First Course in New Series!

Now in active construction,  this course will open for registration in 2023. Keep watching this site and sign up for our newsletter for updates.

New Horizons in Narrative Therapy, Affect & the Body

SuEllen Hamkins, Lynne Rosen and Navid Zamani introduce the new self-paced online course, New Horizons in Narrative Therapy, Affect and the Body.

Course Description

The first course in our series builds on our deep respect for the evolution of Narrative Therapy while creating spaces for an interplay with other treasured approaches to working with people experiencing serious difficulties in their lives and relationships.  Please join us as we honor our narrative roots while bringing forward specific therapeutic practices that engage narrative meaning-making while cultivating healing embodied experiences. Integrative work opens up possibilities for responding to habits of body, re-contextualizing dilemmas, engaging moral imagination, and re-populating lives in ways that support agency and movement toward preferences for living and relating. Through seven lessons, we draw from philosophy and practices associated with The Affective Turn, bringing together understandings of rich story development, trauma and its effects, memory theory, attunement practices and applications of mindfulness, EMDR and somatic therapies. We strongly recommend taking this course before the second course in the series.. For an additional $40, registrants can earn 14 APA approved CE credits through Alliant International University.

Course Objectives

This program will enable participants to

  1. Gain an understanding of several ways the ways to bring together The Affective Turn and Narrative Therapy.
  2.  Develop skills in relational listening to the habits and expressions of the body.
  3. Consider the relationship between politics, culture, memory and embodiment in the context of decolonizing practices.
  4. Strengthen understanding of the interplay between memory theory, trauma and rich story development.
  5. Develop skills in inviting the development and embodiment of rich stories of self with particular attention to the consequences of trauma.
  6. Grapple with philosophical congruence while identifying openings that help re-contextualize dilemmas.
  7. Explore several integrative approaches that cross-pollinate with narrative practice.
  8. Identify at least two ways to move beyond the discursive turn and incorporate emotional attunement in our work.
  9. Further connect to curiosity, invitation, transparency, and client authorship, while resisting taking up expert ways of knowing.

To Register

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.

  • Regular: $160 USD
  • Re-Authoring Teaching Member 10 % Discount: $144
  • International Rate: $125
  • Student or Fixed income: $120 USD
  • Group of Four or more: $115
  • 12 CE Credit: $40 extra
Discounted rates available for students or fixed income, international registrants, and groups of 5 or more.
To Register Including for CE Credit
Registered? Click Here to Take the Course

Course Contributors

We are thrilled to bring together a team of colleagues with contributions to this topic.

Maggie Carey

In this course, Maggie Carey articulates and demonstrates narrative interviewing practices that she learned as a close associate of Michael White, co-founder of narrative therapy. Maggie was a founding member of Narrative Practices Adelaide, the center Michael started in 2008, just a few months before his untimely death. Alongside her colleagues Shona Russell and Rob Hall, she was involved in the teaching of narrative therapy and community work for many years, both in Australia and internationally. Prior to the establishment of NPA, Maggie was a cherished member of the Dulwich Centre teaching faculty. Now retired, Maggie thoroughly enjoys engaging with her home, gardens, family and community in Adelaide, S. Australia.

Danielle Drake

Danielle Drake, Ph.D., is Program Chair, Associate Professor, and an alum of the Counseling Psychology Expressive Arts Therapy program at CIIS. She received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Fielding Graduate University, where her dissertation explored the use of creativity and spirituality among African Americans. Her research led to an initial validation of the Black Spiritual Creativity Scale (BSCS) which is now used in several research projects and studies. Her post-doctoral internship at the Rafiki Coalition focused on holistic health and wellness in the Bayview/Hunters Point community of San Francisco.

Dr. Drake’s clinical work engages clients in creative writing, music, and visual arts processes. She has also worked in Human Resources as a corporate recruiter and HR administrator and in nonprofit management as a Grant Writer, Fund Developer, Program Director, and Executive Director. She is the author of Cast Iron Life: A Collection of Poems and Recipes, a spoken word artist, a former Oakland Poetry Slam Champion, and the host of a Public Programs conversation with Angela Davis.

SuEllen Hamkins

SuEllen Hamkins, MD is a psychiatrist and author. SuEllen’s passion is helping people cultivate their values and strengths in the face of challenges and difficulties. Her work centers on three main areas: narrative psychiatry, college student mental health and mother-daughter relationships. She is Assistant Director of the Center for Counseling and Psychological Health at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. SuEllen is a co-founder of the Mother-Daughter Project, and has created a series of videos on helping mothers and daughter thrive. Her most recent book is The Art of Narrative Psychiatry, published by Oxford University Press. To read more, click here.

