshop on sensitive topics or a workshop with therapeutic purposes
should not take place without a psychologist. Ward and Bullivant (2017)
point out that the facilitator should make the participants aware that they can
stop the process at any time, that they do not have to tell a story just because
other group members find it exciting, and that they do not have to fear the
judgments of others. The facilitator should also ask the participants to keep
the workshop conversations confidential, and to assure the narrators that the
finished narrative will not be made public without their consent.
The facilitator should also ask whether the group members are willing
to bring up images related to the trauma. If it turns out that they are not,
communicate to them that they can use drawings or symbols instead of
photos. In the framework discussion, the facilitator should also make group
members aware that articulating and speaking up about distressing content
can help them to accept it and make the memories part of their identity. The
unspoken thoughts and fragments of memories are transformed into a logical
whole by the creator during the DST process.
Ban and Nagy (2016) point out that DST can help traumatized group
members to gain control over their memories through self-acceptance. This
was the case with 12 HIV-positive patients in Zimbabwe who were treated
with DST in group therapy. Their task was to capture their most important
life events in their digital stories. During group discussions prior to the
creative activities, the patients explored the elements that were common to
all of their stories. Traumatic elements such as learning about the diagnosis,
uncertainty, loss of hope, loss of family members, stigmatization, social
discrimination, and loneliness emerged in the participants’ stories. Patients
felt that the disease had a complete impact on all aspects of their lives. They
then looked for points of support and a means to improve their situation:
some mentioned support organizations, others the acceptance of family and
partners. The method helped them to move away from a negative self-identity,
improve their self-esteem and control their negative emotions. Through the
formulation of goals and perspectives, group members became aware of their
own agency, and their agency was extended to individual and later social acts
(Willis et al., 2014). A therapeutic impact was also reported by participants
in a Tanzanian DST project involving HIV-positive children, in which the
Story Circle was followed by the co-creation of hypothetical future-oriented
texts that were acted out and recorded by the children. In an attempt to
interpret their stigmatized and marginalized situation from a more optimistic
perspective, the children began to plan their futures (Duveskoget al., 2012).
In addition to highlighting the therapeutic effects of DST, the facilitator
can also point out to the group members that sharing their digital stories can