It is important to make use of the humanities for our mental health. Applying the humanities to the therapeutic field is an integrative activity which merges the various therapies. Storytelling can be an effective tool for this purpose in literature therapy, philosophical counseling, and arts therapies.

This article discusses the therapeutic functions of storytelling and its application. It examines the possibility of the storytelling as a therapy in the Germanic myths and “Arabian Nights”a classic of world literature.

Storytelling is used in the “arrative psychology”as a therapeutic method. The therapeutic dialogue between therapist and client is a mutual narrative process.

The therapist and the client work together to develop ‐‐through their dialogue, namely the mutual effect of storytelling‐‐ alternative narratives that extend the client’ scope of life and can therefore help him to solve his problems.

If we try to make use of storytelling as a therapy, there are two modalities, that is, a productive and a receptive one. The productive one in the storytelling therapy is to make the components of the story therapeutically used in active change, and an alternative story is made on the basis of it. On the other hand, the modality of the receptive storytelling therapy is the one, in which the client accepts the told stories passively, and finds the therapeutic power from the stories on his own, and makes an alternative story.

Characters, space and time are changed in myths according to their therapeutic functions. This shows also in the storytelling of the Germanic myths. In ancient times people could not understand the nature of thunder and lightning, so they were scared of them. In the Germanic myth, people trusted Thor (Donar) who was a god of thunder, pictured as a personification of the force of nature. Germans were able to overcome the fear of thunder by worshipping Thor. The belief in God Thor removed their fears.

Storytelling can play many therapeutic roles: to come up with a solution to problems, to encourage behavioral changes, to provide standards and values of life, and so on.

This is confirmed in “Arabian Nights”We can say that the subject of this Arabian folk tales is the humanities therapy and the storytelling therapy. After a thousand and one nights, the stories Scheherazade tells cure the king Schahrayar. She healed his broken heart, and let the king stop killing women.

It is a productive approach of storytelling therapy that Germans were able to heal collective fear and anxiety by creating the myth of thunder God. On the other hand, it is acceptive modality that the king Schahrayar can make an alternative story with a healing power after listening to the tales Scheherazade tells.

Key words: Storytelling, Humanities, Storytelling therapy, Components of storytelling, Germanic myths, Arabian Nights