SuEllen gave the 2015 workshop, Working with people facing severe and persistent problems, and has presented on the Collab Salon on Working with People Who are Living with Serious and relentless problems or Mental Health Challenges.

Sarah Beth Hughes

Sarah Beth Hughes works as a Couple and Family Therapist in Nelson, BC Canada. She was introduced to Narrative ideas through her work as the North American Distributor of Dulwich Publications throughout the 1990’s. She got the privilege of attending many of Michael White’s training and got inspired to do this kind of work herself. Along the way she also met many of Michael’s colleagues and friends including Peggy Sax who have helped her feed her passion for this work.

Gerald Monk
Gerald Monk PhD (San Diego, California) is the former Director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program in the Department of Counseling and School Psychology at San Diego State University. He is a practicing Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, AAMFT Supervisor, and a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor. His research and teaching interests include Affective therapy, narrative mediation & conflict resolution, constructionist & discursive theories, restorative practice, and mental health recovery.
Laure Maurin
Laure Maurin (Bordeaux, France) is specialized in education and early childhood. For more than 10 years, she worked as an educator for disabled children in a day hospital, a therapeutic and educational institute, and an emergency home for juvenile offenders. Trained in the early childhood sector, she taught for more than 7 years to childcare assistants on child development, caring education, welcoming children and having a child with a disability. Mother of four children (and grand-mother of 4), Laure shares her experience and skills for a positive and caring education.

Laure trained in narrative therapy at the Fabrique Narrative in Bordeaux, in Paris and with David Epston, David Denborough and Jill Freedman. She accompanies young people and teenagers in narrative therapy. Laure has been practicing yoga for over twenty years, trained at the French Yoga School for four years, and leads meditation and yoga workshops. She likes to accompany people with disabilities through body language and narrative practices. She hopes that each person can find, at his or her own pace, a better knowledge of his or her body, breath and being in its entirety.

Laure conducts workshops in France and Belgium to train narrative practitioners in her work.For the past three years, she has created a method of conversation based on the relationship one has with his body, linking her practice of narrative ideas, and her experience in yoga and hypnosis. She first proposes a narrative conversation about the relationship the person has with their body, following this conversation and after a protocol of re-association of the person with their body.She then interviews the body, as an outsider witness of the conversation it has just heard.At the end of the interview, the person in turn reacts to the words of the body that she has just heard.

David Pare

David Paré, Ph.D., is a Counselling Psychologist and director of the Glebe Institute, a Centre for Constructive and Collaborative Practice in Ottawa. He is a professor emeritus in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa, where he taught counselling and psychotherapy. David has written widely and presented internationally on the subject of narrative and postmodern therapies, as well as offering training and supervision in these areas. He is the author of The Practice of Collaborative Counselling and Psychotherapy (2013, Sage), and co-editor of two books about collaborative practices in counselling and therapy. He is in the final phases of completing an edited book with Cristelle Audet on Social Justice and Counseling.

David has maintained a mindfulness practice for the past 30 years. Along with Ian Percy, he co-presented a Collab Salon on Narrative & Mindfulness Practice, which is now available to Collab members in our library of Past Salons. We are thrilled to welcome David & Ian as co-presenters for a June 13, 2017 workshop in Shelburne Vermont: Integrating Mindfulness & Narrative Practice.

Ian Percy

Ian Percy Ph.D. (Perth, Western Australia) is a family therapist, supervisor, trainer and published author in narrative and mindfulness approaches. Inspired by the writings of Michael White, David Epston and Alan Jenkins, he took a social constructionist and narrative turn in his practice some 25 years ago, intrigued by the power of cultural discourses and language to shape our lives and relationships. Ian has also studied and practiced various forms of meditation for four decades. The intersection of these influences led him to pursue an integration of mindfulness and Narrative Therapy, which includes attending to gestures and postures as expressions of distress, as statements of position, and as openings to preferred storylines. He is interested in notions of attentional capture and attentional choice, and the politics and ethics of mindful attention in therapy. Ian co-presented with David Paré the May, 2016 Collab Salon on Narrative & Mindfulness Practice and the June 2017 workshop, Creating Spaces for Emerging Practices.

Lynne Rosen

Lynne V. Rosen, LCSW (Pasadena, California) 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, she has focused her attention on integrating Narrative Therapy with EMDR, Somatic Therapies and Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) with clients who are living with the effects of Trauma, Eating Problems and other difficulties that compromise relational well-being. Her favorite proverb is an African one: “Until lions have historians, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter.” Lynne has had a long-standing interest in bringing forward lions’ tales, stories and experiences at the margins, where there is wisdom and knowledge that can transport us all. She continues to feel passionate about teaching, supervising and public conversation work and for many years, she had the privilege of working as Core Faculty and Director of the Postmodern Therapy Training Program at PGI and Co-Founder of WPLA (Women’s Project Los Angeles).

