Narrative Newsletter May 2025: Spring Beauty, America's New Yin and Yang, Conference Day Drinking, and Neoliberalism Eats Psychology

Vancouver School For Narrative Therapy VSNT
May 15
9 min read

""People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is - what they do does."

– Michel Foucault

Hello everyone. Welcome back.

Hoping all is well where you are.

The May 2025 newsletter is written during curious times. You’ll read about the relational beauty of Spring, chaos and fear in the current political climate, Canadian reactions to their US cousins, modern psychology’s commitment to neo-liberalism (with a narrative practice response), day drinking at conferences, and TC23 becoming the world’s unofficial conference champion for live therapy demonstrations.

Hope you make it to the bottom.

Spring 2025

If you’re living in the northern hemisphere, I’m guessing you and your loved ones are delighted to reach out and touch the month of May.

Peeling off sweaters, breaking out Birkenstocks, and welcoming in a breath-taking time of renewal. Nature blooms and sparkles. We made it.

Good old May. Sometimes under-appreciated, but we can always count on the thrill it brings back to complex ecosystems, migratory birds, insects buzzing, and a jungle of plants cheering up, taking off, and coming alive.

It’s a lovely day in the neighbourhood.

South of the Border

While Spring 2025 colours unite us in genuine joy, a foreboding existential fear has captured the world’s attention. Things are not what they used to be, as multi-faceted political shock waves swallow up large portions of press reporting, workplace meetings, and personal conversation.

Since psychotherapy can never exclude the political context, and whether you’re tuned to this or not, our clients are feeling the heat of this political panic, anxiety and chaos, inside the therapy room.

Since our last Vancouver School narrative newsletter was posted weeks ago, Canada has elected a new Prime Minister (after a historic election indelibly shaped and dominated by a changing relationship with our American cousins).

Out on the campaign trail, new PM Mark Carney repeatedly stated, “America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country”. Assuring us that, “this will never happen!”

Statements like these were once unimaginable. Statements like these had never been uttered before in either country’s history.

News streaming across our 49th parallel Canadian border involves a Republican administration seeking to transform and turn economic relationships with the world upside down.

More importantly, Canadians move towards a deep empathy regarding the pain and suffering the average American citizen is experiencing as Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security is threatened; Departments of Education abandoned; the end to diversity, equity and inclusion practices (DEI); banning transgender people from the military; withdrawing from the World Health Organization and, the list goes on and on.

Mind blowing and foreign to us.

We feel you.

On a more hopeful front – a curious blend of Yankie Yin and Yang begins as a new social justice-leaning first time American Pope emerged out of the St. Augustine Order (my mother loved these cats).

In Pope Leo the XIV first global address, he made a clear commitment to making the Church “more inclusive” and one that will look out for the “poor, the least, and rejected”. Amen.

Personal Late March and April Adventures

In late March, I had a blast presenting a few workshops at the giant Psychotherapy Networker Symposium in Washington, DC and was able to catch up with good friends. Returning homeward, I taught a slew of overseas zoom presentations and supervisions.

I continued to work alongside a collection of super uber-talented APA publishing team members. The 3rd Edition of the book Narrative Therapy (finally) completed the 4 stages of copy editing and now enters the design phase. All hubris aside ~ this could be the best bit of writing I’ve done.

During early April and for the umpteenth time (these days more out of necessity), I set my sights on a Pacific Ocean shoreline village called Tofino that is as far away west as you can go in Canada. The reason is the spectacle of gray whales migrating up from Baja California towards the Berring Straight. We jumped on a First Nations boat. Awesome.

Springtime is NHL playoff time. Former PM of Canada Pierre Trudeau (from 1968-1979 & 1980-1984 + he’s outgoing PM Justin’s dad) once stated the game of hockey represented the ‘quintessence of Canadian culture’.

Watching alongside millions of Canadians, we cling to the ‘possibility’ the Toronto Maple Leaf’s get to the conference final for the first time in 23 years. Also praying (along with millions of Canadians), one of our three remaining Canadian teams wins the Stanley Cup - for the first time since 1993.

And without a doubt (nothing comes even close), the most memorable and breathtaking news over this past number of weeks, is - one of my twin daughters became engaged. Beautiful! She is over the moon. As are we all. And - I was sincerely touched her fiancé rang me up ahead of time to ask for my permission. Very sweet indeed.

