Since Ncazelo Ncube-Mlilo and David Denborough (dd) collaborated to develop the Tree of Life narrative approach (twenty years ago!), practitioners in many contexts have creatively combined treasured aspects of local folk culture and narrative practice to assist children, young people and adults in hardship. In this final Meet the Author for 2025, please read this short piece by dd entitled ‘Diversifying and democratising narrative practice through folk cultural methodologies’ and watch Sara’s video on the Beads of Life. And then please bring your questions and ideas about metaphoric practices. If you have ideas for metaphoric inventions in your context, please bring them too!

Tanya is a hospice social worker in Whangārei, Aotearoa New Zealand. Tanya is Pākehā and lives on the lands of ngā hapū o Whangārei Terenga Parāoa. Her background is in social work lecturing, feminist community organisations, social justice education and union organising. Tanya completed Dulwich Centre’s one-year program in narrative therapy and community work in 2024. For Tanya, connecting with narrative ideas and practices felt like a homecoming. She is now a student of the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work at The University of Melbourne. Tanya looks forward to extending the ideas and practice shared in this article, particularly in her work with people who are dying or grieving the death of a loved one.

This article shares stories of dying mothers writing letters for their children. Tanya conceives of letter writing as a way for mothers to re-member their preferred identities, and the letters as portals for future re-membering for children. The article includes examples of questions asked in interviews with mothers, the thinking behind the questions, and excerpts from the letters these conversations enabled.

To prepare for this session, please read “Love always”: Letters written by dying mothers for their children

And then bring your questions for Tanya!

Christine has been active in Vancouver’s narrative therapy community since completing her master’s degree in 2002. Over the next decade, she trained, practiced, published and developed innovative narrative group practices at Peak House, a residential substance-use program. She earned her PhD in 2010 through the TAOS Institute under Dr Sheila McNamee with research on the intersections of substance misuse and disordered eating among young women. Now based in Whistler, Christine maintains a private practice and contributes to emerging developments linking psychedelic medicines, mental health and narrative therapy

Psychedelic-assisted therapy is currently in its second wave and enjoying a renaissance of sorts. This article describes a narrative therapy–inspired approach to working therapeutically with psychedelics. Christine’s intent in writing this paper is to provide a model for how narrative therapy ideas in practice can be applied to the three stages of psychedelic-assisted therapy: preparation, medicine work and integration. In describing this map for practitioners, the rites of passage metaphor, as applied therapeutically by Michael White, is used to outline the phases a person will move through in their psychedelic-assisted therapy journey.

To prepare for this session, please read Psychedelic-assisted therapy from a narrative therapy perspective: A map for practitioners

And then bring your questions for Christine!

Helene is a narrative psychologist and practitioner who, for the past twenty years, has primarily worked with people experiencing grief. Most of the families she meets are parents living with grief in a Western context, where the cultural practices of individualising grief and “letting go” continue to dominate and complicate the grieving process.

Since 2007, Helene has been developing alternative communities for bereaved parents – conversations where they can understand “symptoms of grief” as meaningful protests against dominant “cultural norms of grief,” and where they can cultivate an ongoing and active relationship with their deceased child. Through developing local communities among bereaved parents Helene has enabled bereaved parents to mutually support one another in maintaining a continuing and present relationship with a child who is no longer breathing, yet continues to deeply matter.

Helene’s early work was shaped by Michael White’s re-membering practices, through her training with him and later with Lorraine Hedtke. The death of her own child sparked her initial commitment to working alongside parents and their deceased children, as she personally experienced how both are often marginalised in contemporary Western society. She observed how prevailing cultural practices can complicate grief and make it more difficult for parents to navigate both the territory of grief and life.

For the past ten years, Helene has been teaching at the Vancouver School of Narrative Therapy alongside narrative practitioners such as Stephen Madigan, David Marsten, and David Nylund. She has also delivered several keynote presentations at narrative therapy conferences, sharing her work on re-membering practices and sustaining relationships with deceased children.

In this paper, Helene explores how Western cultural discourses complicate the grieving process and how narrative therapy can offer alternative understandings. Drawing on Michael White’s concept of “Saying Hullo Again” (1989), Helene argues that the problem is not “complicated grief” itself, but rather society’s tendency to pathologise ongoing relationships with the deceased. As Helene will discuss in this session, when someone with whom we share a close relationship dies, we cannot not relate to them. What constitutes the relationship becomes central to how we live with grief.

When Western cultural ideas reduce the relationship to mere memories of the past, it becomes painful—the bereaved can only connect to memories that remind them of what the deceased can no longer be. However, when we recognise that relationships do not end with death, it becomes possible to develop and sustain a continuing relationship in which the deceased continues to inform, influence, and matter in the life of the bereaved.

How do we do re-membering conversations in a society that challenges the idea that relationships can continue between the living and the dead? How can we support the bereaved in re-membering within a culture that often silences their deceased child?

To prepare for this session, please read The Politics of Saying Hullo Again

And then bring your questions for Helene!

Lorraine Grieves (LG) is a Tastawiniyew (in-between person), Two-Spirit, Red River Métis. Adopted at birth and raised by the (English/Scottish) Grieves/Rothnie family, Lorraine grew up on the unceded and ancestral homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations in Vancouver, British Columbia. A “reconnecting person” with no reliable information about family ancestry in their adoption file, Lorraine has walked a long road over many years, finally finding their birth family, and as a result, learning about their Michif or Métis ancestry.

LG holds several community responsibilities: as a parent and youth supporter, a registered clinical counsellor, a Two-Spirit community and ceremony family member, and as the Provincial Program Director of Trans Care BC. In this province-wide role, they’ve worked alongside a dedicated team to improve access to health care for trans, Two-Spirit and gender-diverse people across the province of British Columbia, Canada.

With a master’s degree in counselling psychology, LG has worked in mental health and community care since the early 1990s. Their approach is grounded in collaboration, narrative practice, Indigenous and intersectional trans-feminist knowledges, and social justice. They are currently enjoying exploring digital storytelling, song, photography and film as tools for Two-Spirit resurgence, representation and connection.

This video highlights the importance of active response and continued resistance – not reaction – to the rise in transmisogyny, anti-trans and racist hate. Lorraine urges all caring adults, helpers and professionals to recognise how colonial, capitalist and white supremacist systems fuel a sense of overwhelm and can create embodied distress, especially for those under attack by these systems. LG invites us to be accountable and alert to how these forces often replicate themselves and can find their way into our practices within health care and therapy, especially when it comes to transgender and Two-Spirit health care. LG introduces a potential tool and resource, the We Are Allies project, which is a Health Canada–funded initiative that uplifts Two-Spirit, trans and gender-diverse knowledges, teaches about mis- and disinformation, and (re)connects parents, new learners, potential allies and others with liberatory gender histories and information. Through storytelling and history, LG calls for discernment, connection and local practices of care, rest and solidarity in resisting transphobia and fascism.

To prepare for this session, please watch We have always been here, we’ve been here before: Responding to ongoing anti-trans fascism and colonisation with history, storytelling, and connection to land and community

And then bring your questions for LG!

Loretta lives and work in Western Sydney on Dharug Country, and she has Irish/English heritage. Loretta’s current work is a mix of supervision, training and counselling. Previously Loretta managed an Intensive Family Preservation team, working to keep families safely together and out of the child protection system. Most of her work has been working with women who are experiencing distress and she worked for 17 years at a free service with families using a narrative approach to counselling, group work and case management. Loretta is passionate about walking alongside people as they go through hard times.

Loretta is interested in the feminist underpinnings of narrative practice and has found this a supportive approach to listening to stories of hardship, making sense of our experiences and seeking solidarity.

This chapter offers examples of practices that explore ways people who have been assaulted have survived the assault and ways they are reclaiming their lives from trauma. The focus of this chapter is on inviting conversations that open space for recognition of the role that faith and spirituality can have in people’s sense of identity and in their process of surviving and reclaiming life after a traumatic event. There is particular attention drawn to increasing a sense of agency for those who felt they were passive in their journey of survival.

