Our public blog is filled with a mix of news, updates, narrative therapy resources, book reviews, inspirations and provocations. You can also find places to join in with your own comments.
Re-Authoring Teaching 2.0
How can we continue to grow and sustain Narrative Therapy and each other for years to come? Now, in collaboration with a new generation of narrative practitioners, we're making some exciting new plans. Please join us as we unveil Re-Authoring Teaching 2.0!
Supporting Rights, Channeling Anger, Finding Reasonable Hope
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.
What Can I Do? Earth’s Environmental Crises and Opportunities for Change
“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.”
We Stand with Ukraine
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!
Narrative Practices India: A Conversation with Jehanzeb Baldiwala
Warm greetings to all of you! Welcome to the first blog post in a new interview series featuring independent narrative training programs who share a commitment to preserve, develop, and extend the legacy of narrative therapy. In the spirit of communities in connection (rather than individuals in competition), these interviews will honor the work of our partners with particular attention to the new generation(s) of fresh voices from around the world. Watch this video trailer and read excerpts of a conversation with Jehanzeb Baldiwala from Narrative Practices India (NPI), which gives glimpses into NPI's vision, collaborations and training endeavors in diverse contexts.
A Tour Through Fresh Eyes
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.
Stop Asian American Pacific Islands (AAPI) Hate
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, Ending Police Brutality & Showing up for Racial Justice
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. ...
Anti Burnout, Delving Into Difference, Inclusivity, Climate Change- and Other Themes -for the Coming Year
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.
Refreshing the Spirit of the Work- 2018-19 series
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.
New Consultation Groups – Beginning January 2019
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.
A Reauthoring Teaching Update!
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!
An Open Letter to The Narrative Community
We at Re-authoring Teaching hope to contribute to a richer conversation about how, as a community, we make space for useful dialogue about all the variations and emerging approaches. In a previous News Blog entitled What are Insider Witness Practices, we posted some background information in the hopes that by educating ourselves, we can each decide for ourselves about the value, ethics and possibilities for this set of practices in training, supervision and higher education. Below you will find links to the Newsletter that sparked the controversy, to a previous newsletter that ironically argued against handling differences in the narrative community in injurious ways, and to some initial responses from those who feel like the descriptions of Insider Witnessing Practices have been inaccurate and unfair, and who feel that the process by which these concerns have been aired involved questionable ethics and use of power. We also include some of our Board’s contributions as we reflect on Narrative Luminaries, Online Ethics, and our intentions to continue this conversation. Please join us!
What are Insider Witness Practices?
Some of you may be aware that in the Vancouver School of Narrative Therapy December newsletter, Stephen Madigan wrote about Tom Carlson and David Epston’s recent work on Insider Witnessing Practices in a manner that many have found distressing. As narrative therapy continues to grow and evolve, we at Re-authoring Teaching hope to contribute to a richer conversation about how, as a community, we make space for dissent, worry, doubt, and concern about the various directions that the work will go. Many of the Re-authoring Teaching Board have had a chance to learn about IWP from its creators. We encourage you to explore the work as described by its creators, and then join the conversation about the value, ethics and possibilities for this set of practices in training, supervision and higher education.
Faculty Offerings – Beginning in September 2017!
Re-authoring Teaching has selected three Customized Faculty Consultation Groups as extensions of our training initiatives and to further build our global learning community. Wherever you are situated around the world, you are welcome to join us in real-time for these unique group experiences. Please sign up soon if you would like to register especially since these groups start in September/October. In addition, we include a unique apprenticeship training opportunity with David Epston, Tom Carlson & Kay Ingamells! Wherever you are situated around the world, you are welcome to join us in real-time for these enlivening group experiences.
Our First Guest Blog
Thanks Jess for agreeing to write our first Guest Blog - a new feature on this website. Jess wrote these reflections after attending her first Narrative Therapy workshop (June 2017) sponsored by Re-authoring Teaching.
Developing in Collaboration
Mandy Kimm has just joined the Re-Authoring Teaching team as Peggy Sax’s assistant, and we're entering a new phase—find out about some of the in-process changes and new projects!
Vermont Workshops & Narrative Camp 2017
Who needs some good news? We sincerely hope these Re-authoring Teaching offerings will offer a ray of hope and possibility for 2017. Early Bird registration is now open for three workshop days in June! Narrative Camp 2017 details are now ready. We've also added two new sections to our website: Curated Resources & Faculty Offerings.
Narrative Therapy in Wonderland
From the get-go, engaging prose makes this book fun—yes, fun!—to read. Vivid transcripts reveal the powers children have when their imagination, ingenuity, and sense of humor are engaged. Creativity is central to narrative therapy, as is moving past one-size-fits-all solutions. It is refreshing to learn how the creative capacities of each child and family can be channeled towards elegant and often unique resolution of the challenges they face, and to see the 'wonderfulness' of [...]
Register Now for Online Course with Larry Zucker!
Course Registration Now Open! Escaping Blame: Helping Couples Develop Account-ability with Larry Zucker, LCSW, has been in development for over a year. We are very excited to share the six lessons with you. The course draws from a range of multi-media resources with built-in opportunities to interact with Larry and with each other. Each lesson captures some of Larry's best teaching moments and then demonstrates the practices with clips from simulated interviews. We also explore transcripts, and provide exercises [...]
Bridging Narrative Therapy, EMDR and Somatic Therapies
We are delighted to announce Lynne V. Rosen, LCSW as our newest member of our Re-authoring Teaching Faculty. Currently practicing in Los Angeles, California, Lynne has been engaged in therapeutic work for over 25 years in medical, residential, inpatient, community and private practice settings. She found her therapeutic and philosophical home in the early 90’s when she traveled to New York to hear Michael White and David Epston. Most recently, Lynne has focused her attention on integrating Narrative Therapy [...]
Narrative Therapy in Wonderland: April Collab Salon!
David Marsten David Epston Laurie Markham David Marsten, David Epston & Laurie Markham launch their new book. Narrative Therapy in Wonderland: Connecting with Children's Imaginative know-how will soon be published by WW Norton! This innovative book makes a significant contribution to recognizing and utilizing the power of children’s voices and imagination in narrative therapy. Join us for our first Collab Salon book launch - Sunday, April 17 @ [...]
Maggie Carey’s Return to Vermont – Update!
Please note: Originally planned for Treleven Farm, Maggie Carey's Live Interviews workshop quickly sold out. We have moved the location to All Souls in Shelburne, Vermont to make more room. If you were on the waiting list - or hadn't yet gotten around to signing up - please register as soon as you can to ensure a spot! Registration is open for Maggie Carey workshops in Vermont - and filling up fast! Both workshops put ideas into practice through discussion, [...]
Narrative Therapy India
The Ummeed Child Development Center – one of the premier non-profit organizations in India working with children with disabilities- is taking a number of initiatives to offer trainings in narrative therapy. Along with Narrative Practices Adelaide, it is an honor for Re-authoring Teaching to partner with this group, to witness their commitment to high quality training, and to support their growing number of training initiatives. The Ummeed Mental Health Teaching Team Jehanzeb Baldiwala [...]
Working with Couples: Larry Zucker Course Preview!
The online course, Escaping Blame: Helping Couples Develop Account-ability with Larry Zucker, LCSW is now in active development, and scheduled to begin in September 2016! This course is organized into six lessons exploring therapeutic conversations that are possible when Accountability emerges as practice distinct from Blame, and what we can do as therapists to nurture that distinction. The course builds on a number of materials including video clips from Larry's June, 2015 Vermont Workshop, Escaping Blame: Helping couples develop account-ability; simulated interviews, exercises, [...]
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