Illuminating Hidden Skills: Fostering Resilience, Agency, and Connectedness

Illuminating Hidden Skills

Fostering Resilience, Agency, and Connectedness

Online Workshop
with Marie-Nathalie Beaudoin, Ph.D.

Monday, December 8, 2025, 4:00 -7:00 pm ET

How can we strengthen agency and resilience in individuals who are less verbal to assist them in overcoming problems?
What are specific areas of inquiry valuable to explore and scaffold when a client shares a few words on an activity or passion?
How can we spontaneously create a context for unusual moments of agency, resiliency, and connectedness when a person is less forthcoming and unlikely to find unique outcomes through the usual conversational process?

This workshop offers a collection of concrete, adaptable micro-practices that tap into agency and resilience when working with individuals who are less verbal about their experiences. Drawing on her work with young people in foster care and from diverse ethnic backgrounds, Marie-Nathalie will demonstrate how she adapts embodied practices derived from other fields to fit our narrative intention of exploring previously overlooked skills, experiences, or values that counter problematic experiences.

In the narrative approach, it is well accepted that unnoticed moments of resiliency and agency coexist with experiences of hardship. A significant portion of our therapeutic work involves reconnecting people with these overlooked knowledges, skills, and values, by exploring what Michael White and David Epston have coined as ‘unique outcomes”. Unique outcomes have been defined as “intentions and actions that contradict the problem-saturated description” or as “exceptions” to the dominant problem themes in a person’s life (White, 1988 & 2007; White & Epston, 1990). This concept owes its name to the fact that these events are unexpected (unique) given the problem story and lead to preferred trajectories (outcomes) when compared to the frequent problem-dominated reactions.

Narrative conversational practices that highlight unique outcomes provide clients with intriguing entry points into their preferred ways of being and transform how they experience themselves. Such exploration can be so meaningful that even a single conversation linking various unique outcomes can powerfully restore people’s sense of competency in their lives.

Given the transformative influence of unique outcome exploration, are there are other types of entry points into experience that could also invigorate a sense of resiliency and agency?

Yes, there are several.

In this workshop, Marie-Nathalie will present four other ways of tapping into agency and resiliency that do not conversationally emerge from exceptions to problem stories. These sets of micro-practices were initially developed with young people who have endured extraordinary amounts of oppression, trauma, abuse, rejection, injustices, etc., and as a result, often come to therapeutic sessions having given up on themselves and their voices. These young people, whether from foster care or marginalized groups, often have very little to say and struggle with providing answers to common narrative questions. They may be so deeply burrowed in the problem-saturated story or have experienced such an impoverished life that finding traces of unique outcomes proves difficult, even if we know they exist. These innovative micro practices were also created in the context of working with young people from diverse ethnic backgrounds who are sometimes less verbal about their experiences than Westerners and tend to be quieter, often going unnoticed, and sometimes even invisible to their peers in school environments. The proposed micro-practices substantially expand on ideas that some practitioners may touch upon briefly without realizing the complex sequence of questions that could lead to immensely rich territories by shifting from the known to what is possible to know. There are also additional embodied practices derived from other fields that can be adapted to fit our narrative intention. Once identified and experienced in a meaningful way, these alternative entries into previously unnoticed skills, experiences, or values can be scaffolded into an identity narrative that contributes to countering problem experiences.

In summary, this workshop provides participants with an opportunity to diversify their therapeutic repertoire of ways to foster experiences of resiliency and agency by demonstrating a collection of concrete, adaptable micro-practices that can be used in initial sessions and beyond. While not all practices may be suitable for adult clients, therapists working across ages and contexts will still find fresh perspectives and ideas to enrich their therapeutic conversations. Examples of transcripts and interactive exercises will be provided to support direct application in participants’ own work.

Earn 3 CEs

Learning Objectives

This program will enable participants to:

Articulate the importance of agency and resiliency in people overcoming problems
Expand on foundational narrative practices around the examination of unique outcomes.
Illuminate unnoticed skills and moments of resiliency from only a few words spoken by a client
Identify specific conversational entry points into ordinary territories of life, which may yield experiences of agency, resiliency, and
connectedness.

Introducing Marie-Nathalie Beaudoin

Marie-Nathalie Beaudoin, Ph.D., deeply cherishes nature and values being a mother, wife, activist, consultant, teacher, and compassionate practitioner. She was born and raised in Canada, is French speaking, loves cross-country skiing, dancing, rock climbing, and hiking snowy mountain peaks.

