“Whatever sense we have of how things stand with someone else’s inner life, we gain it through their expressions, not through some magical intrusion into their consciousness. It’s all a matter of scratching surfaces."
(Clifford Geertz, 1988, p. 373)
Hello Everyone: Welcome back. To those of you living in the northern hemisphere – hoping summertime is shining down warm rays of light and laughter and for all of you sitting below the equator – trusting springtime blossoms and bird chirps are coming your way.
OK – here we go.
Fear in the wild
There was another report today of the cougar who, three weeks ago, mysteriously found its way on to the shores of Bowen Island. Apparently, last night over in Hood Point a man heard unfamiliar sounds on his back deck. He went out to investigate, and lo and behold wasn’t that cougar just finishing up a late-night rack of deer (no report on what the wine pairing was).
After moving to Vancouver from Toronto, off-grid camping began. And since then, I’ve developed a mighty fear of bears. I can honestly say I have never feared anything else, before. Not bike gangs, snakes, dark alleys, bar brawls, speaking in public, hair loss. Nothing. Just bears. Just that.
A fear of bears is known as arkoudaphobia and I totally have it – in spades. Sleeping in tents on BC’s wild ocean coastlines, filled with incredible shooting stars painting the nighttime cosmos, alongside a plethora of bear warning signs, has fueled this uh, awkward outdoor ‘condition’.
And now there is this cougar on the island where I live that has, as far as I know, never had a grade A predator of any kind beyond that of a few cheeky chewing beavers.
Fear stirs up its mischief and concern on where we decide to hike. We tell ourselves it’s all about protecting Matilda the Burmese-doodle dog. For me, the fact that it’s a cougar and not a bear, cautious considerations of creeping back to the favourite hike spot over in a gorgeous isolated forest filled with magnificent Douglas Fir, Bigleaf Maple and Cedars - accurately named the Fairy-Fen trail, beckons. We will see.
Things could be worse. I could have a condition known as ombrophobia - the fear of rain. I’m not quite sure if ombrophobia includes a few little rain drops, light mists, or short breezy drizzles? But if a local ever developed this particular fear condition, a decision would most definitely have to be made - do I live with heart thumping fear inside a beautiful temperate rain forest or - move to Vegas. Tough call.
A wee bit of narrative therapy history
Quoting renowned American cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz - again (1983):
"The Western conception of the person as a bounded, unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic centre of awareness, emotion, judgment, and action organized into a distinctive whole and set contrastively against a social and natural background is, however incorrigible it may seem to us, a rather peculiar idea within the context of the world’s cultures. (p. 229)"
Lately, I’ve been thinking and reading a lot on narrative therapy history. The people, the places, the practices. That sort of thing. Trying to connect all the dots. Trying not to leave anything out. Worried we’ll collectively forget. Watching where the remembering transports me towards, taking notes, and wondering what might be created.
Hope it’s ok and you’re up for reading a few bits of this history, now and in the future. Try this riff out and see what you think. Comments appreciated.
OK. In league with numerous feminist, post-colonial, and French post-structural philosophers, Geertz, alongside other postmodern cultural anthropologists (James Clifford, Barbara Myerhoff, Victor Turner, Stephen Tyler etc.) – profoundly influenced narrative therapy’s innovative practice turn towards a non-individualist view of human identity.
A non-individualist position that continues to shape and influence narrative practice and guides therapists to consider identity as: relational, political, interconnected, contextual, and communal.
Michael White’s historical non-individualist trajectory began in the 1980’s when he took a bold ideological and therapeutic step away from mental health traditions (which included almost everyone) supporting 100 years of internal state psychology.
I don’t believe Michael’s or narrative therapy’s intention was ever to overtly criticize the existing psychological order. No. It was more an exercise in a) holding dominant psychological ideas up for reflexive scrutiny and, b) create a new therapeutic way forward.
He first set about questioning the culture of psychotherapy and its fundamental political/social/therapeutic constructs. Constructs that featured generalized truth claims about the human condition that were served up as uncontested universal facts.
Facts were supported through pseudo-scientific psychological models regarding the ‘true’, ‘authentic’ and ‘core’ nature of persons and relationships - with little or no consideration given to culture, context, race, class, gender, structural inequalities, circumstance, era and so on.