Peggy Sax

Peggy Sax, Ph.D. (Cornwall, Vermont), is the founder and Executive Director of Re-authoring Teaching – the global learning community of narrative therapy practitioners, teachers, and enthusiasts that is represented on this website. Peggy carries a steadfast commitment to preserving, developing, and extending the legacy of narrative therapy. She loves to collaborate with colleagues across narrative generations, co-creating quality training materials and together building a narrative learning community. Having apprenticed herself to narrative therapy since the early 1990s, Peggy also works in independent practice as a Licensed Psychologist, consultant, international teacher, and international trainer. She is the author of several articles and the book Re-authoring Teaching: Creating a Collaboratory. Creating this online series is a dream come true for Peggy: working with people she profoundly respects, persevering to develop excellent courses together, and thereby contributing to a field she deeply values.

Shoshana Simons

Shoshana Simons, (she/her/femme) PhD, RDT (Registered Drama Therapist) is a Professor and former Program Chair of CIIS’s MA in Counseling Psychology, Expressive Arts Concentration, and Interim Chair of the Community Mental Health Concentration where she teaches Family & Couple Dynamics, Multicultural Counseling & the Therapeutic Relationship & Narrative Expressive Arts Family Therapy, a voice actor and arts-based coach & consultant with Key of Life Academy. She is also adjunct faculty at the Northwest Creative & Expressive Arts Institute, Seattle, WA, where she offers a Certificate in NarrARTive Expressive Arts in Coaching. Shoshana has 35+ years of experience working in multicultural settings with children and adults in the fields of play, education, antiracism, counseling psychology, organizational development, and community work.

Originally from London, UK, Shoshana came to the USA in 1990 to complete a clinical traineeship at The Stone Center, Wellesley College, MA. She returned to the Stone Center in 1998 as Training Director for The Open Circle Program, training elementary school teachers to implement a ground-breaking SEL curriculum using a whole systems approach.

Shoshana has worked as a therapist in the UK and USA and has taught in the fields of counseling psychology and intercultural relations at Goddard College, VT, University of Vermont, and Lesley University, MA.

Shoshana’s interests include narrative and systemic expressive arts practices, indigenous healing traditions, Jewish mysticism and Jewish shamanic healing, the role of expressive arts in leadership, and arts-based research methods.

Shoshana holds a MA degree in Sociology & Social Policy from London Metropolitan University, a MA degree in Human Development, and a Ph.D. in Human and Organizational Systems from The Fielding Graduate Institute, CA. She graduated from the Omega Transpersonal Drama Therapy Program in Boston, MA and Wisdom of the Whole Coaching Academy.

Akansha Bye-Vaswani

Akansha Bye-Vaswani Ph.D., was introduced to narrative practices in Mumbai when she began working at Ummeed Child Development Center in Mumbai in 2010. Here she was also introduced to principles of family-centered care, early intervention, and community-based advocacy. Her interest in systemic change took her to San Diego State University where her studies in marriage and family therapy strengthened her commitment to developing clinical practice through the lens of de-colonizing, feminist, and postmodern practice. Her doctoral work at UMass Boston, focused on drivers of institutional corruption in psychiatry and solutions for reform, particularly the practice of deprescribing and rational prescribing grounded in informed consent. She is currently an Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine where she works on the implementation of family-to-family support programs for families of persons managing psychosis.

Navid Zamani

Navid Zamani: “I’m an Iranian-American man who was born and raised in Southern California. I was raised in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas, until I moved to Davis, CA to continue my studies. After acquiring my BA in Psychology and minor in Music from UC Davis, I moved to San Diego to continue my studies at San Diego State University in Marriage and Family Therapy. I have resided in San Diego since 2010 and have fallen in love with the cultures, geography, food and music.

There are threads in my life that have been constant, and initiatives that have developed due to opportunities at the time and/or my location. Music has always been a big part of my life, and I continue to enjoy playing the piano/keys and the drum kit. I am an avid surfer, and enjoy outdoor activities with my wife, such as camping, hiking and biking around San Diego. Reading and writing have always been a pleasure of mine, and academia became a natural fit in this way. Gardening is also one of my obsessions and I also really love my dog. All of these hobbies are situated within a framework of experiences that come along with identifying as a heterosexual male, an Iranian-American and the experiences of biculturalism that accompany that, my ability to speak Farsi and English, my education, and the values I hold.

