In this Collab Salon, Sasha Pilkington shared a practice she calls a “virtue inquiry” that guides her approach to end-of-life conversations. A virtue inquiry is an inquiry a counsellor undertakes with a person or persons that listens for and researches virtues that are valued by the person or persons the counsellor is meeting with.   Virtue inquires draw on ideas and practices developed by David Epston including “getting to know the person ahead of the problem”, “researching moral character” and “wonderfulness inquiries” with children. They also build from a paper by Eve Lipchik (1988) called “Interviewing with a constructive ear” that had an influence on Sasha's early practice. Virtue inquiries take place with adults or young adults and so flow differently from “wonderfulness inquiries” (see chapter 2 in Marsten, Epston & Markham, 2016).

As someone who is interested in the intersection between psychedelics and psychotherapy, Gabriel Garcia has many questions about the changing landscape of these substances, their legality, and viability as agents of psychological change. Gabriel presented some of the emerging models for working with stories of psychedelic experiences and fold these models into postmodern and narrative ideas. This was a springboard for the creating a generative discussion for those who attend.

Have Post Modern ideas failed effective work in partnering with our clients around the role severe depression plays in people’s lives? It is Amy Gottlieb's contention it has. As someone with 43 years of lived experience with depression coming and going as an unwanted companion, she has been offered many well meaning yet unhelpful ideas from post modern practitioners. In this salon Amy endeavored to generate thought about how holding a rigid post modern stance (in the name of not being rigid) may not serve our clients as they come to us for help to get distance from depression robbing them of joy.

Chris Darmody ( Perth, Australia) described Camp Retreat - a de-patholgising 3 day program for 20 young people aged 14-17 who are engaged in a mental health service. It is run 4 times a year and it is narratively informed. Many of the participants coming into camp will come with a mental health diagnosis and the stigma associated with engaging with a mental health service and the associated feelings of identity failure. The intention of the program is to separate a person from the problem and engage in different activities without the problem being present. By having this experience it is hoped that participants can return to their lives with an understanding of how much influence the problem has over their lives, decisions about how much they want a problem to be there, and skills to reduce its influence on their lives.

   What’s happening with Re-authoring Teaching? What’s going on behind the scenes? A great group got together for our annual tradition reviewing new developments with our Faculty Offerings, Workshops/Narrative Camp, Community Higher Education/Educators Portal, Community and our Reauthoring Teaching Youtube Channel. After giving a brief update, we used break-out rooms to talking among ourselves about what's working and suggestions for the future. 

Stephen Burton and Kevin O’Bryan presented their narrative approach to group therapy, which acts as an ongoing laboratory to test out new and preferred identities in the social situation of the group, while discouraging group level stories. Together we tried out a group interview with inquiry and outsider witnessing within the group.

As a Woman of Color and as a new private practice intern, I have had the experience of seeing many People of Color (POC) clients. Recently, I have noticed, an increase in Potential POC clients specifically seeking out a POC therapist.  At first glance, this increase seemed to be coincidental; I just thought that I was lucky to be receiving so much traffic from Psychology Today as well as many personal referrals.   After speaking to many of my clients in detail about their experiences, I inquired about why it was important to them to seek out a POC therapist.   Through that questioning, I began to recognize that many of my client's reasons were similar: they felt like a non-POC therapist would not understand them, or that they had a White therapist in the past with whom they felt they couldn’t be vulnerable or honest. Many of them acknowledged that these thoughts and feelings around race and privilege have increased exponentially in the present political climate. 

Reauthoring Teaching is offering a Special live online Collab Salon to reflect on and share resonances from our San Diego Narrative Gathering. ALL are welcome to this free narrative community conversation, Sunday, April 29, 2pm (PT), 5pm (ET). We're eager to hear where our conversations will be taking us! Anyone can sign up (not just members)- just be sure to register. Space is limited.

What are some ways we can integrate Narrative and Yoga practices? What might this look like?  What are some of the questions, dilemmas that need to be considered when exploring such a combination? What are the ways in which these practices could work together to strengthen and deepen one another? Can we do this in ways that fit with an anti-oppressive approach to working with people and practices?  In this Collab Salon, Narrative practitioners and Yoga teachers Sarah Hughes and Kayla Robbins reflected on these questions and shared some of their experiences, ideas and struggles. Participants were invited to share their own experiences and reflections, and to imagine new areas of possibility between these two practices. 

Peggy Sax created The Michael White Legacy project as a companion to the narrative gathering on Coronado Island, San Diego. Building on the Legacy of Michael White: A Decade of Narrative Developments (March 28-30, 2018). Our hope is that others will now send us their contributions. Whether you can come to this event or not,  this community project  gives us many opportunities to  reflect together:  Looking Back, Exploring Initiatives Honoring Michael's Intentions, and Re-imagining the Future of Narrative Therapy.  Join us for this Collab Salon when we will share our collective efforts to create a collaboratory in honor of our mentor, Michael White.