Our 2020 Monthly Schedule
I can’t recommend the Collab Salon enough. This year’s lineup showcases some of the most fascinating and innovative up and coming practitioners and their practice. And you can both meet and hear about this in the most intimate of situations, almost as if your were sitting around a dinner table speaking to one another as old friends. We should all be thankful to Re-Authoring Teaching for creating such a ‘space’ for us to meet one another from all around the world.
The Collab Salon is a monthly webinar when online presenters and members from around the world meet informally in real time for 1.5 hours. We always meet at 5pm on the third Sunday of the month (New York time). In each of these Zoom “meetings on a cloud,” we focus on a different theme relating to narrative practice for further reflection/inquiry, cross-cultural exploration and learning. After the meeting is over, the recording is added to our Library of Past Salons – available 24/7 to all Collab Salon members. All levels are welcome. You just need to register, download Zoom ahead of time, check your local time zone, and then come to our meeting room at the designated time.
Look below to see what’s in store for 2020. Click on the toggle plus sign in the red box on the left for more information; then click on the photo, for even more details. Keep in mind only members can register.
18 Continuing Education Credits Now Approved!
Do you want to earn Continuing Education Credit? Alliant International University has approved 18 CE credit.This optional certificate costs an additional $40 for attending and/or viewing- our entire 2020 series, and filling out a brief evaluation after each Collab.
Download the 2020 schedule here!
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“Narrative ideas arrived in France only 15 little years ago and by a strange sequence of circumstances, they were taught essentially to organisational coaches. This simple fact, plus our cultural specificities, produced “narrative coaching,” which is the transposition of narrative therapy in the corporate and business field. But hey, is it not right into the home and realm of “Cappy” that we bring the jewels crafted by Michael, Eppy and co? And to what purpose? Fatten and flatter his Majesty the Shareholder? “Massage the rowers’ shoulders”* so that they can row more and more in the hypnosis of Job Happiness? I would like to share how we collectively as a professional community brought a narrative answer to this ethical dilemma in the form of the first ethical professional code composed only with questions.” Pierre Blanc-Sahnoun
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“What does Narrative Therapy have to offer to these wild and uncertain times of Climate Change, the Anthropocene, the Sixth Great Extinction? How does the dominant story of doom serve to sink spirits and immobilize people? Does the Big Disconnect hoodwink people into thinking they are too small and helpless to make a difference? How can we bring up the relationship people are in with this global challenge? What emergent liberative narratives could stand up to and surpass the story of doom? Can our questions invite preferred narratives of empowerment, and inspiration, help clients find their way into inspired responses based on their gifts? Can we be part of a revolution that moves humans from being machinalized into eco-cidal ways to becoming eco-sourced, joyful and grateful, able to make a difference in community?” Jenny Freeman
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“In one of the last Michael White workshops that I attended he introduced his work as a tender therapy. These words have resonated with me so deeply as they described so well what I witnessed when watching Michael work in Narrative ways with people. I have held that concept of tenderness in my heart ever since then and moved it into how I approach my work and my life. In this Salon session, we will use one of my stories of how I apply Michaels’ teaching and his essence into my own life. This is a story of me processing my sister’s death with the help of my internal Michael interviewing me. I will be interviewed about this story and how it applies to how I work with Michael. We will create a live outsider witness team in the session with the participants.” – Sarah Hughes
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“As a counsellor working for hospice I meet with people who are suffering, sometimes with unsolvable problems, as they live with serious illness and the knowledge of their approaching death. Suffering at the end of life can be transformed when a person views their life as meaningful and experience themselves as agentic (Wachholz, Fitch, Makowski & Tjia, 2016). In this Collab Salon I will be sharing some of my reflections on practices that ease suffering. These include thoughts on how we create space for stories of suffering, how we respond to big stories day to day and questioning practices that can be significant in restoring a sense of meaning and agency. I look forward to hearing how you might apply such practices to your own context for work. To facilitate the discussion I will be providing a collaborative document to illustrate some of the narrative practices we will be reflecting on.” Sasha Pilkington
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“What is your comfort level when working with someone who does not readily engage in conversation? What happens when a child is not quickly answering your questions? What do you do when the child is wandering the room and engaging in repetitive noises and actions? ” Will and Courtney will share some ways that Narrative approaches can be utilized to support Neurodiversity and engage children with diverse levels of skills and abilities. We will explore ways that children with communication challenges and/or differences in play development can be centered in the circulation of their preferred experiences, identity and connections.”Courtney Olinger & Will Sherwin (San Diego, USA)