To prepare for this session, please read Spirituality and narrative practice from Loretta’s 2024 book Honouring resistance and building solidarity: Feminism and narrative practice

And then bring your questions for Loretta!

How can we work towards narrative practice being most relevant to the most marginalised? How can narrative practices be used to spark social change rather than reify the status quo? These are questions and challenges that inspire collective narrative practice.

For this meet the author event please read the paper ‘A storyline of collective narrative practice’ and then come along to ask dd any questions you may have. These might relate to collective documents, collective timelines, songs, metaphoric practices like the Tree of Life and Team of Life approaches … or they might be about particular community projects – those that have already been held or one’s you are hoping to develop.

Mark (he/him) is a White settler on land that has historically been home to the Erie, Neutral, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and Anishinaabe, including the current treaty holders, the Mississaugas of the Credit, and is also known as Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. In addition to narrative therapy and theory, Mark is interested in prison abolition, music, gardening, and parenting his two children.

Narrative practice is a broad field which includes therapy, community work, and research methods, all of which are less rigidly defined as they are connected through resonant ethics. In this paper Mark explores a practice he developed in his early years as a narrative therapist asking the question, “If coming to talk to me were part of a Project— although not necessarily the first part, nor the most important part—what would that Project be called?” Through a reflexive process of aspiring towards narrative research principles of co-research, committing to relational ethics (which is grounded and contextual, rather than codified), and engaging with alternative theories of research (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Epston, 1999; Epston & White, 1992; St. George et al., 2015), Mark comes to the understanding of his therapy practice as “Co-Research as Daily Practice of a Minor Science.” Mark presents the “findings” of this research, as it pertains to the Project Question, and explores the ways that conducting the research will impact the way he uses the Project Question in therapy sessions. Rather than the modernist notion that evidence-based practices are how one ought to practice, this process produces possibilities for how one might practice.

To prepare for this session, please read How Might One Practice? Producing Possibilities through Co-Research as a Daily Practice of a Minor Science

And then bring your questions for Mark!

We hope you can join us at this special Meet the Authors event! It will feature the authors of the following pieces that are soon to be published in the next International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work!

You can read the journal here.

• “Love always”: Letters written by dying mothers for their children by Tanya Newman             
• Exploring narrative therapy and therapeutic letter writing in a genetic counselling context by Stephanie Badman     
• Psychedelic-assisted therapy from a narrative therapy perspective: A map for practitioners by Christine Dennetedt 
• Solidarity conversations: A feminist narrative lens on bulimia and abuse by Kassandra Pedersen
• “Pockets of freedom”: Creating therapeutic spaces as refuges for Black experiences of neurodivergence by Sandra Coral                
• Children’s problems and children’s solutions: Celebrating the agency of neurodivergent children by Tarang Kaur                    
• Audio practice note: Wisdom on living with loneliness by Chelsea Size
• Video: We have always been here, we’ve been here before: Responding to ongoing anti-trans fascism and colonisation with history, storytelling, and connection to land and community by Lorraine Grieves
• David Denborough (dd) will speak briefly about a number of book reviews that are also included in this issue.

Editor-in-chief Shelja Sen will also be there! As will Managing Editor, Claire Nettle.

It promises to be quite an event! We hope to see you there.

Tamara is a registered psychologist in Calgary and currently practices as a full-time family therapist at the Calgary Family Therapy Centre, where she also provides clinical supervision and training. Tamara has a passion for social constructionism, systemic therapy, narrative therapy, and nonviolent resistance practices. She is particularly interested in sociocultural discourses related to parenthood, race, ethnicity and gender and the ways in which they impact family relationships.

Tamara’s paper shares a story of practice with a family who initially came to counselling because the 17-year-old son was suicidal. Their work came to focus on the family as a whole and their process of coming back together after being separated for some years in response to the father’s drug use. They developed a new understanding of the mother’s decision to ask the father to leave the family home as an act of bravery that had contributed to the wellbeing of all involved. Through identifying individual and collective wonderfulnesses, the family members developed a new shared identity in which bravery, resilience and calm could provide a foundation for responding to current and future life challenges. 

Shannon is a social worker, family therapist, member of the Calgary Family Therapy Centre, and clinical associate director for Wood’s Homes in Calgary. She is devoted to strengthening relationships, building resilience and applying advocacy, collaboration and creativity in her work. Shannon is inspired by systemic theory, narrative theory and social constructionism. She’s passionate about upholding social justice and enjoys using metaphors, expressive arts and experiential learning to bring forth relational healing. Narrative therapy has been a cornerstone of Shannon’s work that has allowed her to facilitate healing conversations that inspire stories of pride, empowerment and courage. Along with her clinical commitments, Shannon has been part of the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary where she has taught therapeutic practices, clinical interviewing techniques and integrative theory-to-practice classes for graduate level students.

Shannon’s paper explores a situation in which “The Terminator” was tricking 11-year-old Nathan into aggression, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. Nathan’s parents wanted to find ways to support Nathan and to develop their own coping skills. This practice story shows how they drew on Nathan’s particular interest in slugs to help him remember preferred ways of being and to keep everyone safe.  

To prepare for this session, please read:

• Walking forward with uncertainty: A narrative family therapy practice story by Tamara Wilson
• A narrative family therapy story: Unearthing slugs for the benefit of family healing by Shannon McIntosh

And then bring your questions for Shannon and Tamara!

Aunty Batasi was born in the Torres Straits, her mother from Badu Island and her father from Old Mapoon. Aunty Batasi started her working journey as a counsellor at Gallang Place (meaning Healing). Throughout the time working with mob, she went on to do her Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work in 2015. This was the most exciting time of her life as she was the first in her family to ever have done University. Aunty Batasi’s family celebrated the journey with her, and she is proud of them because without their support and encouragement she would not have done this. Since graduating, Aunty Batasi works with community using narrative practice, predominantly with First Nations men and women who are incarcerated.

Aunty Batasi designed and developed the program Straight Talk Alcohol and Other Drugs, in 2017. Eight years on the program is using the practices of narrative frameworks. When Aunty Batasi is using narrative therapy, the men and women in the program really can understand, yarning with a purpose there are things they can relate to and connect with. Aunty Batasi loves to spend time with family, just laying around and yarning with friends and work colleagues. Self-care is important to her – she knows when she needs to reenergise her soul and her spirit, because there is so much in sharing stories, and having a good belly laugh can help to refuel.

Jonathan is a proud Indigenous man residing in Brisbane, Queensland. His athere (grandfather), is from Old Mapoon in the Gulf of Queensland – this was called an Aboriginal Mission. His arka (grandmother) is from Badu Island in the Torres Strait. Jonathan is currently employed as alcohol and other drugs programs coordinator for Gallang Place. He delivers Straight Talk, a narrative-based alcohol and other drugs program, in correctional centres. Creating space for his mob to yarn their own stories and supporting them on their healing journey has been amazing. Jonathan takes any opportunity to be outdoors on Country or by the water. Observing nature keeps him connected to what is important to him: his family, his culture, his people. Jonathan’s passion in life is to continue to support Indigenous peoples of this land who have been impacted by the effects of drugs, alcohol and colonisation.

Indigenous people are highly overrepresented in the prison system. They are judged or categorised by the crimes they have committed and not given the opportunity to express themselves. Jonathan works with incarcerated Indigenous men who have been assessed as being at risk of self-harm. He yarns with individual men and facilitates a drug and alcohol group program called Straight Talk. Groups of ten to fifteen men, aged from 18 to over 50 years old, participate in this program, which uses concepts and practices from the Indigenous social and emotional wellbeing framework and narrative practice.

To prepare for this session, please read Straight Talk: Yarns from narrative practice with Indigenous men isolated from community and away from Country from the book Yarning with a Purpose.

And then bring your questions for Aunty Batasi & Jonathan – they look forward to yarning with everyone soon!

