Widening the Tent

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.

Lucy Cotter is the co-founder of Narrative Counseling Center and a narrative therapist in L.A. California. She has a passion for narrative therapy and couples counseling, individual and family therapy. With an MFA as a painter and collage artist from Otis College of Art, she brings out-of-the-box and creative thinking to her psychotherapy clients' stories. Her interests in postmodern narrative therapies, art, and critical thinking have intersected in ways that her clients and students have appreciated.

Chris Hoff, PhD, LMFT is Founder and Executive Director of the California Family Institute (CFI) in southern California. CFI is a nonprofit organization that was established as a community counseling center that provides desperately needed low-cost counseling services for the community and for the development of research and training for those interested in post-structuralist, post-oppositional, and compositionist narrative therapy approaches.

Poh Lin Lee is a Chinese Malaysian Australian woman who comes to her practice through multiple experiences and relationships as a narrative therapy practitioner, social worker, co-researcher of trauma/displacement, writer, teacher, film protagonist and creative consultant.

Since 2004 Poh has been engaged in therapeutic co-research with people and communities responding to themes of experience such as family and state violence, displacement (from rights, land, home, body, identity, relationships), liminality and reclaiming practices of staying with experience and preference. Creative and therapeutic fields intersected for Poh whilst working with people seeking asylum within a film project with director Gabrielle Brady, Island of the Hungry Ghosts (2018).

Sheila McNamee, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita of Communication at the University of New Hampshire and co-founder and Vice President of the Taos Institute. She has held visiting professorships at the University of Parma, Italy; Utrecht University, Netherlands; University of Sao Paulo, Brazil; and City University of Hong Kong. Her work focuses on dialogic transformation within various social and institutional contexts.

She is author of several books and articles, including Research and Social Change: A Relational Constructionist Approach (with D.M. Hosking, Routledge, 2012), Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue (with K.J. Gergen, Sage, 1999), and co-editor of Education as Social Construction: Contributions to Theory, Research, and Practice, (with T. Dragonas, K. Gergen, & E. Tseliou, Taos WorldShare, 2015), the Sage Handbook of Social Constructionist Practice (McNamee, M. Gergen, Camargo-Borges, & Rasera – Sage, 2020), and the forthcoming Practicing Therapy as Social Construction (with E. Rasera & P. Martins, Sage).

Professor McNamee actively engages constructionist practices in a variety of contexts to bring communities of participants with diametrically opposing viewpoints together to create livable futures. She lectures and consults regularly, both nationally and internationally for universities, private institutes, organizations, and communities.

Mary Clark Moschella is the Roger J. Squire Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Yale Divinity School. Before joining the YDS faculty in 2010, she taught at Wesley Theological Seminary for ten years; before that, she served as a pastor in UCC congregations in Massachusetts for thirteen years. Among her publications are Caring for Joy: Narrative, Theology, and Practice (Brill, 2016) and The Edward Wimberly Reader, co-edited with Lee H. Butler, Jr. (Baylor University Press, 2020); and the 2nd edition of Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice (Pilgrim, 2023). Her current scholarship articulates a narrative approach to pastoral and spiritual care practices. She also studies prison-based literature and teaches Inside/Out courses that bring divinity and incarcerated students together in carceral settings.

marcela polanco, Ph.D was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, the land of her Muiscan ancestors. Currently an Assistant Professor in the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at San Diego State University, her supervision, teaching, research and therapy are informed by the work of Latin American academic and social activist on decolonial and anti-racist Andean feminisms. She is also inspired by an ethics of solidarity. Until recently, she directed the Psychotherapy Services for Spanish Speaking Populations Certificate and the Master’s in Family, Couple and Individual Psychotherapy at Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, Texas. She is member of the international faculty team at the Dulwich Centre, Adelaide, Australia

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).

Navid Zamani, PhD is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in supporting Middle Eastern refugees dealing with domestic violence. As a Persian-American based in San Diego, CA, he integrates decolonial poststructural feminism within a narrative therapy framework. Dr. Zamani also serves as a lecturer at San Diego State University and is the Clinical Director at License to Freedom, a nonprofit organization focused on helping Middle Eastern refugees impacted by domestic violence. He provides clinical supervision to a team of therapist trainees at License to Freedom. His research and scholarship emphasizes the role of affect in narrative therapy, working with couples experiencing violence and high conflict, and linguistic justice for multilingual communities.