Three essays that bring these clinical questions into ordinary life
Life Telling Processing is a clinical framework developed by Jon M. Holmes, LMFT. It is informed by narrative attention, trauma-informed pacing, depth psychology, compassionate inquiry, and the study of human transition. It is not a replacement for established, research-supported treatments when those are clinically indicated.
Is Life Telling Processing an evidence-based treatment protocol?
Life Telling Processing is a clinical framework developed by Jon M. Holmes, LMFT. It is informed by established traditions in narrative work, trauma-informed care, depth psychology, compassionate inquiry, and the study of human transition. It is not presented as a standalone empirically validated treatment protocol, and it does not replace established treatments when those are clinically indicated.
Narrative, Memory, and the Work of Telling a Life
Narrative work helps place difficult experiences within the wider context of a whole life. The approach is informed by the narrative-therapy tradition associated with Michael White and David Epston, and by the clinical importance of coherent life narrative in trauma work. Life Telling Processing is not Narrative Exposure Therapy. It shares the conviction that a person can make meaning of memory without being reduced to the worst thing that happened.
Trauma-Informed Pacing and the Conditions for Safety
Safety, consent, pacing, and the therapeutic relationship come first. The work begins with orientation and safety rather than disclosure. The aim is to create enough steadiness for a man to meet his own story without becoming lost inside it.
Depth Psychology and Archetypal Patterns
Depth psychology offers a symbolic language for recurring human patterns. Carl Jung, Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, and James Hollis inform the archetypal lens used in Life Telling Processing. The Sovereign, Warrior, Lover, Sage, Nurturer, Wild One, and Uninitiated One are not personality labels. They are lenses that can help name patterns of protection, loss, strength, longing, and unfinished development.
Compassionate Inquiry and the Question Beneath the Reaction
The work is informed by the compassionate-inquiry tradition associated with Dr. Gabor Maté. The influence is an ethic of asking carefully. When a man overreacts, withdraws, performs, uses a substance, or cannot rest, the work asks what that response once protected and what story about his worth it may be trying to keep from being confirmed.
Thresholds, Transition, and the Courage to Become
Arnold van Gennep described separation, liminality, and incorporation as recurring structures in human transition. Life Telling Processing uses this structure as a humane way of understanding threshold moments. It is not a diagnosis or a promise of transformation. It is a reminder that uncertainty can be part of a real passage, and that a man does not need to face that passage alone.
How does Life Telling Processing relate to narrative therapy and trauma treatment?
Life Telling Processing shares an interest in coherent life story, meaning-making, safety, pacing, and compassionate attention to experience. It is distinct from Narrative Exposure Therapy, EMDR, Cognitive Processing Therapy, and other established approaches. Jon considers the person, their needs, and any appropriate treatment or referral as part of the ongoing clinical judgment required in therapy.
Who is this page for?
This page is for prospective clients, referring clinicians, and anyone who wants to understand the clinical traditions that inform Life Telling Processing. It describes sources and influences, not a substitute for personal assessment, emergency care, medication management, or treatment planning for a specific diagnosis.
Selected References
Narrative Exposure Therapy, American Psychological Association. The APA describes an approach that helps a person establish a coherent life narrative in which traumatic experiences can be contextualized.
Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends, Michael White and David Epston. A foundational text in narrative therapy that examines identity-shaping stories and neglected evidence of agency, relationship, and value.
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, C. G. Jung. A central work in the depth-psychology tradition for considering archetypal patterns and symbolic dimensions of experience.
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette. An influential account of mature masculine patterns and their distorted expressions.
The Middle Passage, James Hollis. A Jungian reflection on midlife, the unlived life, and the psychological work of transition.
Compassionate Inquiry, Gabor Maté. A method of attending to hidden assumptions, implicit memories, and body states beneath the words a person speaks.
The Rites of Passage, Arnold van Gennep. A foundational anthropological study of separation, liminality, and incorporation in human transition.