Yasna is an activist and therapist who works with individuals, groups and communities, drawing inspiration from narrative practices and activism. She is a psychologist with a master’s degree in clinical psychology, majoring in constructivist and constructionist psychotherapy, from University of Valparaiso, Chile.

Yasna’s article describes a participatory process in which a group of feminist, lesbian feminist and dissident activists came together to respond therapeutically to the impacts of anti-lesbian hatred. The therapeutic context was created gradually with the deployment of a set of metaphors related to textile art, inspired by the re-authoring conversations proposed by Michael White. The process included the creation of a collective document that acknowledges and honours the participants’ wisdom, knowledge and particular ways of responding to anti-lesbian hatred. This work was embodied in three different forms: a patchwork quilt, a video and a fanzine. Collectivised through a definitional ceremony, these forms embraced manual-artistic creation and the materiality of fabric as valued means of expression, beyond the limits of the verbal. This work contributed to the visibility, externalisation and politicisation of acts of injustice, acknowledging forms of resistance, care and protest. The process invited us to reflect on the importance of collectivisation, fluidity and flexibility in structuring the therapeutic space, and allowed us to question the roles of therapist and activist as predefined identities.

To prepare for this session, please read We exist and resist as woven patches: Collective narrative practices in an activist context challenging and responding to an anti-lesbian hate crime

This session will be our first bilingual Meet the Author and will be translated to English by Carla Galaz Souza.

Mercy is a member of the international Roman Catholic religious congregation Congregatio Jesu. She is a registered clinical social worker, theologian, spiritual director, narrative therapist, lecturer, safeguarding consultant, development facilitator, researcher and writer. As a member of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians, she significantly contributes to theological scholarship and advocacy through her writing and narrative practices. Mercy has held several prominent positions, including director of Mary Ward Children’s Home, regional leader of her congregation, and former president of the Conference of Major Superiors in Zimbabwe. She holds a Doctor of Theology degree in practical theology with a specialisation in pastoral therapy from University of South Africa (UNISA) focusing on narrative and participatory pastoral care with children. She earned a Master of Theology in practical theology with a specialisation in pastoral therapy from UNISA, with a focus on storytelling, widowhood and narrative pastoral care. Her extensive experience in narrative therapy includes consulting with individuals, families, women and children, as well as writing and teaching. Mercy’s commitment to a narrative approach is deeply rooted in the rich tradition of African storytelling, making it highly applicable in diverse contexts. Her academic work has earned her numerous publications, a role as a UNISA examiner and a Global Sisters Report award. Currently, Mercy serves as a developmental officer of her congregation and a part-time lecturer at Arrupe Jesuit University in Zimbabwe. Her deepest passion is to offer hope and dignity to those on the margins, especially women and children, helping them realise their potential and become all that God intends for them.

This article shares a narrative journey with a young man grappling with the effects of problematic substance use. Substance use had disrupted his dreams of becoming a medical doctor, keeping him out of university for a year. Mercy embarked on a transformative journey with the young man and his family, guided by ideas and practices of narrative pastoral therapy. This narrative journey was non-blaming, collaborative, participatory, inclusive and contextual. The family and Mercy wove a new tapestry telling a story of healing, transformation and renewal.

To prepare for this session, please read Healing narratives: A journey of transformation and renewal

And then bring your questions for Mercy!

Angela (she/her) is a narrative practitioner, researcher and trainer, and was previously a social worker. In the mid-1990s, she began to question the counselling and family therapy theories that she has been practicing and teaching, particularly the expert position of therapists. She therefore searched for something different, and soon she fell in love with narrative ideas. In 2001, Angela had the privilege to learn from Michael White’s open workshops and intensives in Hong Kong. She was struck by the non-blaming decentring and respectful attitudes of narrative therapy. Since then, she has been learning and practicing narrative ideas as well as hoping to indigenise narrative ideas in Chinese communities. Angela has also been giving training to practitioners of government departments and social services agencies in mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Macao and Hong Kong. As well, she enjoys the privilege to collaborate with social services agencies and to do co-research with persons who seek for differences. She is always moved by the hopes and dreams of these persons which are often documented and can contribute to the lives of other people. After her retirement from the Department of Social Work, Hong Kong Baptist University, Angela devotes most of her time in doing narrative training and supervision in Hong Kong, Macao and mainland China.

We are sharing two of Angela’s papers this week. Let’s hear what the experts say documents a co-research journey with three young people who had been labelled as “socially isolated” and “underachievers”. Angela introduces narrative ideas such as externalising the problem and its effects, exploring the absent but implicit, re-authoring and investigating the cultural context of how success is constructed in Chinese cultures. She describes the co-research methodology used and the development of five themes; namely, the young people’s views of the problem, their descriptions of the problem and its effects, the strategies they used against the problem and its effects, what they held to be important, and how the results of the co-research were extended to inform future plans and actions. After sharing the voices of the three young persons, Angela reflects on lessons from this co-research process.

Different understandings of love examines the question ‘What is love?’ People’s understandings of love and their attempts to find and create it, significantly influence how they live their lives. This short reflection suggests that examining and deconstructing philosophies of love can open up meaningful realms for therapeutic explorations.

To prepare for this session, please read Let’s hear what the experts say: Narrative co-research with young people resisting the gaze of success and Different understandings of love.

And then bring your questions for Angela!

Annonciata is a Rwandan development professional with over 15 years of experience in community health, nutrition, and education. She currently works as a District Coordinator for Gardens for Health International in Gasabo District, leading the Home-Grown School Feeding Project across seven primary schools in Rutunga Sector.

Annonciata specialises in creating and delivering training programs in health, nutrition, and agriculture, working with diverse groups in communities, schools, and refugee camps. She also provides mental health support and holds a Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work from the University of Melbourne. Annonciata offers private counselling services using narrative therapy approaches, with a strong focus on supporting young mothers and vulnerable individuals to overcome mental health challenges and resilience. One of her key contributions includes creating the culturally rooted “Ingata of Life” metaphor to help people manage life stress and emotional burdens.

Culturally resonant metaphors can highlight local skills and knowledges and strengthen connections to community, culture and history in ways that can sustain us in difficult times. In this video, Annonciata shows how collective narrative practices like the Tree of Life and Team of Life can be adapted to celebrate local cultures. She introduces the Ingata Yúbuzima, the Ingata of Life, a Rwandan metaphor based on the handmade rings used to carry things on one’s head. The ingata is a treasured item in everyday use, offering protection to those carrying a heavy load. It can be used with assistance and when help is not available. Annonciata shows how she elicited the knowledge of the mothers she worked with about making, using and caring for ingata, and how this local knowledge became the basis for rich metaphors about values, skills, hopes and connection. Individual ingatas were created as a record of what the women wanted to protect, and a giant collective ingata wove their stories together. Ingata Yúbuzima offers a resonant image of protection formed from everyday materials that enables people to skilfully bear weight without being hurt by it. This video is an extract from a presentation that was part of Annonciata’s completion of the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work at The University of Melbourne. 

To prepare for this session, please watch Ingata yúbuzima: The ingata of life

And then bring your questions for Annonciata!

Ash Husband is a social worker and narrative therapist who lives and works on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people in Meanjin (Brisbane, Australia). Ash has experience working alongside children, young people and families in mental health and drug and alcohol contexts. This is where she developed an interest in resisting individualising and pathologising discourse through creative, collaborative and social justice–focused practice. Ash currently works as a team leader of a sexual assault support service that works alongside young women and gender-diverse folk. She is interested in how the narrative therapy field can contribute to the field of supervision and critical practice reflection.

In this paper Ash explores a narrative therapy approach to supervision and critical reflection and presents the “Reflective Conversation Cards”, a resource to support practice reflection. The cards guide conversation partners through a series of reflective questions informed by narrative ideas, aiming to democratise access to narrative therapy supervision. Ash presents four stories from practice, which show how the cards were developed in collaboration with other practitioners. The practice stories also show how the cards can be utilised by individuals and groups in diverse practice contexts and with practitioners of varied professional backgrounds. Importantly, the practice stories show how the cards can support collaborative conversations that incorporate an ethic of accountability to the people we work alongside. 

