Advanced Narrative Practice

The ecology of the receiving context Stephen receives conflicted couple relationship stories into feels couple relationships cannot be divided off from the cultural beliefs they are imbedded within. Stephen first created this 'common sense' narrative therapy informed Relational Interviewing (NIRI) practice as an ideological, political, and emotionally compassionate creative step forward practice of couple therapy. And to no one's surprise the worldwide therapist and couples response to this non-individualist post-structural framework has been welcomed with open arms.

 Training demonstrates various interlocking NIRI practice scaffoldings, narrative informed relational and contextual questions, and therapeutic letters throughout the workshop.

Julia and Rock show participants how they have explored the practice of therapeutic letter writing in new and innovative ways. Their work includes inviting clients to write letters to other clients, using co-created narrative documents as a form of group therapy, and the use of letter writing in supervision. Their aim is to inspire participants to try new ways of utilizing the practice of letter writing in narrative practice by sharing examples of these letters, walking you through a step-by-step outline of the process, and highlighting narrative principles/theory underpinning these new innovations.

Both on the policy and practice level, Helené is turning all the more traditional psychological approaches you have learned about grief, loss, and death completely upside down. Her plan is to guide participants through the intimate experience of her session transcripts where you will witness significant “relationships” being created between grieving grown up children and a dead parent. She demonstrates how these children assist their parents not only by continuing their relationship, but by helping develop significant relationships between their parent and their future grandchildren.  

Stephen and Todd guide participants through a puzzling, thought provoking, and always enjoyable wild afternoon of discussion regarding common mis-readings and mis-interpretations about narrative theory and practice. They present a fascinating ecology of ideas that helps therapists receive client experience into a different relational context. Questioning if persons are actually multi-storied or are we simply narratable? Do therapists discover new client stories that are already there or are we instead creating something else?  Are we externalizing or contextualizing? And what does the narrative therapist think about relational memory, norms, values, valuing, and more?

There is serious new mental health phenomenon affecting millions of youth worldwide known as “Hikikomori” where they remain cutoff inside their bedrooms - for years. Sharon views Hikikomori as ‘proclamation of response’ from young people who want to maintain a close relationship with their values, commitments, and purposes of life. Sharon demonstrates a highly creative narrative practice response to a problem VSNT considers the 'new anorexia'.

Rock demonstrates his newly created narrative therapy informed 5-step relational approach with trans youth and their families (and the communities they live in). This stunning new interviewing framework brings forth parental/caregiver affirmation and community support of trans youth.

Philosopher Todd May feels that the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty is the missing theoretical link in narrative practice. His conception of the body and how it engages the world provides a bridge from Michel Foucault’s politics to therapeutic practice. We know that we are embodied, but narrative theory has not articulated a full framework for understanding embodiment. This session will introduce participants to the ideas of Merleau-Ponty and how it connects to both Michel Foucault and narrative therapy practice.

​Participants learn through Rosa's twenty years of experience and thousands of practice hours engaging individually and collectively with girls and women who have experienced gender-based violence and trauma. Her original framework reaches far beyond a trauma informed approach and towards a narrative therapy informed, feminist, and justice based decolonizing practice. Rosa outlines and demonstrates her latest practice of relationally interviewing the woman's body as a means of creating contracts of compassion and reconnection. She also shares these newly created up close interviewing experiences with women through transcript.

Through theoretical discussions, slides, therapy session transcripts, music, and the use of novel and practical exercises, Jeff demonstrates how current understandings about the brain and the distributed nervous system in the body can contribute to dramatically enriching and evolving our narrative therapy practice.

Christine introduces the use of psychedelic medicines to our narrative community - for the first time. She shows how the two practice frameworks work together as a way to thicken preferred stories in a person's life. As a theoretical backdrop, Christine outlines her use of anthropologist Victor Turner's ideas on ritual process, including 1) Separation, 2) Liminal space and 3) A re-incorporation phase. She will also include the work of ethnographer Van Gennep's 'rites of passage metaphor' to explain the practice work. This innovative workshop plans to discuss the importance of set and setting, walk participants through the process of preparation, medicine work, and integration (using the above ideas) and shows the use of a narrative therapy framework and questions used in each of the three phases of the work.