Therapeutic Conversations Conference 23
Sacramento, California
A World Class Narrative Therapy Affair
October 8th- 11th, 2025
Confirmed TC 23 Presenters (more coming soon)
David Nylund, PhD
David “Rock” Nylund, MSW, PhD is a Professor of Social Work at California State University, Sacramento, the Clinical Director of the Gender Health Center, and a faculty member of the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy. He is the author of over 50 articles and books on Narrative Therapy and Cultural Studies and gives workshops and supervision for mental health professionals worldwide.
Karl Tomm, MD
Jennifer White, EdD
Jennifer White is a Professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria. She is interested in publishing and teaching on leading edge discourses about youth suicide prevention. Through critically informed, relational approaches to inquiry, she seeks to explore alternatives to the standardized, expert-driven, one-size-fits-all, risk factor-based approach to youth suicide prevention.
Tamara Wilson, MSW
Tamara Wilson, MA, R.Psych., is a registered psychologist in Calgary, Alberta and currently practices as a full-time family therapist at the Calgary Family Therapy Centre, where she also provides clinical supervision and training. Tamara has a passion for Social Constructionism, Systemic Therapy, Nonviolent Resistance, and Narrative therapy. She is particularly interested in socio-cultural discourses related to parenthood, race, ethnicity, gender and the ways in which they implicitly become entangled with families and their relationships.
Angel Yuen, MSW
Angel Yuen MSW is a veteran narrative therapist, supervisor, teacher and consultant. She is one of the co-founders of the Narrative Therapy Centre in Toronto and is in alternative-private practice in the Greater Toronto Area. She is the author of the important 2019 book ’Pathways Beyond Despair: Re-authoring lives of young people through narrative therapy’.
Makungu Akinyela PhD, LMFT
Makungu is a licensed marriage and family therapist in practice in Atlanta, Georgia and an Associate Professor in the Africana Studies Department at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He developed an African Centered approach to narrative called testimony therapy. As a scholar, activist, and therapist Makungu has been a committed Social Justice organizer for over forty-years focused on struggles for human rights and justice for Black people in the United States and the African diaspora. He is a Clinical Fellow of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy.
Rosa Arteaga, MA, RCC
Rosa is a long-time activist, and Director of Clinical training and practice with a large anti-violence, all woman, non-profit organization in Vancouver. With over twenty years of gender violence and complex trauma experience Rosa works from a unique post-colonial, intersectional feminist, trauma-informed, narrative therapy framework. She is a well known clinical supervisor, trainer, community organizer, and consultant for local and international organizations and VSNT faculty member.
Christine Dennstedt, PhD, RCC/ACS
Christine is a VSNT faculty member who has been deeply engaged in the Vancouver narrative therapy community since completing her Master's degree in 2002. By 2010 she'd completed her PhD and a narrative therapy informed Doctoral dissertation that articulated the interconnection between substance misuse and disordered eating in the lives of young women. Christine's leads the narrative therapy community with her current teaching and practice passion in linking together narrative informed practices with Psychedelic Medicines and mental health.
Todd Disney, PsyD
Todd is a deeply committed Narrative Psychologist living in northern California who has worked in the mental health field in various of family therapy settings and more recently, a private practice working with couples through an narrative therapy informed Relational Interviewing framework (NIRI). He teaches and supervises students and new therapists and is a certified trainer tor the International Center for Clinical Excellence – through Feedback Informed Treatment (FIT). Todd is also a Board Member of the art activist group LifeonArt.org and views poetics as a
powerful tool for personal activism through the concept of “Life as Lived Art".
Jan Ewing, PhD
LMFT
Jan has practiced Narrative Therapy for 30 years, studied under Michael White, is the founder and co-director of Narrative Initiatives San Diego (NISD) a Narrative training centre and therapy clinic, and is faculty at San Diego State University introducing MFT students to Narrative Therapy. Jan also works with a multi-generational community to practice and extend Narrative principles through mentoring, teaching, supervising, and research. She is a co-author of ‘Narrative Neurotherapy: Scaffolding Identity States’.
