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*
~ Question: Why has Narrative Therapy informed Relational Interviewing (NIRI)
become a world wide international phenomenon?
Popular Answer: NIRI's non individualist premise has radically changed everything we know about Couple Therapy
*Quote from award winning couple therapist Stephen Madigan's best selling books on Narrative Therapy:
". . . NIRI is guided by a simple therapeutic premise: Relationships are Relational (and cannot be considered otherwise). The couple relationships we see inside our therapy rooms did not create the ways they practice love, care, or the problems they are suffering through - all on their own. It is Illogical for therapists to view couple relationships individually and divide them off from the relational, cultural, and contextual influences they are imbedded within and shaping of everything they do"
Attending the workshop participants will learn how:
~ NIRI's theory and practice framework rejects popular couple therapy's (EFT, Gottman, Imago, IFS etc.) individualist/essentialist premise to focus solely on the individuals of the couple as the primary site, cause, blame, and responsibility to
explain intimate couple relationship conflict/suffering/communication.
~ The purpose of NIRI sessions is to dignify the experience of modern/ultra busy couple relationships by acknowledging the wide range of cultural influences, governing norms, gender expectations, child and extended familial obligations, work and financial responsibilities, etc. that indelibly shape and influence all aspects of relational love, cherished values, patterns of living, and the wide range of complexities, problems and sorrow they bring to therapy.
~ The average time conflicted couple relationships spend in therapy with Stephen is 3-5 sessions. The workshop guides participants through how this is made possible by demonstrating NIRI's relational interviewing questions and practices.
~ Participants learn 5 primary practice steps of relational interviewing through:
1) Remembering foundational relational values: Creating a mutual common ground for the intimate relationship to stand in before addressing the relational conflict;
2) Double descriptions: NIRI's practice of thickening stories of relationship love and values alongside
the great despair in remembering what the relationship has now lost;
3) Viewing expressions of relational conflict (anger, isolation, resentment etc.) as a response, protest and invitation to restore relational values (respect, fair-mindedness, loyalty, kindness etc.);
4) Externalizing the couple relationship: Repairing and rejuvenating their relationship as worthy of their mutual care;
5) Creating the craft of relational interviewing questions and writing practices written to the couple's relationship itself.
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."