Rich Story Development Series

An Introduction to Rich Story Development with Maggie Carey

Course Description

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 $20, registrants can earn 12 APA approved CE credits through Alliant International University.

Course Objectives

Participants will:

  1. Gain an understanding of the ways in which the various micro-practices of Narrative Therapy are linked.
  2. Develop skills in inviting the development and embodiment of rich stories of self.
  3. Be able to identify small openings for story development.
  4. Gain an enhanced understanding of the conceptual landscape of identity.
  5. Utilize appropriate pathways to the development of stories of personal agency.
  6. Attend to the constraints of time and resource in workplace settings.

We are thrilled to welcome Maggie Carey, a member of Narrative Practices Adelaide- the center Michael started in 2008, just a few months before his untimely death. In this course, Maggie presents ideas and practices that she has gathered as a close associate of Michael White – his writings, his ideas, his work. She respectfully extends Michael’s metaphors of story, maps and landscape to create an overall map, offering clear pathways to rich story development.

Maggie Carey

Registration for this Self-Paced Course

Sliding Fee Structure 

Tuition for these courses—along with donations—is how we fund the creation and sustenance of this website and community it aims to facilitate. While our courses provide APA Approved Alliant CEs, we’re most interested in developing Re-Authoring Teaching into a generative community that grows and sustains Narrative Therapy and each other for years to come. Our new tiered pricing structure—subsidized, regular sustaining, and patron—reflects our best efforts to realize that dream. Re-Authoring Teaching Members receive a 10 % discount. Please select the highest rate you are able to pay:

  • Sustaining (Regular) Rate will help us recover costs to produce this course and sustain our website: $130 USD
  • Sustaining Re-Authoring Teaching (RT) Member 10 % Discount: $117
  • Subsidized Rate is a reduced fee for those of us facing financial barriers that interfere with paying the regular fee: $112 USD
  • Subsidized RT Member Rate 10 % Discount: $100.80
  • Patron is for anyone who can afford additional financial support to help support our community and resources: $225
  • Patron RT Member 10% Discount: $202.50
  • Donation is for anyone who can afford to contribute to our Nonprofit Organization including the development of future courses, resources and community building

Please contact us if you would like a rate for a group of four or more, higher education, or due to current circumstances, you require a further reduced fee.

Register Now
Earn 12 CE Credit $25

When you purchase the course

  • You will receive an email with the link to the correct page for beginning the course.
  • Each lesson and topic has space at the bottom for comments.
  • Contact us if you would like a Study-Buddy – a partner with whom to move through the course.
  • Please contact us to inquire about a group rate, a scholarship reduced fee or a live webinar.
If you have already registered, access course here:
Click Here to Take the Course

Earning Continuing Education?

Psychologists and other mental health professionals can earn 12 APA approved Continuing Education credits through Alliant International University!  You will need to pay the extra $25 fee. Simply pass the quiz at the end of the course, and email your confirmation to [email protected]. We will send you the certificate of completion.

  • For a list of course objectives, click here.
  • For a description of Alliant International University Continuing Education, click here.

Lesson Descriptions

Lesson One: A Quick Outline

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

Lesson Two: Using Maps as Metaphor

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

Lesson Three: Developing the Problem Story

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

Lesson Four: Developing the Preferred Story

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

Lesson Five: An Overall Map

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

Lesson Six: Putting Ideas into Practice

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
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Add CE Credit $25
Registered? Click Here to Take the Course