I grew up observing the charitableness of my family, and connected with the sense of urgency and gratitude that they experienced from helping others. I watched my mom always donate her time and money to the underprivileged and underserved. I watched my aunts (who are educators in Iran) advocate and stand up for students who often didn’t have a voice. I am continuously grounded by the love and compassion my wife models in her daily life. I truly believe that my community’s health impacts my health, and I am dedicated in supporting those in need.”

Lesson Descriptions

Lesson One: Setting the Stage

What do we mean by the Affective Turn, and how does this shift in thinking interface with narrative therapy’s approach to rich story development and trauma and its consequences?   The first lesson introduces the course and our contributors and sets the stage to create space for emerging approaches while honoring our most cherished narrative ideas, practices, and ethics. We briefly describe what we mean by collaborative, emotionally-attuned therapeutic relationships, our commitment to a social-justice-informed, affectively-attuned therapy, and our vision of the evolution of narrative therapy to incorporate the affective turn and integration with somatic approaches. Here, Lynne, Maggie, and SuEllen grapple with finding philosophical congruence, staying open to new ideas and practices while staying close to their narrative philosophical grounding, ways of working, and the story metaphor.

This lesson focuses on the works of  Michael White, Maggie Carey, Lynne Rosen, SuEllen Hamkins, Gerald Monk & Navid Zamini.

Lesson Two: Narrative Therapy & The Affective Turn

The second lesson focuses in more detail on the contributions of the affective turn to narrative approaches, and clinical applications..   This short video clip is an excerpt from our conversation with  Navid Zamani about his commitment to cultural humility, narrative ethics and relational rhythm

 This lesson focuses on the works of Navid Zamani, Gerald Monk, and others.

Lesson Three: Building on the Legacy of Michael White

While honoring the partnership between David Epston and Michael White – and David’s immense contributions- this lesson builds more specifically on Michael’s legacy. Beginning with rare footage of Michael in dialogue with Dr. Salvador Minuchin, we inquire into Michael’s relational affective practices unnamed in his Maps of Narrative Practice. Maggie Carey reviews Michael’s approach to rich story development with narrative maps as navigational tools, inquiring into – and linking –  experiences through resonance and scaffolding. We review Michael’s approach to Trauma and Its Consequences. The lesson ends with several of us reflecting on Michael’s legacy, as we make room for complexities in the 21st century.

This lesson focuses on the works of  Michael White, Maggie Carey, Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner and William James

Lesson Four: Memory Theory, Neuro-plasticity and Trauma

In this fourth lesson, Maggie Carey reviews the relevance of neural plasticity and memory theory to rich story development and experiences of trauma. We review  several gleanings from neurobiology, and the role that narrative therapy can play   We end the lesson with a conversation about engaging with Neuroscience with Critical Intention. Here, Maggie briefly introduces the interplay between memory theory, trauma and rich story development.

 This lesson focuses on the works of Maggie Carey, Michael White, Jeff Zimmerman, Marie-Natalie Beaudoin, and others.

Lesson Five: Attending to Emotions & Affect in Narrative Therapy

What is the untold story about emotions and affect in narrative therapy? This lesson focuses on emotional and relational attunement and the landscape of emotions. In this video clip, SuEllen Hamkins briefly describes what she means by emotional attunement in narrative therapy.

 This lesson focuses on the works of  SuEllen Hamkins, and Marie Nathalie Beaudoin.

Lesson Six: Integrating Affective & Somatic Approaches with Narrative Therapy

We focus on illustrations of Narrative Therapy & the Affective Turn. What does Affective work look like beyond talk therapy. David Pare and Ian Percy show how they integrate narrative therapy with mindfulness practices. Danielle Drake & Shoshana Simons describe how they bring expressive arts into their narrative approach. Lynne Rosen briefly describes her approach to integrating narrative therapy, EMDR, and somatic therapies. We also highlight Laure Maurin’s work in Bordeaux France on When the Body Speaks. Watch a brief excerpt from the conversation between David Pare and Ian Percy on mindfulness practices.

 This lesson focuses on the works of  Danielle Drake & Shoshana Simons, Navid Zamini & Gerald Monk, Laure Maurin, Lynne Rosen, David Pare and Ian Percy, 

Lesson Seven: Next Steps

Our final lesson explores what comes next as we put these ideas into practice. What happens when we attend more in our practice to emotions and the body? How might we bridge narrative practice with EMDR & other somatic therapeutic approaches? We give references and introduce the next course in this series.

 This lesson focuses on the works of Lynne Rosen, Navid Zamani and SuEllen Hamkins
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