More questions included the theoretical basis of individualism and essentialism, and psychology’s all-encompassing therapeutic focus on the individualized/essentialized (internal) self.
Also questioned was how the disembodied and decontextualized psychological idea of the self could possibly be viewed at the centre of identity, personal knowledge, and the source of human meaning and meaning making.
Further questioning involved sets of power relations regarding the therapist/psychologist’s taken for granted hierarchical position of power as self-identified expert of psychological knowledge and understanding, as well as the non-contextualized totalization of fixed client identities through psychological texts like the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM).
For numerous political reasons (and because his personal values were in support of this politic), Michael was instead drawn towards post-structural philosophical concepts, where relational meaning making and identity formation is viewed as interconnected and co-produced through cultural, contextual, and social interactions, which are in turn, shaped by specific socio-cultural, political, and economic forces.
narrative raised more and more suspicions about internal state psychological ideas of the self (and the practices of these ideas inside mental health institutions, journals, therapy rooms, etc.), narrative therapy stepped towards a rather different ecology of ideas and therapeutic practices.
An ecology where therapeutic receiving contexts viewed individual, couple, family, and community relationships - fully imbedded within, and under the direct influence of - cultural norms, rites, rituals, beliefs, expectations, obligations, responsibilities, and a wide range of politically dominant financial structures, educational institutions, and mental health paradigms. Hmmm.
Therapeutic Conversations 22 Conference
November 7th-9th, 2024
Vancouver, Canada
When the World Walks into the Therapy Room...
Historically, TC conferences are viewed as gymnasiums for presenters to work out in. Required reps consisting of examining, questioning, experiencing, and scrutinizing their latest work, honestly.
This year the TC22 presenter group decided to catch up together four different times on Zoom prior to the November 2024 conference.
Our collective meeting purpose is designed for companionship, connection, and curiosity. With meetings designed as discussion forums to ‘try out’ presentations, receive feedback, then double back and reshape presentations – before we meet all of you in Vancouver.
As a side note – down through the years I can’t tell you the number of veteran narrative presenters who have taken me aside and/or stated publicly at the beginning of a TC keynote or workshop, “I am so bloody nervous”, and/or some version of “this is the one and only therapy conference that truly terrifies me”.
I suppose this is a presenter’s way of showing humility and respect – to the brilliant learning context TC provides, alongside all of you.
Historical fact: Over the course of 22 TC conferences, VSNT has welcomed in over 100 keynote presentations. All have been tremendous and very well received – well ok, there was that one time when a keynote speaker was intoxicated and – well we put this down to a bad case of nerves (:
This year’s Therapeutic Conversations 22 conference keynote presenters follow in the footsteps of legends (a few invited back more than once):
Taimalieutu Kiwi Tamasese/Charles Waldegrave (4), Ken Hardy (3), Rachel Hare-Mustin (2), Johnella Bird (3), Makungu Akinyela (2), David Epston (3), America Braco (2), Vera Manual (2), Alan Jenkins (4), Arthur Frank (2), Imelda McCarthy (2), John Winslade (3), Michael White (3), and Esther Perel (2)
VSNT is proud to present this year’s TC22 Keynote presenter lineup:
Angel Yuen (Toronto, Canada) Reclaiming lives from the effects of childhood sexual abuse
Jennifer White (Victoria, Canada) Sustaining Our Collective Co-existence: Exploring Communal, Creative and Political Responses to Suicidality
Helene Grau Kristensen (Copenhagen, Denmark) Reclaiming our Grief, Reclaiming our Loved Ones
Karl Tomm (Calgary, Canada) An Invitation to Bringforthist Therapy
Rosa Elena Arteaga (Vancouver, Canada/Mexico City) Conversations about Trauma and Violence: Re-establishing Relationships with the Body through Re-writing Agreements with Survival Strategies
As per usual, we expect a sold-out TC conference. Please click the link below for conference registration, workshops, presenter bios, schedule, hotel discounts, group rates, and more. Thanks.
Questions? Please write to VSNT Communications Director Sasha Hawkins at narrativevancouver@gmail.com
A practice not (yet) taken
As one might expect, VSNT faculty trainers are often asked to explain various intricacies and complexities of narrative practice during teaching, training, supervision, and team consultations. Responding to questions about historical, theoretical, relational, political, and narrative practice understandings, discussing the grammar, politic, purpose and direction of questions, or outlining different modes of up-close supervision, etc.
