What Happens in the Brain When We Read Stories?

Good stories call on us to revise our initial assumptions. They invite us to be flexible. There is an overlap here between what happens in the brain when we read and when we experience things in real life. Stories provide us with catharsis a mechanism to safely explore difficult to rain. You don't actually have to kill your son in real life when you're upset with him. Instead of getting hauled up in court for murder, you just sit in a theatre for a couple of hours and clap when the curtain comes down. If stories can serve as a safe space to explore drama and repressed feelings, can they also be used to heal those dramas?...