Our Multi-Storied Bodies Practices

What happens when we shift from viewing our bodies as a single entity to experiencing our bodies as a community of diverse members each with their own experience, position, and stories? This consultation group is for folx who are interested in centering post-structural, narrative practice, intersectional feminisms, and community ideas in our conversations with our bodies and in accompanying individuals, couples, families, and communities in conversations that are inclusive of their bodies. 

2023-11-14T16:09:19-05:00December 17th, 2022|0 Comments

Migration of Identity Consultation Group

This consultation group is for people who are familiar with narrative therapy practice and migration of identity in an experiential way and have a particular interest in unpacking ideas and practices that can accompany people/families/communities in times of movement (chosen and imposed), transition and liminality. While this can attend to large movements, it is also inclusive of small moments in daily life and moment-by-moment exchanges in conversations and relationships. Together we will explore our experiences accompanying people in these movements through sharing stories of practice and engaging in experiential exercises.

2023-12-26T04:17:27-05:00July 29th, 2022|0 Comments

The Em-BODY-ing Conversations Consultation Waiting List

The EM-BODY-ing Conversations Consultation Group is for mental health workers or educators who have had experience with mindfulness, EMDR Therapy or Somatic-Oriented Therapies in addition to a Narrative Therapy approach. Through sharing tales of our work with those who consult us, we will explore what becomes possible when we create different kinds of scaffolding using sensations, images/visual metaphors and memories in non-discursive ways. Talking about anti-racist and inclusive somatic practices will be privileged throughout our time together. As a prerequisite, participants will have previously taken an Em-BODY-ing Conversations training (online or in person) or have experienced integrating at least one of the following modalities with a Narrative Approach: mindfulness, somatic therapies, EMDR.

2022-04-05T21:25:10-04:00September 9th, 2021|0 Comments

October 17, 2021 Collab Salon: Reclaiming Lives from sexual violence: Understanding shame

Tim Donovan (Alice Springs, Australia) and Dale Johns (California Gully, Victoria, Australia) will apply narrative therapy approaches to counselling people who have been subject to sexual violence. The session includes a specific account of Dale’s experiences of childhood sexual violence. What is presented will challenge some traditional ideas around sexual assault counselling. There will be an opportunity to explore your beliefs around vulnerability and shame in your own work.

2021-10-20T06:37:04-04:00July 5th, 2021|Comments Off on October 17, 2021 Collab Salon: Reclaiming Lives from sexual violence: Understanding shame

June 20, 2021 Collab Salon: Reports from the LAB: Stories from youth dealing with homelessness at a community-arts center

Established in 2002, Le LAB is an endeavour of the CIPTO* in Gatineau, Quebec, dedicated to making arts and creative expression accessible to all. We focus on people at-risk of living or already living with challenges related to substance use, homelessness and social exclusion. The presentation will focus on the experience using storytelling in order to cultivate connection and empowerment within the activities of the LAB over the last year.

2021-07-04T18:15:44-04:00October 16th, 2020|Comments Off on June 20, 2021 Collab Salon: Reports from the LAB: Stories from youth dealing with homelessness at a community-arts center

October 17 2021 Collab Salon: Lines of Flight and Journeys of Recovery

Men who had experienced sexual abuse as children established SAMSN (Sexually Abused Men’s Support Network)  in Sydney Australia specifically  for men who had been sexually abused as children. Professionally facilitated peer support groups are among the many services they run. Terry and Rob have been facilitators for the Adelaide groups, but groups are run throughout New South Wales. 

2021-04-14T08:51:50-04:00September 29th, 2020|Comments Off on October 17 2021 Collab Salon: Lines of Flight and Journeys of Recovery

The Em-BODY-ing Conversations Consultation Group Sept 2020

The EM-BODY-ing Conversations Consultation Group is limited to 12 mental health workers or educators who have had experience with either EMDR or Somatic-Oriented Therapies in addition to a Narrative Therapy approach. Some registrants will have participated in the 2017 Em-BODY-ing Conversations Consultation Group. Experienced practitioners can sign up for this consultation group while concurrently taking the Em-BODY-ing Conversations Training Group. The focus is on an affective-discursive approach to clinical work that integrates EMDR Therapy and somatic-oriented practices with a Narrative Therapy both philosophically and practically.

2020-11-11T06:57:12-05:00June 23rd, 2020|0 Comments

September 2016 Collab Salon: Tales of Integration

How do we create a bridge between these paradigms practically, and philosophically, in ways that do not support interiority ideas and binaries of mind/body, inside/outside, thinking/feeling? How do we build a different kind of scaffolding to support clients in renegotiating their relationship with narratives  that are experienced and expressed through the body?  How can this integrative work help to deconstruct the “truth” status of trauma stories that become inscribed on the body and disrupt constraining patterns? How do we reconstruct memory in ways that opens up connection with new associations, subordinate stories, acts of redress, valued and preferred stances, and restored agency in living out meaningful lives? In working with clients who are navigating the effects of complex trauma, eating problems, and other problems that compromise relational living, Lynne has has come to appreciate what becomes possible when we work with the language of sensation, image and memory that she sees as constructed in relationship, yet often held privately. She has also witnessed how direct experience of sensations/images often become the enemy or perpetrator, making it difficult for clients to experience a visceral sense of safety and agency.  She will show how she uses this integrative approach with a client who has been working narratively with her colleague Larry Zucker. Join us in exploring what the bridging of these paradigms can make possible for our clients.

2024-10-04T02:50:34-04:00September 8th, 2016|Comments Off on September 2016 Collab Salon: Tales of Integration

November 2016 Collab Salon: Justice-Doing in therapy & community work

Vikki & Michael offer an alternative approach to work with trauma, which focuses on the resistance of victims of violence and oppression. Drawing from a decolonizing and justice-doing stance, their activist analysis resists the neutral and medicalised language of ‘trauma’, and names the contexts of social injustice that create the conditions for suffering. Honouring the wisdom of the people we work alongside in their acts of resistance and responses to trauma brings forward their agency and wisdom - creating identities of knowledge, autonomy and strength, as opposed to victim/survivor identities, or other spoiled identities.We will address structuring safety as the foundation of the work, alternative understandings of the way trauma works, and the duty of the witness to work towards justice-doing, connection of private pain with public issues.

2019-12-29T08:06:31-05:00July 8th, 2016|Comments Off on November 2016 Collab Salon: Justice-Doing in therapy & community work

March, 2015 Collab Salon: Working with People Living with Serious and Relentless Problems

We had a wonderful Collab session with SuEllen around her narrative approach to working with people who are living with serious and relentless problems or mental health challenges. Thank you to everyone who participated, and especially to SuEllen in offering us such a skillful, clear and energizing presentation.

2021-05-09T16:51:39-04:00July 8th, 2016|Comments Off on March, 2015 Collab Salon: Working with People Living with Serious and Relentless Problems

Responding to Trauma and Difficulties in People’s Lives

This two-day workshop with Maggie Carey and Peggy Sax will share some of the Narrative practices that have been found useful as ways of working with people’s experiences of difficulty and trauma in their lives such as abuse or violence, intense loss, or being subjected to oppression or injustice. Trauma can have the effect of establishing a sense of vulnerability, hopelessness and a sense of being stuck in the past events and not able to ‘do’ life.

2020-01-07T06:46:02-05:00July 29th, 2015|0 Comments