To prepare for this session, please read A narrative therapy approach to supervision and critical reflection: A conversation card resource

And then bring your questions for Ash!

Please join us for this unique Meet the Author as we celebrate Anthony Newcastle’s PhD thesis which has just passed with Excellence and been recommended by his examiners to receive the Chancellor’s Award! Anthony is the first Aboriginal graduate of the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work to go on to complete his PhD. Narrative practice is a key element of this Indigenist story-journey research project supporting Aboriginal masculinities.

Anthony’s creative works thesis features didgeridoo recordings, video, audio clips and has been consciously crafted in ways that are accessible to the participants who contributed to it – Aboriginal men in urban, regional and remote communities in Queensland.

Anthony is a descendant of the Tjingali in central Northern Territory and Mutijebin around the coast west from Darwin. Originally from Darwin, Anthony has worked in community development and theatre right through the Northern Territory, through Queensland and remote communities too.

Prior to this session, please read the abstract of Anthony’s thesis here:

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This research was inspired by calls from Indigenous women for new ways of thinking about Aboriginal masculinities and the need for grassroots community action to address violence against women. It has been conducted by Anthony Newcastle, a storyteller, didgeridoo player, visual artist, cultural development worker and narrative practitioner whose father and mother’s mother were both forcibly removed from their Aboriginal families in the Northern Territory as part of the Stolen Generations.  

This research project involved conversations with 120 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men over seven years. These conversations took place in urban, regional and remote Queensland communities. The majority of research conversations took place under the Story Bridge in Brisbane.

The project utilised an innovative Indigenist story-journey transformative methodology – the Search for Green Ant Dreaming – which was developed specifically for this project and is one of its key contributions. This creative works thesis includes videos, audio recordings, a music composition, a painting, a collective poem, collective letters and written stories. This is linked to an Indigenous research ethic of equity and accessibility. From the outset, this research journey was conceived as a process that would be conducted and storied in ways that are accessible, resonant and useful for the men and communities who participated within it.

This research responds to two questions: “What do Aboriginal men have to say about Aboriginal masculinities and becoming the men they want to be?” and “What can be learnt through the Search for Green Ant Dreaming methodology to support preferred Aboriginal masculinities in contemporary times?”

This creative works thesis provides a voice for Aboriginal men and new conceptual tools including Three hierarchies of Indigenous masculinities and Three Circles of Indigenous Masculinities. It provides contributions to knowledge about Aboriginal masculinities, contributions to practice for those who work with Aboriginal men, and contributions to research both methodological and in relation to Indigenous research ethics.

Because this is transformative story-journey research, this thesis also conveys actions that have been sparked through the research process, including local initiatives to prevent men’s violence and to respond to men’s grief and experiences of abuse.

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And listen to these two audio clips made by the participants of the research:

Understand the words

What’s its name? Shame

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And then bring your reflections and questions for Anthony. And be ready to celebrate!

Carolyn brings many years of experience, skill and commitment to counselling or consulting with children, young people, and their parents or caregivers. She has a commitment to cultural accountability working in collaboration with parents and community in relation to family separation, family violence, worry and anxiety, grief and school related issues. Carolyn has also worked as a School Counsellor and has lead counselling teams in the homelessness sector. Carolyn currently works as a Family and Relationship counsellor at Relationships Australia (South Australia). This work is office, primary school and community centre based to ensure access. Carolyn co-facilitates therapeutic groups for men who want to take responsibility for abusive actions they regret. She enjoys the rigour of teaching with the Dulwich Centre whilst also practicing and providing supervision in narrative ideas.

In this Emerging Minds podcast episode, Carolyn talks about her work gathering and documenting children’s knowledge about how they have managed through hard times, as well as their ideas about how they would like their fathers to treat them. She also explores ways their know-how and ideas can be anonymously shared to help others, particularly fathers she is also consulting with. 

To prepare for this session, please listen to Documenting and sharing children’s knowledge to support their mental health

And then bring your questions for Carolyn!

David Newman (he/him) lives and works on the lands of the Gadigal people, also known as Sydney, Australia, in an independent counselling practice. David has recently taught in Türkiye, Hong Kong and Palestine. He is currently passionate about working with those who are struggling with suicidal experience, narrative approaches to mental health work and the possibilities of group work. He is the author of the influential paper ‘Rescuing the said from the saying of it: Living documentation in narrative therapy’.

Children can experience distress for many reasons, often triggered by challenges or problems in their lives. This distress, which can range from mild to serious, is typically temporary. Children often find ways to cope and hold onto hope that things will improve. However, in some cases, distress can escalate into despair—a deeper and more persistent state of sadness and hopelessness where children struggle to imagine a better future. This prolonged despair can leave them feeling stuck and, for some, may lead to thoughts of suicide. 

In this Emerging Minds podcast episode, host Amanda Kemperman joins narrative therapist and social worker David Newman to explore childhood suicidal ideation through a narrative therapy lens. Offering valuable insights and approaches for support, David discusses how he negotiates conversations with young people, ensuring their hardships are shared and heard, while inviting them to explore what is underpinning their experiences. 

To prepare for this session, please listen to Childhood suicidal ideation through a narrative therapy lens

And then bring your questions for David!

Sara is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and for the past twenty years she has worked at University College Hospital in London with children, young people and their families who are living with complex medical conditions. Alongside this, she has been working within the Life Force Paediatric Palliative Care and Bereavement team supporting children and their families in the community, living with life threatening and life limiting conditions. Sara has the privilege of working alongside both Cristian and James as they bring ideas from Narrative and Systemic therapy to their work.

Cristian is a clinical psychologist with extensive experience at the intersection of mental health and human rights. He is the Director of Estudio Londres – Psychology & Human Rights, where he provides supervision, training, and psychological assessments, with a particular focus on survivors of torture and trauma. In addition to his clinical work, Cristian is a regular guest lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire, where he lectures on Liberation Psychology. Previously, he worked systemically within multidisciplinary teams at University College Hospital and Life Force, integrating narrative approaches into therapeutic practice to support children, adolescents and families facing challenges related to psycho-oncology and palliative care.

James is a clinical psychologist working with people living with health conditions at University College London Hospital. He works across Paediatrics and Urology and has the privilege to talk with people about ways to live alongside chronic health conditions and shrink their effects on life. He previously worked within the Life Force Paediatric Palliative Care and Bereavement team supporting children and their families living with life threatening and life limiting conditions.

This article covers a conversation that Cristian, James and Sara had about what informs their ways of working with young people and their parents when the young person is palliative. All three of them trained as Clinical Psychologists and are aware how their training had not prepared them for many of these conversations. However, ideas from narrative therapy had been a greater support.

To prepare for this session, please read Working with families where a young person is facing death

And then bring your questions for Sara, James and Cristian!

Karen is the Director of the Windz Centre. She designs and organises trainings, provides narrative therapy supervision and consults and trains for many organisations and walk-in therapy clinics. For over sixteen years Karen supervised and provided single session therapy at a walk-in therapy clinic. She has been teaching narrative therapy for over 34 years and is a therapist with forty years of experience. Karen has contributed numerous publications regarding applications of narrative therapy and research in brief services and walk-in therapy. She co-authored the Brief Services policy paper which informed government mandated changes in service provision in Ontario and was the lead in the first in Ontario Brief Services Evaluation Project, 2014, a multi-organisation evaluation of walk-in therapy services. Karen has a great deal of knowledge and passion for narrative practices with expertise in the application of narrative in brief and walk-in therapies. Karen is regarded as a trainer who conveys narrative ideas in very clear and useable ways.

This paper begins with a short description of the unique service delivery environments in Ontario, Canada, which includes an unprecedented number of walk-in therapy clinics, and how this came to be. Some of the pivotal events along the road of this journey are described, including a policy-ready paper and a successful legal appeal that recognised single session therapy as psychotherapy. It then explores the connection that developed between narrative therapy and walk-in therapy clinics in Ontario, with a particular focus on an aspect of narrative practice that the author refers to a multi-story listening.