Current VSNT Events

OK - the Vancouver School’s everyday full-on attention is now entirely focused on the Therapeutic Conversations 23 conference in Sacramento, California, October 8-11, 2025.

Therapeutic Conversations conferences are the world's unofficial capital for Live demonstration workshops. Come see what all the fuss is about!

If you are a practicing super-passionate-wanting-to-learn-more kind of therapist – and haven’t yet had the TC Live conference demonstration experience well – let’s just say it’s worth the price of admission (click on the ad below to be taken to the TC 23 conference site).

Given how the world of politics and pain is spinning, VSNT couldn’t think of a better time to host our October 8-11, 2025, Live demonstration narrative therapy conference in America - for the first time.

Thank you to the beautiful people and city of Sacramento, California. Hoping many of you will jump in and join us. In real time.

Historically, every Therapeutic Conversations conference highlights a singular theme or running title. Given the year we’re experiencing, we chose two:

1) Practice. Politics. Purpose.

2) When the World Walks into the Therapy Room.

As TC 23 hosts, we clearly understand how, on the surface, our conference may not be everyone’s cup of tea. However, we do promise participants this – you will never be bored, workshops won’t make you sleepy, have you bolting for the exits, or force you towards day drinking in your hotel room. Promise.

TC23 workshops will however push you to places you’ve never been before. The Live narrative therapy demonstrations are sure to blow your mind and, more than likely, connect you to your values and the many reasons why you chose to help people in the first place.

And, like so many other therapists, psychologists, nurses, psychiatrists, pastoral counsellors, and social workers who attend our TC conferences – there will be that very cool moment when you realize what you’ve been missing in therapy – is sitting there right in front of you. Promise.

Click here to register for TC23

When the World Walks into the Therapy Room: Practice, Politic and Purpose.

“By the privatizing of dilemmas is meant that problems, which have a large component of their origin within the social environment of the client, are localized within the personal and private domains of family life.”

– Irish scholar and systemic therapist Imelda McCarthy

Dissecting Neo-liberalisms takeover of Psychology

Let me try and help you connect the theoretical and practice dots of narrative therapy informed work. Just a little.

Let’s begin our stroll with a quick intro to individualism and the politics of right-leaning Neo-liberalism’s connection with the field of psychology and – why all this matters to narrative informed therapists and their clients.

The theory and practice of psychology is implicated in promoting the effects of neoliberalism in that it contributes to the ideological climate of individualism thus sustaining the neoliberal agenda’s practices.

While psychology is inherently connected to the social, cultural, political, and economic conditions of its time, psychologists have historically been reluctant to acknowledge their complicity with specific sociopolitical arrangements, often presenting their work behind a "veneer of scientism" or assumed value neutrality.

Listing (a few) ways Modern Psychology Interacts with Neoliberalism:

Focus on Individual Responsibility: Neoliberalism promotes the idea that individuals are primarily responsible for their successes and failures. Psychology often aligns with this by emphasizing personal responsibility, self-improvement, self-actualization, and resilience – at the expense of recognizing structural inequalities and the social, cultural, political, and economic conditions in the shaping of persons and problems.

Narrative Therapy response: objects to the tendency of mainstream psychology to medicalize and pathologize individuals for issues that are clearly influenced by and embedded within social, political, cultural, and economic contexts.

Marketization of Psychological Services: Under neoliberal policies, mental health services and therapies are often commodified, turning psychological help into market-driven products. This can lead to increased accessibility but also risks prioritizing profit over genuine care.

Narrative Therapy response: opposes the medicalization of social issues and the commodification of psychological services promoted by neoliberal policies. It rejects the notion that mental health problems are solely located within individuals, advocating instead for a post-structural therapeutic position and practice that recognizes the influence of dominant societal narratives and power relations and structures.

Performance and Self-Optimization: Psychological frameworks encourage self-optimization, productivity, and performance, reinforcing neoliberal values that equate worth with economic productivity. This can create a culture of constant self-monitoring and disciplining/governing the self to meet normative expectations.

