Narrative Camp

“Attending narrative camp in Vermont this summer was my first professional experience with narrative practices. Since being introduced to the tenants of narrative therapy, I’ve been trying to identify why I felt so completely different at a narrative workshop compared to other trainings in more “conventional” modalities. Not only did it feel different professionally, but I was able to be present in an unusually authentic way, personally. As a person with ample lived experience, I am generally afraid of being “found out” by colleagues, which is a fear that has only grown as my career progresses. I felt so different at the narrative workshop. The energy was different, the people were different. Most notably, I didn’t feel like an imposter and I didn’t feel hot shame smoldering in the background. As a clinician with lived experience, I always feel I need to subordinate one identity (professional) over another (sick person) in frameworks that focus on pathology. Either health wins or illness wins, but there is often not space for a more complex and nuanced narrative. Consequently, the sense of internal fragmentation with which I always contend becomes thicker and more alienating. The energy required to present well becomes an ever increasing tax demanded to inhabit professionalism, a tax I’m terrified I won’t be able to pay on any given week”