Narrative has always been a fundamental and unavoidable moment of psychiatric practice. After reviewing the main reasons that justify such an affirmation, the author has analyzed some aspects and specific modalities of psychiatric narrative: mirroring function, narrators involved (externals and internals), styles of narrative (strong, weak, anti-narrative), and the change of the narrator. The author also introduces the concepts of provisional narrative and emotional narrative. From the consideration of the widespread and general involvement of psychiatry in narrative field, characteristics of some group therapies based on narrative are briefly described. In any case, therapeutic values of narrative are individualized as coming from a not-presentable dimension, especially dramatic in the case of psychoses. The aim of using narrative in therapy is to bring subjectivity to the surface. In conclusion, a reflection on ethical problems is proposed, especially stimulated by the confrontation with Paul Ricoeur’s ideas. From such reflection emerges the need to realize the importance of dialectics between Korper and Leib, not only in psychiatry but also in medicine.
Keywords: Ermeneutica, irrappresentabile, psicosi, narrazione emozionale, terapia narrativa, antinarrazione