Initially, deliberative scholars like Jürgen Habermas dismissed personal stories as contributing to good deliberation and insisted on the importance of rationality. In more recent developments of deliberative theory, scholars like Jane Mansbridge gave more importance to the emotional aspect expressed with personal stories for good deliberation. In our discussion groups, personal stories were frequently brought into play, and in many cases they had a positive effect on deliberation, equally often, however, the effect was negative. Favorable stories for deliberation went into useful details for understanding and were related to the issue under discussion. A good illustration of this type of story is when an ex-guerrilla reported in colourful detail how he was chased away from an affluent Bogota neighborhood and linked this story to discrimination of ex-combatants, a relevant issue for the advancement of peace. Harmful stories for deliberation were superficial and did not link them to the issue under discussion. Here, a good illustration is when another ex-guerrilla told the story that he was put to jail without saying why and did not relate the story to the advancing of peace.