Karen explores how multi-story listening can make a difference in single sessions. In all therapy conversations, and especially in single sessions and brief work, therapists can engage with the narrative therapy concept of doubly listening—seeking two stories, to listen for and enquire into the stories of life that are outside of the problem story. We are listening for two stories, the explicit story, usually regarding something that is problematic, and the implicit story that is in the shadows of the problem story. The implicit listening we are doing is focused on hearing in people’s words, what matters to them, what they hope for and prefer for their lives. We can hear within these expressions reflections of people’s knowledge, qualities and values.

To prepare for this session, please read Multi-story listening: Using narrative practices at walk-in clinics

And then bring your questions for Karen!

Erling is a narrative family therapist who (since 2003) has immersed himself in the study of narrative practice at the ROBUST clinic in Oslo, the only all-narrative practice clinic in Norway. He will discuss his daily practice with children, young people and their families suffering a range of difficulties including high conflicts and social and mental health issues of various kinds. Erling writes that he is “passionately devoted to the importance of a de-centered position and the unpacking of the merits already there, rather than having a conversation on the ‘I/we need to do better’ – premise”.

In these sessions, four previously unacquainted girls (age 12 to 14) have all individually faced years of bullying and exclusion. Introduced to the narrative practice idea of definitional ceremony, they have all accepted the invitation to come together in a shared sense of solidarity. Through the three videoclips we will look at the possibilities that non-individualistic narrative practices might offer when working with problems that often leave therapists feeling impotent and powerless.

To prepare for this session, please watch these videos*:
Not alone but sharing together 1
Not alone but sharing together 2
Not alone but sharing together 3

And then bring your questions for Erling!

This session will be hosted by Joseph Kalisa.

*These videos are password protected and not to be shared (password: Erling1706). They are spoken in Norwegian with English subtitles that can be turned on with the CC icon.

Chris (he/him) currently works as a narrative therapist with Rural & Remote Mental Health Service within SA Health. He also works with Emerging Minds: National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. Emerging Minds is a not-for-profit organisation funded by the Australian Government to support practitioners’ skill development in working with children and their families, to support children’s mental health and wellbeing. Among other things Emerging Minds produces free online courses, webinars, podcasts and practice papers.

In July 2023 and April 2024 Emerging Minds released two online courses on the topic of parental separation and children’s wellbeing. They were designed for practitioners who have contact with parents during separation and divorce, but who work outside of specialist counselling and family dispute resolution services. They are:

• Supporting children’s mental health when working with separating parents
• Child-focused practice with separating parents

Supporting children’s mental health when working with separating parents

This online course focuses on making children’s wellbeing a central aspect of the conversations practitioners have with parents who are going through separation or divorce. It outlines the potential impacts of relationship separation on parents and their parenting, and the potential impacts of parental separation on children’s mental health and wellbeing.

A key concept informing this course is that parents are highly influential in how children experience parental separation and its consequences for their everyday lives. Although difficult, parental separation doesn’t have to be distressing or traumatic for children.

It highlights some of the common assumptions and messages about separation and divorce that circulate in the Australian context and outline their consequences for how parents, children and practitioners respond to parental separation.

The course covers responding to parental separation where there is not a history of family and domestic violence. However, it highlights the importance of engaging separating parents in conversations about the safety, wellbeing and support needs of their children when living with the ongoing effects of family violence.

The course also describes some ideas for four key aspects of practice:

• Supporting parents’ wellbeing
• Supporting parenting and the parent–child relationship
• Supporting parents to support their children; and
• Supporting children through parental separation.

Child-focused practice with separating parents

This course focuses on the first three practice skills mentioned above, along with practices for ‘responding to unhelpful common messages about separation’. It’s this skill that is the focus for this Meet the Author session.

To prepare for this session, please read this document*, which is an excerpt of two ‘screens’ from this online course. It includes links to two scripted video demonstrations* between actors playing a counsellor and Cailtin, a mother navigating relationship separation. It also includes a scripted monologue by the counsellor.

And then bring your questions for Chris!

*Unavailable after this session.

Sabine works at the Interactie-Academie, a training and therapy center in Antwerp, Belgium. For more than 30 years she has been engaged in several youth care projects and goes on therapeutic journeys with children, youngsters and families in contexts of trauma, violence and abuse. She leaves the beaten tracks in playful, creative ways when speaking becomes difficult. She is a Narrative and Systemic trainer, psychotherapist and supervisor and responsible for the year-long training ‘Narrative Therapy and Community work’ and the postgraduate ‘Family counseling’ at Interactie-Academie. As an associated trainer at The Institute of Narrative Therapy (UK) and at the faculty of Dulwich Centre she shares her work with children, youngsters and families. She has published several articles and books on this work.

Jolien is the Advocacy Team Leader at SOS Children’s Villages Belgium.

The City Jewel Project is a living participatory memorial linking lives and stories of children, youngsters and adults who experienced trauma during childhood, and it hopes to facilitate a sense of personal, relational and collective agency, belonging and coherence. It is a collective testimony and document that aims to create relational and social recognition but at the same time is a form of social action in which we try to influence policy and dominant discourses.

A 95m long beaded string has been created and will be placed on 4m high pillars at an important Square in Brussels, with 650 paper mâché beads (each with a diameter of 10-20cm!).

About 150 children, young people, and adults were interviewed over the last year and invited to create and put together their own mini-bead kit with a bead representing the painful experiences in the past, the grief or suffering in their lives; another bead representing their responses or ways of keep on going, skills and knowledge, wisdom to hold on to and also one bead representing their resources, team of support… or whatever they liked. All these beads were brought together and will be hung in the artwork. On October 9^th 2024 all participants, as well as carers, people involved but also politicians came together to inaugurate the artwork. A goosebump moment!

To prepare for this session, please read The City Jewel Project: A living recognition memorial with and for children, youngsters and adults who experienced trauma during childhood time in Brussels, Belgium, and visit the project website.

In the article, you can read about the co-creation process, the aims and hopes but also the impact and effects and the important ideas behind it.

Jolien Potemans and Sabine Vermeire are looking forward to responding to all your questions and reflections.

This session will be hosted by Joseph Kalisa.

This book of resistance and critical thinking for disturbing times is a clarion call. It calls for forms of decolonising therapy that can provide a bridge between the counselling room and social action; for fugitive pedagogies in order to protect education as freedom; for critical thinking about culture; and for connecting with ancestral struggle to strengthen contemporary resistance. Significantly, this book also provides a sense of reassuring company to the reader through personal explorations of spirituality.

Makungu Akinyela is an Africana Studies scholar-activist, family therapist, and ordained minister working for social justice in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He is the developer of a culturally specific approach to narrative practice called Testimony Therapy. Drawing on decades of struggles for human rights and justice for Black people in the United States and the African diaspora, this book is a gift and a challenge to the reader in these critical times.

Please read this interview from the recent book ‘Decolonised counselling in a time of rising fascism’ and bring your questions.

Maya is a mental health social worker and narrative therapist based in Kolkata, India. She runs Story Threads Therapy, a practice offering therapy, supervision, training and community collaborations through a narrative therapy lens. Maya has been involved in mental health projects within child protection settings and the social service sector. She is an international faculty member at Dulwich Centre and clinical tutor with The University of Melbourne. She is also a tutor and faculty member with the diploma course in narrative therapy and community work, India, which is a collaboration between Dulwich Centre Foundation and Children First. Her area of interest is exploring mental health from a systemic lens and finding ways of responding that account for the structural origins of everyday problems.

This paper explores challenges posed to double-story development in situations of ongoing injustice. Located within the Indian context, it proposes various narrative practices to address these challenges and facilitate re-authoring. The paper examines two key practices: contextualising stories and narrative explorations of the body. Additionally, it demonstrates how different narrative maps – externalising, deconstruction, re-authoring, re-membering and bodybased narrative practices – can be interwoven to respond.