Different countries, communities, and cultures can bring forth different theoretical and practice themes/interests. However, one of the more popular broad-based questions I can personally count is “what are you folks thinking about these days?” Hmmm.
Responding to the question leads towards broader participant inquiries regarding what is changing inside VSNT faculty therapy rooms (as each of us have particular ‘specialties’ that link to a participant’s special interests).
Leading to questions related to how, why, and in what ways is the ecology of my own narrative informed relational interviewing (NIRI) with couples -creating practices/questions that are different to what narrative therapy has traditionally been.
There is a fine balance involved in answering these sorts of questions.
On the one hand – I worry about leading participants into the deep end of narrative’s theoretical practice pool without first putting the time, clarity, and commitment towards unlearning popular pre-narrative Graduate School internal state psychology training experiences. Patience on everyone’s part is required. TTT – things take time.
On the other hand - I respect a narrative training participant’s desire to get a picture of where and what narrative therapy is moving towards, what specific narrative ideas we are re-thinking/re-tooling, and which new writers are we reading that reconfigures the overall practice experience.
I’ve learned through these important participant encounters that inquiry and speculation into what a therapist’s practice is becoming – no matter what their level of narrative practice - is vital to the process of learning.
Contemplating one’s future directions/desires involves - envisioning the trajectory of one’s practice, committing to the values their practice stands for, tracking the scaffolding of learning one has taken (each step of the way), and getting a sense of narrative practices - not yet practiced.
Lest we forget
Lewis H. Lapham, edited Harper’s Magazine for nearly three decades, and through his columns, books and later his own magazine, Lapham’s Quarterly, attacked what he regarded as the inequities and hypocrisies of (North) American life. He died last week in Rome at age 89.
Harpers was the first magazine I ever subscribed to (having been first introduced to it by (of course) my older sister Anne).
Lapham was the editor in chief from 1976 to 1981 and from 1983 to 2006. Harper’s magazine is published as a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts and offers an intoxicating potion of high culture and populism mixed with reports on abortion fights/rights, global warming, and the age of terrorism — with a progressive eye.
I’m not exactly certain of the year I first subscribed but I do know I was in my mid-20’s and somewhere before or just after my MSW studies. Harpers first began in 1850.
Down through the decades I read a regular monthly supply of ideas and provocations by Wendell Berry, Noam Chomsky, Christopher Hitchens, Naomi Klein, Joyce Carol Oates, Michael Pollan, Zadie Smith, Hunter S. Thompson, David Foster Wallace, Howard Zinn and (many, many) others.
I truly loved turning to the opening page where the “Harper’s Index” highlighted statistics concerning political, social, science, and environmental issues – that were always cool to re-quote to friends over a well poured handsome pint of Guinness.
When Lewis Lapham left to start his own Lapham’s Quarterly in 2007, I left Harpers and followed him. Each issue examined a singular theme using primary source material from history.
The inaugural issue "States of War" contained dozens of essays, speeches, and excerpts from historical authors. Each Lapham Quarterly was written around a topic and included "Foreigners", "Time", “Climate, "Youth”, etc., and every issue included an introductory essay by Lapham himself.
I’ve had the quiet luxury of learning from numerous mentors. All of them have left a bewildering shine and some like Lewis Lapham arrived from an unpredictable and unexpected corner.
Harpers (and Lapham’s Quarterly) whet my appetite for the long read. I learned so much, spent so many luxurious afternoons lounging in the company of spectacular writers, and I cannot possibly thank Mr. Lapham enough. Long may he run.
New VSNT training courses
VSNT has a few freshly designed narrative therapy informed courses arriving in the late Fall 2024, and early Winter 2025. These include a six month ongoing consultation/discussion/supervision course and, a 3-day narrative informed relational interviewing (NIRI) Couple Therapy course.
VSNT will have registration up and open by months end. For now, please take a gander at the VSNT Foundations Level One & Two courses in September and October, and of course the TC22 conference in November.
Thank you so much for finding your way all the way to the bottom.
I do hope the reading experience was a pleasant one.
