Interpersonal Neurobiologically-Informed Narrative Therapy

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Norton has donated three complimentary copies of the newly published Narrative Practices & Emotions book that we will raffle off during this workshop. You can also get a 20% discount and free shipping on your book copy.

Note: This Zoom link is only for registrants!

Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) is a branch of medicine that addresses people’s propensity to create personal narratives influenced by life experiences, relationships, and contexts. Might there be valuable practices that could arise from combining the wisdom of narrative therapy with ideas from this scientific discipline so that we can continue improving our work? There are many. 

In this workshop, Marie-Nathalie will share some practices she has developed over twenty years of examining the rich intersection between narrative practices and IPNB.  She will propose four sets of practices inspired by IPNB’s model of integration and well-being.  In a nutshell, there are ways of mobilizing different areas of the brain to facilitate clients’ movement from distressing emotions and problem stories to an experiential space where preferred experiences are more likely to emerge.  With a little knowledge of physiology, we can dampen intense emotional experiences, often impeding clients’ possibilities of engaging in ways of being they clearly prefer but struggle to sustain. For example, using the IPNB model of integration, questions can be crafted to more specifically engage areas of the brain associated with reasoning, perspective, and deconstruction. In contrast, other questions can more readily engage areas involved in meaning-making, preferred experiences, and emotion regulation. Similarly, some embodied emotional experiences such as helplessness or shame need powerful embodied counterstates to be activated to increase possibilities that the preferred self can triumph in moments when despair is lurking. The process of intentionally recruiting different areas of the brain and body to deconstruct problem stories and intensify preferred experiences of self opens a treasure chest of clinical possibilities with trauma and intense problem experiences.

Participants in this event will learn four categories of brain processes, including many powerful questions to expand our repertoire of practices.  Those questions will be organized by type and purpose, practiced through exercises, illustrated by videos, and exemplified in inspiring stories of transformation.

This workshop is the second in the Narrative Practice & Emotions series with Marie-Nathalie and Gerald Monk. Register for the entire series or this single event!