To prepare for this session please read Double story development in contexts where injustice is ongoing: Learnings from practice

And then bring your questions for Maya!

Frankie is the descendent of Dutch, Irish and British settlers, and lives on Wurundjeri country in Narrm (Melbourne) Australia. Frankie is a counsellor with a master’s degree in narrative therapy and community work. Frankie works in a peer-led LGBTIQ+ suicide support program and is a member of Dulwich Centre’s international teaching faculty. Frankie enjoys collaborating in projects of decarceral solidarity, mutual aid and activism within communities that have experienced violence and discrimination.

Belial is a fashion designer and drag artist with a love for pigeons, sci-fi and the beautifully bizarre aspects of life. Hatched on May 4th 2018 in Newcastle NSW, they’ve since taken to gracing stages across Naarm (Melbourne) in larger-than-life outfits with their trusty melodica in hand. Belial’s drag is rooted in joy, self-expression and community. Whether through performances that embrace the absurd and challenge the boundaries of drag, or through workshops on drag history, fashion and makeup, they’re dedicated to fostering spaces where creativity thrives. Their work is ultimately encapsulated by a relentless drive for self-exploration in a way that feels fun, authentic and perhaps a little unhinged, proving that drag is whatever you will it to be. 

In recent years, we have seen a rise in anti-LGBTIQ+ violence and hate across the settler colonies of so-called Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and Turtle Island North America. This video interview describes a response to anti-trans and anti-drag hate. It spotlights an individual therapeutic exchange that grew into a web of collective care, action and activism. In the context of counselling, people’s responses to discriminatory violence are often pathologised, creating contexts of blame and shame for people who are living through oppression. This video conversation retells significant fragments of a therapeutic relationship. It includes collective narrative practices such as letter writing, externalising and deconstructing the effects of doxing. We invite practitioners to reflect on how we might take our practices from the therapy room to the streets for protest and collective action, and to stages for drag, cabaret and performance art, as we take up our solidarity with targeted groups.  

To prepare for this session please watch Staying alive to prove them wrong: Collaborating with trans people, drag performers and queers in contexts of alt-right violence

And then bring your questions for Frankie!

This event will be hosted by Tileah Drahm  (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations).

Ben is a Family Therapist who has many years of experience working in public and independent settings primarily in social work and child and adolescent mental health in London, UK and in Boorloo Perth, Australia. He has completed the Masters in Narrative Therapy and Community Work. In addition to teaching with Dulwich Centre on national and international courses, Ben is a faculty member of  PartnershipProjectsUK. Ben thoroughly enjoys exploring and stretching narrative therapy in teaching and in his practice. In recent years Ben has worked alongside young people and their families in diverse contexts. This includes working with: families where child and adolescent-to-parent violence is a concern; foster families; children and young people bereaved through suicide; and with young people of diverse genders, sexualities and bodies. Ben currently works in independent practice.

What are some of the concerns parents have for their children when they have been affected by the suicide of a loved one? What are some of the ideas and practices practitioners can draw upon when working with children and families during such difficult times?  In this two-episode Emerging Minds podcast series, Ben speaks about working therapeutically with children, young people and their families when they are impacted by the suicide of a loved one. 

To prepare for this session please listen to Working with children affected by suicide part one and part two

And then bring your questions for Ben!

Evento especial: ¡Conoce a la autora en español!
Special event: Meet the Author in Spanish!

Yasna nació en Santiago, Chile. Sus raíces conectan con el pueblo mapuche huilliche de la región de Los Ríos. Es activista, feminista, lesbiana y disidente.

Su deseo de acompañar a las personas en momentos difíciles la llevó a estudiar psicología. Ha profundizado en estudios sobre arte y terapia, trauma, violencia, y abuso sexual. Ha trabajado en programas psicosociales en el sistema de protección a la infancia en Chile, experiencia que la llevó a comprender que los problemas que enfrentan las personas no pueden ser desvinculados del contexto social. 

Actualmente, realiza una práctica terapéutica independiente, inspirada por los principios de las prácticas narrativas, la ética de justicia social, interseccionalidad y activismos de Abya Yala, acompañando a mujeres y disidencias sexo-genéricas. Imparte docencia en educación superior, asistiéndose por metodologías colaborativas que fomentan la participación y la reflexión crítica. Le interesa desprivatizar el sufrimiento, colectivizar las prácticas terapéuticas y desafiar las ideas del rol profesional como identidad predefinida.

En los últimos años ha vivido en distintos lugares de Chile. Hoy, desde el puerto de San Antonio, navega entre flujos de identidad, explorando el significado de lo nómada y descubriendo nuevas formas de habitar el mundo.

Este artículo ilustra un proceso de trabajo metafórico y participativo en el cual un grupo de activistas feministas, lesbo-feministas y disidentes nos reunimos para responder terapéuticamente a los efectos del lesbo-odio. El contexto terapéutico se creó progresivamente, junto al despliegue de un conjunto de metáforas relacionadas con el arte textil, inspiradas en las conversaciones de reautoría propuestas por Michael White. El proceso incluyó la creación de un documento colectivo (Denborough, 2008) que reconoce y honra los saberes, conocimientos y nuestras formas particulares de responder frente al lesbo-odio, materializado en tres versiones; manta de retazos, video, y fanzine. Colectivizadas en un acto ceremonial, estas versiones incluyen el trabajo de creación manual-artístico y la materialidad del tejido como medios privilegiados de expresión, más allá de los límites de lo verbal. Este trabajo contribuyó a la visibilización, exteriorización y politización de actos de injusticia, reconociendo formas de resistencia, cuidado y protesta. El proceso nos invitó a reflexionar sobre la importancia de la colectivización, la fluidez y flexibilidad en la estructuración del espacio terapéutico, y a cuestionar los roles de terapeuta y de activista concebidos como identidades predefinidas.

Para prepararse para esta reunión, lea Existimos y resistimos como retazos u nidos: Prácticas narrativas colectivas en contexto activista: Desafíos y respu estas frente a u n crimen por lesbo-odio

¡Y luego trae tus preguntas para Yasna!

Esta sesión será conducida por Carla Galaz.

Amell El Guenuni is a UK based Systemic and Family Psychotherapist and EMDR practitioner with two decades of experience in trauma and complex bereavement. During eight years at the NHS Grenfell trauma service, she developed and delivered culturally and faith-informed interventions for communities impacted by the Grenfell fire. Her work challenges colonial legacies in systems/therapy, centring relationally focused trauma interventions that honour mind, body, and Roh (spirit/soul). Through her practice, she advances social justice providing cultural consultation spaces/training and supervision to NHS-services supporting diverse communities.

Dr. Jeyda Hammad is a UK-based Counselling Psychologist in private practice. She is also an EMDR Consultant in training. She specialises in working with complex trauma and traumatic bereavement. She has a background working in specialist trauma services and service development for minoritised ethnic and faith groups. Her research and writing includes culturally appropriate and faith-informed therapeutic approaches for Middle Eastern and North African communities affected by collective trauma and loss; Palestinian mental health under occupation and the impact of structural violence and economic oppression; coping with ongoing collective trauma and loss; and economic empowerment in occupied Gaza Strip, Palestine.

The June 2017 Grenfell Tower apartment building fire was one of the largest and deadliest to occur in the UK in decades, with 72 deaths. This paper outlines the development of an innovative therapeutic group for young Moroccan Muslim people affected by collective trauma and loss who were reluctant to engage with mainstream services following the Grenfell Tower fire.

The project’s central principle was partnership and coproduction with potential users and offering a culturally appropriate service. Its aim was to meet the mental health and other needs of young people, support them through their bereavement and trauma, and to improve access to mental health services by addressing the barriers they reported. The group approach used community psychology and systemic principles, narrative therapy concepts, creative arts, and collective memorialization. The importance of activism and the integration of youth and ethnic culture, and faith are discussed. Our therapeutic approach drew on Michael White’s (2005) narrative work on attending to the consequences of trauma.