Please contact me directly at: yft@telus.net
All the best ~ Stephen ☮️
Writers
While writing the 3rd Edition, I was at the same time reading mouth-watering books (long reads) from extremely talented writers within the fiction and non-fiction countryside. I experienced these texts as acts of reckless originality, distinguished by empathy, sly intelligence, and jumbo-sized doses of humanity. The author’s power as spellbinding storyteller was also a common thread, on full display. Of the many lessons learned from reading these authors (while I was writing about narrative therapy), was that wherever we are and whatever we are engaged with – good writers always find a way to connect and help us make sense of our experience – regardless of what they are writing about. Who were these helpful authors I was reading? Well, there are far too many to mention but, below is a small sample of three:
Wade Davis
This guy lives down the road from me on Bowen Island (: and followed his writing exploits for many years. He is a renown ethnobotanist (the study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the traditional knowledge of a local culture and people), anthropologist, and former long-time Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society in Washington DC. His latest offering is a series of remarkably original essays found in his 2024 book entitled Beneath the Surface of Things. I found the chapters “The Unraveling of America” and “Beyond Climate Fear and Trepidation” rigorous in the research, speaking the unspoken, and profound in the telling. Below is a short sample of what you might be getting yourself into. Davis recently did an interview with Les Anthony - one of my oldest and dearest friends - dating back to grade 10 Catholic School, University roommates, and fellow outlaw until figuring ourselves out, a little bit. Les holds a PhD in Ichtheology and Herpetology (salamanders, lizards, and snakes) but after Ivy League offers, decided to pack Academia in only to become one of the world’s best snow and outdoor sport writers. These days he writes books and long read articles on both nature and sport.
Heather Cox Richardson:
Democracy Awakening (notes on the state of America). To be honest, I love reading world history authored by skilled writing historians possessing a rare ability - transporting readers into the past while and showing what that time means to the present. I sought out Democracy Awakening after finding myself in muddles after late night conversations trying to find a historical past to explain the current US political ‘injudiciousness’. Cox Richardson is the author that quelled the complicated tapestry of confusion and angst regarding my US neighbours. Her book tells a compelling tale of an unending enraged struggle since America was ‘founded’ to live up to its best ideals – from its ongoing history of slavery right up to today’s authoritarians. An America founded with contradicting ideals: with beautiful ideas of liberty, equality, and economic opportunity for all on one hand, and slavery and dominance of an elite colonial minority on the other. It’s worth the read.
John Valliant:
Fire Weather – the making of a beast. Some of you have read his first award winning book The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed back during the noughties. A true story about a bizarre environmental protest, where a timber scout attacked a sacred tree with a chainsaw. Two days later the inimitable 300-year-old Sitka spruce tree, fifty metres tall and covered with luminous golden needles - a scientific marvel, a tourist attraction, beloved by local loggers, and sacred to the local Haida people on BC’s northern coast – fell hard and lonely to the ground. Valliant resides in Vancouver and his 2023 book Fire Weather is a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind. If you’re like me, over the last decade, you be developing a completely different relationship with fire from the days of roasting marshmallows around the campfire. Where I live many homes have a pre-packed ‘go-bag’ within easy reach in the event the emergency fire warning text alarm is sounded – demanding we find a way out, fast. Last summer a ferocious uncontrollable fire destroyed a friend of mine’s home along with half the homes of his small community they’d built decades ago on a pristine track of land. Fire Weather was named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian, TIME, Globe and Mail, The New Yorker, Financial Times, Smithsonian, Slate, NPR, Washington Post + more.
People No Longer Breathing: the last four months
image by Paxson Woelber on unsplash
Parents
Of the seven primary VSNT teaching faculty members, four lost a parent, over the last four months. Two Mothers. Two Fathers. Four different relational experiences. As a group of close friends, we care and support one another during these times. Enough said.
Alice Munro
Certainly, if you are Canadian (and chances are even if you are not), you have read one our best Canadian writers - Alice Munro. She was a master of the short story and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013. Growing up in the 1930s and ’40s in rural Ontario, Munro aspired to become a writer and was determined to do so even after having to drop out of college because she couldn’t afford it. Her first book of short stories, Dance of the Happy Shades, was published in 1968 when she was 37. Acclaim arrived in spectacular fashion and continued throughout her career as she won the top Canadian book award, the 2009 Man Booker International Prize, and the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature. Munro died at age 92 in May 2024.