Marie-Nathalie directs Skills for Kids, Parents & Schools (SKIPS), a 9-month intense narrative therapy, neurobiology and mindfulness training program in California where she works with children, adults, families, and school communities. Prior to immersing herself in narrative therapy in the early 1990s, Marie-Nathalie had trained in Human Biology and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. She now brings together fields that have influenced her life and work for the last 30 years, and as a result has pioneered narrative clinical practices to respond to distressing emotions and traumatic experiences. She has written over 50 professional articles and many books such as the popular The SKiLL-ionaire in every child: Boosting children’s socio-emotional skills using the latest in brain research (2010), written for parents, teachers and counselors (French, English, Spanish). She has also co-authored Collaborative Therapies and neurobiology: Evolving practices in action (Beaudoin & Duvall, 2017), and Mindfulness in a busy world: Lowering barriers for youth & adults to cultivate focus, emotional peace & gratefulness (Beaudoin & Maki, 2021). Her latest book, co-authored with Gerald Monk is currently in press with WW Norton and titled: Narrative practices and emotions: 40+ ways to support the emergence of flourishing identities. It combines her lifelong passion for the immense possibilities inherent to our bodies and brains, with novel narrative practices inspired by Interpersonal Neurobiology, Sensorimotor Therapy, and Positive Psychology. With a background in improvisational theater and dance, Marie–Nathalie is well-known for her thought provoking and engaging presentations. Her websites are www.mnbeaudoin.com and www.skillsforkids-SKIPS.com.

Marie-Nathalie is featured in our new online course, New Horizons in Narrative Therapy, Affect & the Body as well as a contributor to the course currently in development, Contemporary Narrative Therapy. In addition, she is a prolific writer (see below for a list of her publications).

BOOKS and CHAPTERS

Beaudoin, M.-N. And Monk, G. (In press). Narrative practices and emotions: 40+ ways to support the emergence of flourishing identities. WW. Norton.
Beaudoin, M.-N. & Maki, K. (2020). Mindfulness in a busy world: Lowering barriers for adults and youth to cultivate focus, emotional peace, and gratefulness. Rowman & Littlefield. NY
Beaudoin, M.-N. & Duvall, J. (2017). Collaborative therapy and neurobiology: Evolving practices in action. Routledge, Taylor & Francis, NY
Beaudoin, M.N. & Moureaux-Nery, F. (2015). Les mille et une compétences en chaque enfant: Prévenir et résoudre les difficultes sociales et émotionnelles a l’aide des découvertes en neurosciences. L’Harmattan, Paris, France.
Beaudoin, M.-N. (2014). Boosting ALL children’s social and emotional brain power: Life transforming activities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press Publications.
Beaudoin, M.N. (2013). Cómo hacer de cada niño un millonario en habilidades. Madrid, Spain: EOS Instituto de Orientation de Psicologica Asociados and in Mexico: Editiones Zeus.
Beaudoin, M.N. (2010). The SKiLL-ionaire in every child: Boosting children’s socio-emotional skills using the latest in brain research. San Francisco: Goshawk Publications.

ARTICLES

Beaudoin, M.N. (2022 in press). Revisiting agency and choice in the face of trauma: A narrative therapy map. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 41(4), 67-87.
Beaudoin, M.N. (2020). Affective double listening: 16 dimensions to explore affect, emotions and embodiment in narrative therapy. Journal of Systemic Therapie,39 (1), 1-28.
Beaudoin, M.N. & MacLennan, R. (2020). Mindfulness and embodiment in family therapy: Overview, nuances, and clinical applications in poststructural practices. Family Process, dot:10.1111/famp.12624.
Beaudoin, M.N. (July, 2019). Intensifying the preferred self: Neurobiology, mindfulness, and embodiment practices that make a difference. The international journal of narrative therapy and community work, 2, 1-10.
Beaudoin, M.N (Fall, 2018). Thinkitis vs Mindfulness. Family Therapy Magazine, AAMFT, Sept-October, 36-40.
Beaudoin, M.N., Tan, A., Gannon, C., Moersch, M. (2018). A comparative study of the effects of 6,12, and 16 weeks of narrative therapy on social and emotional skills: An empirical analysis of 722 children’s problem solving accounts. Journal of Systemic Therapie,36 (4), 57-73.
Beaudoin, M.N. (2016). Broadening the scope of collaborative therapies: Embodied practices arising from neurobiology, neurocardiology and neurogastroenterology, Journal of Systemic Therapie, 34(4), 1-12.
Beaudoin, M.N, Moersch, M., & Schnare, B. (2016). The effectiveness of narrative therapy with social and emotional skills development: An empirical study of 835 children’s stories. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 35(3), 42-60.
Beaudoin, M.-N. (2015). Flourishing with Positive Emotions: Increasing clients’ repertoire of Problem Counter-State. Journal of Systemic Therapies. 34(3), 1-13.
Beaudoin, M.-N. (Jan, 2014). Can new discoveries in brain research help us better prevent bullying? Patio: Revista Pedagogica, 68, 10-13.
Beaudoin, M.N. & Zimmerman, J. (2011). Narrative therapy and interpersonal neurobiology: Revisiting classic practices, developing new emphases. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 30(1), 1-13.
Beaudoin, M.-N. (2008). Therapeutic Movement and Stuckness in Family Therapy. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 27(2), 58-73.
Beaudoin, M.N. (2005). Agency and choice in the face of trauma: A narrative therapy map. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 24(4), 32-50.

Illuminating Hidden Skills: Fostering Resilience, Agency, and Connectedness