STORIES OF AIDS - THE USE OF NARRATIVE AS AN APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING IN AN AIDS SUPPORT GROUP

This paper shows how the co-creation and telling of narratives helped members of an AIDS support group transform their unique and separate e xperiences of suffering into shared insights, intense connections and comfort. Examples of narratives are drawn from the author's experience as a co-leader of a support group for gay men living with AIDS. Curre nt literature on group work with persons living with AIDS is embedded in a modernist orientation in which the therapist is the scientist/exp ert, the client has the problem and the therapist helps the client's t hrough exploring and interpreting the client's story according to a su perseding theory (Gergen and Kaye, 1992). This approach emphasizes the need for leaders to maintain objectivity and emotional distance to av oid burnout (Gabriel, 1991; Grossman and Silverstein, 1993; Tunnell, 1 991). In contrast, in a post-modern therapeutic approach, there is no privileging of the therapist's narrative and the traditional hierarchi cal relationship is replaced by a mutual effort as therapist and clien t together develop stories that translate and transcend experience. Us ing the AIDS work as illustration, this paper offers a post-modern, na rrative approach to group work and shows how persons living with AIDS can use narrative to move beyond finite structures and the limits of l ife.