Narrative Therapy response: objects to this by emphasizing the effects of power relations and the importance of societal and relational contexts. Advocates for collective and structural change rather than solely individual change. Therapeutic practice acts to decenter the individual narrative and consider broader social influences.

Individualization of Social Issues: Neoliberalism tends to frame social problems as individual issues rather than political, structural, cultural, or systemic. Psychology can sometimes reinforce this view by focusing on individual pathology rather than societal factors and neglecting broader social change.

Narrative Therapy response: Narrative Therapy is inherently a political act and objects to the ways in which psychological practices can reinforce dominant discourses that serve neoliberal interests—such as individualism, consumerism, and austerity. Narrative therapy challenges these power-over tactics and creates space for marginalized voices and alternative stories that resist neoliberalism’s internal state individualist narratives.

So, by focusing on individual internal states, self-management, and individual responsibility while downplaying social and political contexts, psychology can help to naturalize neoliberal values, depoliticize systemic issues, and hinder engagement in collective concerns, thereby preserving the dominant economic and social order.

*"Trying to make things easy results in great difficulties."*

– Lao Tzu

A few Questionable Practice Implications:

Pathologizing Social Problems: Neoliberal influence has led to and supports the ongoing medicalization of social issues, framing problems like poverty, unemployment, or inequality as individual mental health issues rather than systemic failures.
Increased Stigma and Self-Blame: When problems and failures are framed as personal deficits, individuals may blame themselves, leading to increased shame, guilt, and mental health struggles.
Erosion of Collective Solutions: Emphasizing individual responsibility may undermine collective efforts to address social injustices, reducing emphasis on policy change and social activism.
Potential for Exploitation: The commercialization of psychological services can exploit vulnerable populations, offering quick-fix solutions rather than addressing larger socio-political-cultural foundations.
Erosion of Social Responsibility: By focusing on individual self-care, self-reliance, and self-interest, psychology contributes to an ideological climate where persons may feel less obliged to consider or take responsibility for the welfare of others.
Depoliticization of Problems: By locating the source of problems within individuals (i.e. social anxiety, PTSD, unhappiness, shame, anorexia, school refusal, sadness, grief, etc.) and presenting them as issues of self-management or personal responsibility, psychological practices can obscure the broader sociopolitical and economic contexts that contribute to these issues.
Maintenance of the Status Quo: By promoting forms of subjectivity and practices that align with neoliberal demands, psychology is seen as maintaining the neoliberal status quo rather than acting as an agent for sociopolitical change. Psychologists are characterized as primarily "architects of adjustment," helping individuals adapt to existing conditions rather than questioning or working to change them.
Undermining Collective Action: Focusing narrowly on one's inner psychological life, desires, and individual pursuits, as encouraged by some psychological frameworks, can detach individuals from collective concerns and democratic practices, diverting attention from examining or questioning the sociopolitical context. The resulting emphasis on hyper-self-sufficiency denies and prevents the social relatedness necessary for collective action.
Challenged Ethics: The complicity of psychology with neoliberalism raises serious ethical questions about the profession's role and whether it is living up to its social responsibilities, particularly principal B of the APA code of ethics.

*“What is crucial for arriving at shared meaning inter-relationally, between persons, is context; and without context, words and actions have no meaning at all.”*

– Gregory Bateson

When it comes to discussing persons, problems and relationships, Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy training + Therapeutic Conversations conference workshops address and demonstrate:

Contextual and cultural complexities.
Social rituals, governing norms, and dominant beliefs.
Structural inequalities and power relations.
Relational responsibilities, obligations, and expectations.
History as contingent (it didn’t have to be the way it is).
Relational interconnectedness.

All VSNT training endeavors provide a certain beauty and experience in the company of other therapists who share your passion and values of situating persons and problems within the larger contextual, socio-economic, political, and cultural norms/normative expectations, all of us humans are embedded within and influenced by.

Therapeutic Conversations conferences are much like that first time being invited to your laid-back cool friend’s house for a dinner party. Whatever reservations you might have had are immediately soothed over by an overt lack of pretense, great range of interesting people, great music, hilarious self-deprecating stories, and far too much wine.

We hope you join us from October 8-11, 2025

in Sacramento, California.

Click here for more information about the Therapeutic Conversations 23 Conference