Rachel Feldman
MA, LMFT
Rachel is a passionate scholar of Michel Foucault, whose ideas have been central to her narrative therapy informed practice. Based in Los Angeles, her private practice focuses on supporting clients who identify as polyamorous, non-monogamous, kinky, queer, trans, anti-capitalist, and those who exist on the fringes of normative society. Her ambition is to empower clients by facilitating access to the local ’knowledges’ that shape their ethics and values, promoting subversive action that may affect change to the conditions that have allowed for less access to power in people’s lives.
Julia Gerlitz, MA, RCC
Julia holds an intense interest in developing new and creative therapeutic letter writing practices in responding to Trauma that include creating communities of concern and care by inviting her clients to write letters to other clients, using co-created narrative documents in place of group therapy, and the use of letters in supervision. Julia has published several articles on these highly innovative letter writing frameworks and has currently recruited Rock Nylund onto her team where they are developing and publishing new ideas and therapeutic letter writing practices.
Helene Grau Kristensen, MA
Helene is a co-founder of Praksis: The Centre for Narrative Therapy in Denmark and VSNT faculty member. She was originally supervised and trained for many years by Michael White, presents workshops internationally, and teaches narrative therapy courses at the University of Copanhagen. Helene publishes on the issues of Grief, Death, Loss and Hope and her therapy practice specializes in working with parents who have experienced the death of a child. Helene is also a regular interview guest on VSNT.live.
Shannon Macintosh
MSW, RSW
Shannon Macintosh MSW, RSW is a family therapist, member of the (infamous!) Calgary Family Therapy Centre, a clinical supervisor at Woods Homes in Calgary, Alberta, and sessional instructor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary. Shannon is devoted to strengthening relationships, building resiliency, and applying advocacy, collaboration, and creativity in her systemic work. She enjoys using metaphors, expressive arts, and experiential learning to bring forth relational healing.
Stephen Madigan, PhD, RCC/ACS
Stephen is an award winning Couple and Family therapist and best selling author of the books Narrative Therapy in 2011 and 2019 (3rd Edition out May, 2025). He wrote the first doctoral dissertation on narrative therapy, is the Director of the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy, content manager for narrative's largest online interactive learning site VSNT.live, and longstanding consultant supervisor to international High Conflict Couple Therapy Teams. Stephen enjoys teaching, consulting, and supervising ~ across 5 continents.
David Marsten, MA
David is the Clinical Director of Miracle Mile Community Practice in Los Angeles, California and has practiced narrative therapy and supervised Graduate students for 30 years. He is the co-author of the highly praised book: Narrative Therapy in Wonderland: Connecting with Children’s Imaginative Know-how, and longtime faculty member with the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy. David teaches narrative therapy workshops internationally through session videos, unaltered transcripts, and live interview demonstrations.
Todd May, PhD
Todd is the resident teaching philosopher and faculty member with the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy and has taught philosophy for over 25 years, (currently at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC). Todd is the author of eighteen books of philosophy, including Michel Foucault (2006) and Gilles Deleuze (2005), Friendship in the Age of Economics (2012), A Fragile Life (2017), Shall We Go Extinct (2024), and was consultant philosopher on the NBC series The Good Life. Todd continues to be highly active in a wide variety of grassroots political movements in immigration rights and anti-racism campaigns.
David Nylund, PhD
David “Rock” Nylund, MSW, PhD has practiced narrative therapy for 30+ years, is a Professor of Social Work at California State University, Sacramento, narrative informed clinical training Director of the queer and trans focused Gender Health Center, and long time faculty member of the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy. He is the author of over 50 published articles and books on Narrative Therapy and Cultural Studies, considered one of our narrative communities world class letter writers, and gives teaching workshops and supervision for mental health professionals across the globe.
Tamara Wilson
Tamara Wilson, MA, R.Psych., is a registered psychologist in Calgary, Alberta and currently practices as a full-time family therapist at Karl Tomm's Calgary Family Therapy Centre, where she also provides clinical supervision and training. Tamara has a passion for Social Constructionism, Systemic Therapy, Nonviolent Resistance, and Narrative therapy. She is particularly interested in socio-cultural discourses related to parenthood, race, ethnicity, gender and the ways in which they implicitly become entangled with families and their relationships.