This course—the first in our Rich Story Development Series—offers 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. The course is organized into six lessons (see below) and illustrated with edited video clips from Maggie Carey‘s June 2014 workshop in Shelburne, Vermont: Catching up with Narrative therapy: The Art of Going Slowly with Intent .  Registration gives unlimited access to all course materials for personal use for an unlimited time.  You can start this course at anytime: all course materials are available on-demand, and adaptable to personal schedules. For an additional $40, registrants can earn 12 APA-approved CE credits through Alliant International University.

What do we mean by rich story development? Maggie Carey – a close associate of Michael White- sets the stage for his course by introducing her context at Narrative Practices Adelaide in South Australia, and giving a brief review of several key concepts in narrative therapy: the narrative metaphor, externalizing conversations, literary theory, alternative storyline development and experiencing personal agency. Here is a little glimpse at Maggie offering a brief description of personal agency as the foundation for rich story development:

Guided by Maggie Carey, with a focus on the works of  Shona Russell, Rob Hall, Michael White, Lev Vygotsky and Gil Deleuze

Michael White introduced maps of narrative practice as a guide to interviewing practices toward rich story development. His book, Maps of Narrative Practice, offers an excellent description of these maps.  In this lesson, Maggie further extends Michael’s metaphor of maps and landscape, and shows how she uses a white board to map out several clear pathways to rich story development.

Guided by Maggie Carey, with a focus on the works of  Michael White, and Shona Russell

We show how to build on The Statement of Position Map to guide responding to the problem story, exploring the effects, creating reflecting surfaces and asking why. The lesson ends with showing how responding to the problem story can be a pathway to discover the preferred story.

Guided by Maggie Carey, with a focus on the works of Michael White, Lev Vygotsky, William James, Russell Meares and Paul Ricoeur

In the fourth lesson, we explore how narrative practice can render more visible a person’s preferred account of identity while making links with doing and experiencing. As taught by Michael White, Maggie enters into a person’s conceptual landscape of meaning, by attending to categories of meaning or identity. Additionally, she pays close attention to the particularities of the doing and experiencing-  listening for initiatives, making links, linking with themes and drawing out skills and know-how.

Guided by Maggie Carey, with a focus on the works of Michael White, and Lev Vygotsky

This lesson illustrates an overall map based on double listening to guide narrative practice, and loitering in rich story development. Putting narrative maps together, Maggie shows how describes the statement of position map and the re-authoring map can come together into one elegant map.

Guided by Maggie Carey with a focus on the works of Marie-Nathalie Beaudoin, Michael White, Lev Vygotsky and William James

Our final lesson puts ideas into practice. We try out an exercise done in pairs, and review four pathways to rich story development.

Guided by Maggie Carey with a focus on the works of Shona Russell, Peggy Sax, Michael White and Lev Vygotsky