Rich Story Development Series

Michael White described narrative explorations as journeys with therapists as companions, guided by a range of therapeutic practices or maps. These journeys awake in people a sense of agency, a realization that they can actively shape their own lives. It is in this practice of ‘rich story development’ that the people who consult us gain an experience of coming to new and preferred ways of experiencing their lives. It is this preferred story that provides the person’s own answers and solutions to what is problematic.

The first course in this series draws from Maggie Carey’s June 2014 workshop in Shelburne, Vermont: Catching up with Narrative therapy: The Art of Going Slowly with Intent . Professionally filmed, this training event captured some of Maggie’s best teaching moments—a clear, concise and down-to-earth journey into topics about story development including the narrative metaphor, landscapes of stories, double listening, loitering with intent, mapping meaning and action, personal agency, listening for resonance, making links, and neurobiology. This exploration of the narrative approach will be aided by reference to an ‘overall’ map of narrative practice that facilitates some sense of knowing where we are in the conversation.

What does it look like in narrative practice to see problems as separate from persons, to take on a multi-storied approach, and to find openings to stories linking people to their know-how and skills? This five lesson course – the second course in our Rich Story Development series- begins where we left off in the course, An Introduction to Rich Story Development by demonstrating what a narrative interview actually looks like in practice. Each interview, illustrated on a whiteboard, shows key narrative principles in action, and specific interviewing skills guided by maps of narrative practice. Workshop participants are also involved through reflecting teamwork,  and responses to questions to Maggie about why she went the way she did in each interview. After reviewing the edited interviews, a small group of skillful narrative practitioners  and teachers from around of the world, each of whom has trained extensively with Maggie, come together to take a close look at what stands out to them.