Relationships Are Relational
Framework for Relationally Working with Conflicted Couple Relationships
Stephen Madigan MSW, MSc, PhD
October 24 - 25, 2026
*NOTE: Workshop participants learn through discussion, reflection, and watching Stephen demonstrate his relational interviewing framework through transcripts and session videos with couples in
Canada, Norway, and the USA*
~ Dr. Stephen Madigan's Narrative Therapy informed Relational Interviewing (NIRI) is
becoming a world wide international phenomenon.
~ The average time conflicted couple relationships spend in therapy with Stephen is 3-5 sessions. The workshop demonstrates NIRI's interviewing theory and practice framework of how this is made possible.
~ NIRI is non pathologizing therapeutic approach to couple therapy that acts to remember, restore, re-author and revive the foundational values most important to the couple's relationship that have either been transgressed and/or dramatically lost through ongoing encounters with the present conflict.
~ NIRI sessions dignify modern/ultra busy couple relationships by acknowledging how they can never be relationally separated off from the wide range of cultural influences, governing norms, gender expectations, familial obligations, work and financial responsibilities, etc. that indelibly shape and influence all couple relationships, and the issues, patterns, and conflict they bring to therapy. In a word - couple's did not create the problem on their own!
~ The NIRI framework rejects the idea of focusing solely on the individuals of the couple as the site, cause, and responsibility to explain intimate couple relationship conflict/suffering – by recognizing how this fails to explain the deep relational complexities the relationship is influenced by and deeply imbedded within.
~ The workshop leads participants through a wide range of relational interviews showing: highly conflicted couple's creating a common ground to stand in; remembering stories of their love and values together while experiencing a great despair of what the relationship has lost; engaging a deeper sense of mutual compassion and understanding of the need to take care of their relationship; creating a mutual desire to restore the social practices and values for the betterment of the relationship; and beginning to understand how all intimate couple relationships are relationally embedded within our inter-connectedness with other life sustaining relationships - that can often prove hazardous to intimate relationships.
About the presenter:
Stephen Madigan MSW, MSc, Ph.D. is an award-winning Couple Therapist and best-selling author of the American Psychological Association published 1st and 2nd Editions of the book Narrative Therapy (3rd Edition was published by the APA in November 2025) He is the training director of the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy, teaches narrative therapy across 5 continents, and enjoys being a decade long supervisor to numerous international High Couple Conflict Therapy Teams.
More than anything . . . Stephen is a (super) proud father of 30 year old twin daughters.
Feedback from Participants
"Amazing! Dr Madigan's work is a radical departure from the limitations we have all felt using couple therapy frameworks like EFT/Gottman etc. I really enjoyed watching how the conflict couple's had been captured by for years suddenly melted into the background through his remembering and reauthoring questions. And how the couples found a common ground of values and ways of living they once cared about to stand in. I think all the couples we saw in the tapes were shocked by how change happened so fast. What a beautiful breath of fresh air!!" - NIRI Participant, Oslo, Norway, 2026
"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you so much for creating NIRI. This work demonstrates how all of us owe the couples we work with a much higher level of understanding and compassion regarding the ACTUAL complexities of life they are living in (that we all live in). NIRI does this!! Loved watching all of Stephen's couple session video demonstrations and seeing how these couples responded with a sense of pure relief and hope." - NIRI Participant, Vancouver, BC, 2026
"From start to finish this workshop was a pure and simple Master Class in couple therapy. Not only will my approach and understanding of couple relationships dramatically change, my own personal relationship with my partner will as well."
-NIRI Participant, Toronto ON, 2026
"Stephen's NIRI work is deeply respectful, loving, and full of practical common sense. This work was so amazingly beautiful to experience!! I cried several times and I loved watching him interview these couples and connecting them to all the reasons and values at the heart of the couple's experience and how this highlighted the deep loss/grief and reason for coming to therapy. This was a major new insight!! I also loved Stephen's questions, humour and engagement of the couples in high conflict we saw in all his therapy tapes. The other thing I loved was his attention to all the obligations, family expectations etc. that shape how they/all of us (!) view what relationships are suppose to be and how this can take us away from spending time in our own relationship. Bravo Stephen!"
- NIRI Participant, São Paulo, Brazil, 2026
"Immediately I felt the workshop speaking to the real world experience of our busy modern couple relationships. Each moment was incredibly fresh with new practice ideas but when Stephen showed couple videos of him interviewing the couple relationship itself and then asking the couple to write a letter to the couple from the relationships perspective then inviting each of them to read their letters to each other in the session - well that was utterly f#cking mind blowing!! Really can't thank you enough."
- NIRI Participant, NYC, USA, 2025
“In Hong Kong the fast pace of life with all the pressures of our cultural/family/work expectations that surround couples can be overwhelming for people who are trying to make their marriages work and how all this feeds the conflict and terrible sorrow in couple relationships. All my colleagues I was sitting with in the workshop agreed that NIRI is the only couple therapy that addresses what is really going on in couple lives. Thank you so much for helping us."
- NIRI Participant, Hong Kong, 2026
“Relational lives: From the cradle we learn our cultural codes through our interconnection with others. Imitating what we are embedded within, influenced by, and relationally connected to. We reproduce what we watch and learn from those who learned before. To walk, brush our teeth, ride bicycles, spell words, make love, work jobs, speak language, and adhere to certain values."
~ Stephen Madigan - VSNT Faculty
Details:
VSNT Teaching Faculty:
Location:
Classes are taught live through Zoom video conferencing
Time:
8:15 am - 3:00 pm, Pacific Daylight Time (Vancouver, BC)
Rates:
Professional:
$485 CAD (approx. $356 USD)
Students:
$385 CAD (approx. $283 USD)
Proof of student status is required upon registration
"A central feature of NIRI stands against the practice of individualizing couple relationships by recognizing the overwhelming relational and contextual factors shaping and influencing every facet of the intimate couple relationship. This post-structural consideration of relational identity turns the focus of therapy away from the individual and towards relational practice questions regarding the intimate couple relationship’s relationship to innumerable other cultural norms, oblgations and expectations."