Susan Johnston
No matter what kind of mental health profession you work in you’ve heard of Susan Johnston. She is a British-born Canadian clinical psychologist and best-selling author who developed Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). Years before I arrived onto the University of British Columbia campus, Sue had completed her Ph.D. there under the creative mentoring of Leslie Greenberg (who I took a few classes with during his final year at UBC). They called the new work (that I’ve always felt is Fritz Perls/Gestalt inspired) - Emotion Focused Therapy. After finding theoretical differences, she went out on her own to create Emotionally Focused Therapy. Her thesis was a scientific view of love - a novel method of couples therapy based in part on Bowlby’s emotional attachment. Sue’s left a long-lasting impact on the field and continues to have a worldwide following. She died on April 23 in Victoria, British Columbia. She was 76.
Vicky Dickerson
On April 4th, 2008, Michael White died. Sixteen years later, on April 3rd, 2024, Vicky Dickerson, another profoundly talented narrative therapist, passed. I’m could write pages about Vicky’s engaged escapades in life, her unwavering commitment to narrative ideas and practices, and the spirited legacy she has left for us. Instead, I’ll keep the story short in fear my reflection will not do her adequate justice. She and I enjoyed the better part of a three-decade long relationship built upon similar values, rebellious spirit, and a political will to follow Michael’s re-shaping the practice of psychotherapy. Vicky was quintessentially inquisitorial and always (always) up for spending long nights over her favourite bottle of Scotch discussing, opining, and debating the intimate particularities of narrative theory, practice, and the state of our therapeutic community (displaying similar passions after becoming the president of the American Family Therapy Academy – AFTA). We worked hard, pushed hard and boy-oh-boy did we laugh hard. She was cheeky. While planning our Vancouver Therapeutic Conversations conference in 2018 (Vicky had presented at a majority of them) I rang her up and suggested we present something together (along with Jill Freedman). We realized this would probably be the last time. We didn’t discuss this directly. However, what we did do during the conference was meet late-night in my room and reminisce, over her favourite scotch. We laughed. And cried a little bit. I take her with me.
Therapeutic Conversation 22 Conference
I’ve never been shy about my prodigious distaste for any kind of therapeutic exaggeration or fabulous representations of narrative therapy. That being said - the November 7-9, 2024, VSNT conference lineup on Granville Island in Vancouver hosts, what just might be, the best conference presenter lineup in many years.
I suppose what presenter style and workshop topic one is drawn to are matters of ‘personal’ taste. The VSNT preference for TC22 was to go out, and bring in, the cream of the crop of who we felt could best represent and demonstrate the relational, contextual, cultural, and political evolution of narrative ideas and non-individualist expressions of therapy.
Along with 18 skill focused workshops specifically designed to demonstrate a wide range of new practices (all delivered through Live interviewing, video tape, and client/therapist transcripts), we also chose 5 Plenary Speakers who we felt would pair well with one another and offer participants the most vital interactive learning experience.
TC22 Keynote Speakers: In order of appearance:
1) Angel Yuen, Losing a Loved One to Violence
2) Jennifer White, Political Responses to Suicide
3) Helene Grau Kristensen, Reclaiming Grief and Loss
4) Karl Tomm, Bringforthist Therapy
5) Rosa ElenaArteaga, Gender Violence and Trauma
Hmm. Murder, Suicide, Grief and Loss, Gender Violence and Trauma - I suppose we’ve never been a group to shy away from the hard and heavy practice places (: Truly hoping you find a way to join us.
Please find everything you need to know about the TC-22 Conference here:
Therapeutic Conversations 22 Conference
November 7th - 9th, 2024
Granville Island, Vancouver, Canada
Thank you for reading all the way to the bottom.
Comments? Please contact me directly at: yft@telus.net.
Until next time. Stephen x
PS – Should We Go Extinct? A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times – is the title of Todd May’s spellbinding book coming out Aug. 6 - published by Penguin/Random House. This new piece is written written for a public audience.
Ok - I’m giving 2-1 odds the book ends up on the New York Times best-selling list. Any takers (:
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