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““Given the current state of the world, this workshop will address how the pandemic has affected service delivery for adolescent sex offenders and their families, especially youth receiving treatment in residential settings. Sexual offenses committed by youth occur more often than some people might choose to accept. Youth who are convicted of a sexual crime are usually court-mandated to attend treatment. Offense-specific treatment makes little, if any distinction between types of offenses, age of youth, and other important factors such environmental influences or history of mental health challenges or trauma. There is a lot of research on youth sex offenders, but there seems to be a gap in understanding the effects of being labeled a “sex offender” by the court system, as well as by treatment providers, and how all this affects mental health and identity. Therapy with youth who committed a sexual offense should also address ways to heal from the harm of being labeled a sex offender. Narrative ideas and counter-story practices are creative ways to therapeutically engage youth. Because narrative therapy is non-judgmental and collaborative, it presents an opportunity to counter-story problems related to being labeled a sex offender. By prioritizing these youths’ mental health and counter-storying damaging self-narratives, therapists can potentially interrupt a cycle of abuse and other self-destructive patterns of behavior; and by doing this, they can assist their clients envision new possibilities for their futures..” Mauricio P. Yabar (Virginia, USA)
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“Having had the privilege of working with many remarkable children and young people and their families, during some of the most challenging times of their lives, I hope to share some of what we learnt together about living and not just surviving. Given the current realities of the COVID-19 pandemic the narratives around living and dying, choice and decision making, facing our own mortality, are all more paramount than ever and what is perceived as something that affects others and is ‘rare’ has come very much into everybody’s everyday life. Whilst my work has always focused on children and families I hope the lessons they have taught me will be transferable to many situations and leave everyone with some thoughts to take away and consider both personally and professionally.
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“As people interested in working narratively in research, we will share some of our experiences, influences from outside the world of narrative therapy that supported our principles, and challenges involved in the process. Each of us has been involved in a research project for our doctoral dissertations which we will use to illustrate 1) how we negotiated ideas of power to construct research questions 2) methods we used to incorporate social constructionist understandings of relationally informed meaning making in our work 3) how we navigated (continue to navigate) demands/expectations of our respective institutions.” Maggie, Akansha & Navid.
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“In my undergraduate studies in El Salvador I was exposed to the writings of one of LP’s key contributors, the social psychologist Ignacio Martín-Baró, assassinated in 1989. His ideas and provocations resonated deeply with me, and even though my journey so far has been mostly as a therapist, I have tried to carry LP’s insights in some way or another. I was later introduced to Narrative therapy (NT) and its philosophical foundations in the master’s program in Marriage and Family Therapy at San Diego State University. I could not help but to draw connections between LP and NT, even though associated to different sub-fields of psychology and coming from distant parts of the world. This Collab session deliberately invites these two models into dialogue, with the goal of enriching one another, lifting up the value of interdisciplinary encounters, and in this case, emphasize the implications and possibilities that emerge for Narrative ideas & practices.” Juan Carlos García Rivera (Choco)
OCTOBER 18, 2020: Narrative Letter-writing Across Divides with Kay Ingamells (Auckland, New Zealand)
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“During the sixteen years of my supervision & apprenticeship relationship with David Epston, David has taught me how to write narrative letters, including letters co-authored with clients. Over the last couple of years, I have been inventing a new letter-writing practice: Co-authoring letters with clients to other family members with whom there has been a rift, or where important issues have not been spoken about. With the permission of a family with whom I have recently been working, I will show you three of these letters and then demonstrate the co-writing process.” Kay Ingamells
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Our Collab Salon hopes to explore the following questions:*What are the possibilities and limitations of collectivised narrative therapy within the league of anti anorexia? *What could collective collaboration between insiders and outsiders look like? How could it work?* What learnings can be found through the political movements that are happening around the world that serve as examples of the power of networks in seeking healing and justice? Kitty Thatcher & Dave Villfaña (Santiago, Chile)
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“I continue to explore in my therapeutic work, and also in my teaching program, the interweaving of four interdependent dimensions of practice. I will present scenarios to illustrate some aspects of these weavings and wonderings. Along the way, I will very briefly speak to: Upholding the precious traditions of narrative ethics; Sensory impressions in the making of storied lives; Interpreting mindfulness: body, ethics and inspiration; Situated affect; and Embodied/enacted power relations. ” Ian