Narrative practices to support the re-authoring of stories and strengthening subjugated narratives are discussed, and examples of unique outcomes are provided in the service evaluation findings. It challenges traditional Western individualistic notions of therapeutic spaces and what is considered psychological healing and therapeutic.

To prepare for this session please read A coproduced traumatic bereavement therapeutic group for Moroccan adolescents affected by the Grenfell Tower fire

And then bring your questions for Amell and Jeyda!

KJ Wiseheart is a multiply neurodivergent counsellor and narrative practitioner. They are committed to co-creating neurocosmopolitan conversations and communities where all neurocognitive differences in experience, communication and embodiment are appreciated and affirmed. KJ is also enthusiastically exploring therapeutic applications of tabletop role playing games. KJ is a graduate of the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work program at The University of Melbourne.

Tiffany Sostar (they/them) is a bisexual, nonbinary, neurodivergent, disabled narrative practitioner and community worker. They usually live as a white settler on Blackfoot land in Treaty 7 territory in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, but are living on Kaurna land right now.

Join KJ Wiseheart and Tiffany Sostar for this Meet the Authors event on the topic of narrative documentation, including a range of documentation types. Although there are particular documents that you can read ahead of this Meet the Authors session, this is also an opportunity to ask questions about the processes and complexities of narrative documentation, and we would love to hear your questions about this! Both Tiffany and KJ have been thinking recently about the processes, possibilities, and practices of narrative documentation, and we’re keen to talk about this with you!

In advance of this meeting, there are a few documents that you can engage with:

• You can watch the video and read the article describing KJ’s documentation project with Felicity and her family, Full Circle: Documenting hard-won knowledges and celebrating “bits of brilliance”
• You can read KJ’s collective document, How we deal with Autistic burnout: A living document created by Autistic adults for Autistic adults
• You can read Tiffany’s collective document, Not to fix anything, but just to offer a millimetre of relief or breath or humour or companionship: A collective document about caring for trans community
• Tiffany would also welcome the opportunity to speak about their current explorations related to collective documentation, including zines.

And then bring your questions for Tiffany and KJ!

Catrina Brown is a Professor at the School of Social Work, Dalhousie University and cross appointed to Gender and Women’s Studies. She teaches, conducts research and has a feminist narrative private practice with an emphasis on the intersection of critical theory, policy and practice specifically in the areas of mental health, health, trauma, post-trauma, depression, eating disorders and substance use. She has recently published the edited book Reframing Trauma Through Social Justice: Resisting the Politics of Mainstream Trauma Discourse. 

Women with histories of trauma are often pathologised and given an unhelpful diagnosis. In this chapter, Catrina emphasizes a critical discursive feminist practice which integrates discursive resistance to psychiatric medicalised and pathologising approaches to trauma and critically-based feminist practice which equalises power in the therapeutic context by stressing safety, client power and control over their own choices, alongside transparency and collaboration throughout the work.

A feminist narrative lens challenges pathologising diagnoses and re-focuses the therapeutic conversations, adopting an ethical stance of unpacking the meaning and construction of women’s stories of trauma, the influence of the stories on their lives, and the creation of more helpful, less fearful counter-stories.

Catrina explores the constraints and dangers of telling trauma stories and the importance of double-listening for the absent but implicit in trauma stories – for the yet to be spoken. Moving from silence to speech often requires ‘fearless speech’ (Foucault, 2001) as speaking too often involves risk to oneself.  Trauma work is contextualised and the collaborative approach emphasizes clients’ strengths and agency alongside their vulnerability, marginalisation, and pain. The therapeutic conversation relies on a strong therapeutic alliance when there is relational injury, unpacking the experience of being in relationships within trauma work and the movement from silence to speech when trauma has been unspeakable.

To prepare for this gathering please read Talking trauma talk and the dangers of speech: Feminist narrative therapeutic conversations for complex trauma*

And then bring your questions for Catrina!

*Unavailable after 01/04/25. Book can be purchased here.

Please come along to launch the next issue of the International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work! This special meet the author event will feature many of the authors who have contributed to this next issue. It’s a diverse and sparkling collection that Editor Shelja Sen describes here.

The journal papers and videos and audio notes will be available here from Friday!  

The countdown is on.

Please register for the launch event here … and we look forward to seeing you to celebrate and learn about recent narrative practice projects from Rwanda, Australia, Zimbabwe, Canada, USA, India, Hong Kong and a moving paper from an Afghan family.

Xiaolu was born in Ningxia Muslim Autonomous Region of northwestern China in 1991, and brought up by grandparents who instilled in her the hunger for poetry and practicality. She likes to work at the intersection of film and translation probably due to the fact she worked at a video rental store in order to learn English to survive the life of a transplant stranded on Occupied Dakota land. She proposes works charged with affect of absence, misunderstandings, and migration, as a way to overlap distant realities. She develops video collage and friendships as methods to shift relational possibilities within text, image, and sound. You can also find her in the company of cats and flying kites. www.hellox140lu.com

“I grew up with the bird song of kookaburras, galahs and magpies. With blue tongue lizards and dugites. Alongside creeks, bush and the open ocean. With bottlenose dolphins and stingers. I breathed with humid air thick with spices and pandan leaves. With pepper plants, monsoon rain and dusky leaf monkeys. In relationship with snow and rivers these days. Meeting marmots, belugas and squirrels. Amongst pines, juniper, bluets and lichen.”  – Poh. At the heart of their practice, Poh is committed to non-extractive and decolonial approaches to engaging with lived experience, whether this be in therapeutic, community or creative processes. Poh likes to practice at the intersections of different bodies – narrative therapy, social work, co-research, writing, teaching, and film/creative consulting. To find out more visit www.narrativeimaginings.com 

Xiaolu and Poh first encountered one another at a workshop Poh offered (on the theme of departures from migration of identity ideas) at a final Doc X lab event where Xiaolu was a fellow of the program. 

“The DocX initiative entered its next phase of evolution: to support BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) artists and thought leaders working across the nonfiction landscape and charting more accountable, nonextractive documentary paths and practices. To reimagine what documentary work looks and sounds like, DocX nurtured the imaginative exploration and questioning of artists and curators of color who boldly interrogated form and ways of collaborating.” DocX Centre for Documentary Studies

Following this encounter Xiaolu requested a series of consultations with Poh centering a film in development and also more broadly a space to examine the complexities of image and community making within her current political and social realities. They found together how the presence of dominant ideas of the hero’s journey seeks to embed itself into the filmmaking process and how we could create intentional space for the otherwise dismissed and overlooked practices, stories and ways of moving.

Xiaolu and Poh are curious to hear what the experience was like for you to meet us in this writing/video fragments?

What questions are lighting up or connections are becoming visible between what we are sharing and your current practice(s) and contexts?

To prepare for this gathering please read Fragments Contain Worlds: Encounters between Narrative Practice and Filmmaking* and watch the 3 embedded video fragments.

And then bring your questions for Xiaolu and Poh!

*Unavailable after 18/03/25. Book can be purchased here.

Philippa Byers lives and works on Bundjalung Country in New South Wales, Australia. She has a PhD in philosophy and has taught moral philosophy and applied ethics at several Australian universities and within the NSW prison system. She is also a social worker currently employed in a research and practice development role for a non-government organisation that provides services to children and families in contact, or at risk of contact with the statutory child protection system. She has authored, and co-authored, peer-reviewed publications in moral philosophy, applied ethics, narrative therapy, and child protection practice.

David Newman (he/him) lives and works on the lands of the Gadigal people, also known as Sydney, Australia, in an independent counselling practice. David has recently taught in Türkiye, Hong Kong and Palestine. He is currently passionate about working with those who are struggling with suicidal experience, narrative approaches to mental health work and the possibilities of group work. He is the author of the influential paper ‘Rescuing the said from the saying of it: Living documentation in narrative therapy’.

