Peggy Sax

Re-authoring Teaching joins many voices in expressing our outrage at the recent decisions by the aggressively conservative U.S Supreme Court - overturning the constitutional right to abortion, expanded rights of gun owners to carry firearms in public, an erosion of the separation of church and state in public life and a sharp curtailing of the Biden administration's power to combat climate change. Soon comes a decision on state legislatures' power over elections. We cannot help wondering about the implications for other rights such as the access to birth control, marriage equality, Native American sovereign rights and trans rights. These developments are also sending shockwaves throughout the world. Re-Authoring teaching wishes we could stand close to every person, precious relationship and connection that has been and will be affected by these blatant attacks. While finding our bearings, we ask ourselves: What might help us remember that we are in the business of inspiring hope? Much of our work involves uncovering histories of struggle in fights not yet won, and celebrating stories that guide and encourage future efforts. With that in mind, there are many creative and hopeful efforts that can channel our anger into effective actions.

“To be hopeful means to be uncertain about the future, to be tender toward possibilities, to be dedicated to change all the way down to the bottom of your heart.”  Rebecca Solnit. This news blog and annotated resource is the first in a series to support you in this work.  Our current featured resource is Regeneration, a website described as a “response to the urgency of the climate crisis.”

Re-authoring Teaching’s oft-repeated intention of supporting Narrative Therapy around the world and across generations presents a new challenge to us at this moment: How do we support our sisters and brothers in the Ukraine? How do we support our colleagues who are closest to the struggle? How do we get close enough to the struggle ourselves that they don’t feel alone in it? On a National Public Radio broadcast this morning, a grandmother was interviewed, deep in a subway in Kyiv, where she was spending the night keeping her grandchildren safe. She was recalling family stories about how her grandmother had sheltered her parents from the Nazis in the same manner. “How can this be my life?” she asked. Talk about across the generations!

Welcome Trishala Kanakia as our new Reauthoring Teaching assistant! Through her fresh eyes, she shares here about six new developments that caught her attention: Featured Collab Salon Recordings, Rich Story Development in Action: 3 live interviews with Maggie Carey, What I learned from my mentor, The Collaborative Narrative Training Network Calendar, The 11 Hot Topics and 1 Burning Topic, and Reauthoring Confinement.

The Re-authoring Teaching Board fully endorses the statement by the Auntie Sewing Squad in response to Asian American Pacific Islands (AAPI) violence. Founded by Kristina Wong in Los Angeles,  this group of self-sufficient volunteers gives their time, talent, materials and labor to sew and deliver masks to people who need them most. Our board member, Kathie Adams is a member of this group, having been sewing masks throughout the pandemic, and donating them to the Auntie Sewing Squad for their distribution to the most marginalized communities. We share your heartbreak and anger at the deadly violence that occurred in Georgia on March 16, 2021. We mourn those who were killed, most of whom were Asian/Asian American women, and stand in solidarity with their loved ones. We are alarmed by the broader context of escalating anti-Asian violence.

Black Lives Matter. Matters. Narrative Therapy has “mattering” at its heart. It has always been about helping people re-story and restore their lives according to their own deeply held values, according to what matters to them. We’ve long sought to support people in finding ways to resist the individualizing, psychologizing, decontextualizing, and pathologizing descriptions of their struggles that much of the world—and much of our field—reproduce and reinforce. But the time has come for us to acknowledge the insufficiency of our past efforts. ...

September is a time for new beginnings. We live in difficult times when we need more than ever to build communities of shared purpose,  focus our energies on what matters most to us, and to sustain our spirit in the work. A big thank you to The Reauthoring Teaching Board and to everyone' contributions in the past year to The Collab Salon, Narrative Camp & Workshops, Online Courses , Faculty Offerings. We are especially excited for opportunities to participate in so many conversations across narrative generation(s). Our hope is that our mission will continue to guide us over the coming year(s). Please join us in bringing the invigorating and community building spirit of Narrative Camp 2019 into our coming year. Read below to learn more about themes guiding what's emerging in our 2019-2020 Narrative Training initiatives.

Thank you Sasha- and to all of whom participated in Sasha Pilkington's workshop, A Narrative Approach to Therapeutic Conversations at the End of Life. This gathering was the first in our 2018019 Refreshing the Spirit of the Work workshop series of smaller, local workshops. 

A new round of customized Faculty Consultation Groups will begin meeting through Zoom in September 2018. These groups are in addition to the ongoing apprenticeship training opportunity with David Epston, Tom Carlson & Kay Ingamells. Wherever you are situated around the world, we invite you to join us in real-time for these enlivening group experiences.

Over the past several months, our website has been experiencing significant technical glitches. Our sincere apologies for any frustrations w these problems have contributed to your lives and work.  Dealing with these problems has brought forth much reflection leading to initiated some major improvements. Please join me in welcoming our new Reauthoring Teaching Team Members. And check out our upcoming Narrative Training initiatives!