This paper charts ideas developed during Philippa’s student placement with David, as they discussed narrative practice, other mental health practices and philosophy. The paper draws on philosophy of language and the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, applying this to Michael White’s injunction to look (and listen) for the experience-near in the words and phrases that are offered to narrative therapists. It offers philosophical reflections on an ethical principle of narrative practice which Philippa and David call a first person principle. The first person principle is elaborated in a discussion of David’s narrative practice with young people. This offers philosophical and practical insights to some of the issues and questions that may arise for narrative therapists who, like David, practice within mainstream services, encountering ‘neuro’ and other professionalised discourses and accompanying expectations.

To prepare for this session please read A first person principle: Philosophical reflections on narrative practice within a mainstream psychiatric service for young people

And then bring your questions for Philippa and David!

Angel Yuen is a narrative therapist, supervisor, workshop facilitator and consultant in alternative-private practice in the multicultural context of Toronto, Canada. Her previous narrative work spanning three decades included experiences in school, community and health settings with persons of all ages. Angel is a founding member and faculty of the Narrative Therapy Centre of Toronto. She has facilitated several narrative workshops locally and in different countries and within these spaces she continually is honoured to share hopeful stories, skills and wisdom of the people who consult with her. She also has a particular interest in finding and co-discovering hopeful and creative ways of responding to hardship. Angel is the author of Pathways beyond despair: Re-authoring lives of young people through narrative therapy. 

How do you create a sense of hope for children and families who are in the midst great hardship? In this Emerging Minds Podcast episode, Angel and Chris Dolman discuss her particular interest in working with children to co-discover and seek out hopeful and effective ways of responding to trauma and hardship.

To prepare for this session, please listen to Co-discovering hope with children facing hardships.

And then bring your questions for Angel!

Anthony Newcastle is a descendant of the Tjingali in central Northern Territory and Mutijebin around the coast west from Darwin. Originally from Darwin, Anthony has worked in community development and theatre right through the Northern Territory, through Queensland and remote communities too. Anthony is a graduate of the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work and is now just about to submit his PhD (this Meet the Author doubles as Anthony’s completion seminar).

Prior to this session, please read Anthony’s earlier paper ‘Didgeri, individual therapeutic conversations and No More Silence’ and then come to hear how this developed into a PhD research project supporting Aboriginal masculinities. You’ll hear about the Indigenist story-journey methodology that Anthony has developed – the Search for Green Ant Dreaming – and what this has made possible.

And then bring your questions for Anthony!

Jill Freedman (she/her) is co-director of Evanston Family Therapy Center in North America, where she teaches narrative therapy and has a therapy and consulting practice. Together with her partner, Gene Combs, she has authored three books: Symbol, story, and ceremony: Using metaphor in individual and family therapy, Narrative therapy: The social construction of preferred realities and Narrative therapy with couples… and a whole lot more! and more than 30 book chapters and articles. She is co-author with David Denborough and Cheryl White of Strengthening resistance: The use of narrative practices in working with genocide survivors. Jill is an Honorary Associate of the Taos Institute and in 2009 was given the Innovative Contribution to Family Therapy Award by the American Family Therapy Academy. She teaches internationally, including in the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work program offered by the University of Melbourne and Dulwich Centre.

My favourite questions, which began as a part of a plenary address at the 10th International Narrative Therapy Conference in Salvador, Brazil, offers three sets of questions that the author names as ‘favourites’ in her work. The first two sets of questions are questions that therapists can ask clients in therapy conversations. The first set may help people link their lives with others. The second may help people organise their experience into narratives. The third is a question that therapists can ask themselves to help them come to questions that promote experiential involvement.

To prepare for this session, please read My favourite questions, or listen to the audio recording read by Esther Benz.

How might narrative therapy and community work contribute to research?

The Narrative Practice Research Network is excited to be launching a special issue of The Qualitative Report exploring the generative possibilities of applying narrative practice to thinking about and doing research.

Throughout the month of December 2024, TQR will be publishing a rich and diverse collection of papers that apply narrative therapy’s critical poststructuralist perspectives to generating new knowledge, understandings and analyses through qualitative research. Papers explore practice-based research, research interviews, insider research, decolonizing ethics and methodologies, and lots more.

This special Meet the Author session will celebrate the launch of this significant new collection of theory and practice and invite conversation about the many confluences of narrative therapy and qualitative research.

To prepare for this session, please read Qualitative research meets narrative therapy and community work: A confluence of practice and politics and Time travelling with Ron Chenail, Sally St. George, Dan Wulff, and David Denborough: An interview about the connecting histories of family therapy, narrative therapy, and qualitative research

TQR is an open-access peer-reviewed journal dedicated to developing qualitative, critical and collaborative research. It has a long history of engagement with family therapy and narrative practice. If you would like to receive the papers from this special collection, along with additional commentary, you can sign up to their free email newsletter here.

Tiffany Sostar (they/them) is a bisexual, nonbinary, neurodivergent, disabled narrative practitioner and community worker. They live as a white settler on Blackfoot land in Treaty 7 territory in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. This work is undertaken in collaboration with Elliot Trimble (he/him) and with Nathan Viktor Fawaz (they/he/she).

A collective document about caring for trans community is part of “narrative projects in support of trans lives”, a collection of work being undertaken by Tiffany Sostar, Elliot Trimble, and Nathan Viktor Fawaz. Not to fix anything, but just to offer a millimetre of relief or breath or humour or companionship: A collective document about caring for trans community brings together many stories of care within and with trans community. Our hope is that this document will help connect readers to a sense of community and collective action, and will invite readers, regardless of gender identity, to join us in taking actions of care within a social context that is increasingly hostile to trans lives. These stories, reflection questions, and invitations describe and welcome a wide range of care, including small, personal, and beautifully imperfect actions taken by and alongside trans community.

This discussion revisits and follows up on the work discussed at Meet the Author on May 21, 2024, but is open to anyone!

To prepare for this session, please read A collective document about caring for trans community

And then bring your questions for Tiffany, Elliot and Nathan!

Anne-lise Ah-fat is a migrant settler to so-called Australia, living on stolen Wurundjeri Country. Her lineages include Creole slaves, indentured labourers-slaves of the Hakka people, and slave owners from France and Portugal. Anne-lise is passionate about transformative justice, abolition, ultra-left communisation, community radio, publishing and radical libraries. Her paid work sits within the not-for-profit industrial complex where she works as a men’s family violence therapist. Anne-lise is involved in the Transformative Justice Network, Incendium Radical Library and Infoshop, IRL letter writing prison solidarity network and mutual aid, Radio A and A Transformative Justice Podcast, Healing through Arts collective, and LGBTIQ+ community therapy inside prisons. Anne-lise holds a belief that individual and social transformation can only occur collectively.

When Grief Arrives is a narrative therapy and oral history project aimed at re-storying narratives of grief and loss within queer, trans and Black, Indigenous and people of colour communities. The project documents multi-storied accounts of grief that resist the individualisation and isolation of grieving that is common under settler colonialism and capitalism. By honouring overlooked landscapes of experience, the project seeks to generate solidarity and interconnection through shared knowledges. This article discusses the project’s methodology, ethical considerations, and the transformative potential of collective storytelling in fostering solidarity and healing within marginalised communities.

To prepare for this session, please read When Grief Arrives: An oral history of grief and death within queer, trans and Black, Indigenous and people of colour communities

And then bring your questions for Anne-lise!

Hamilton Kennedy is a researcher, animal lover and ex-patient of psychiatry. They are completing their PhD at La Trobe University. Their PhD explores the concept of delusion and the truth contained with these beliefs. Hamilton completed the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work at The University of Melbourne in 2019.

The label of delusion can be so powerful that people so labelled are no longer believed or supported in preferred ways by those around them. This leads to a lack of meaningful and non-pathologising support for their significant, and at times unusual, beliefs. This phenomenon constitutes a form of epistemic injustice. To address this issue, this paper outlines specific approaches practitioners can adopt to better respond to such beliefs, illustrating these strategies with real-world examples from practice. By doing so, it aims to foster a form of epistemic justice that respects the knowledge and experience of people labelled as delusional and supports them to understand and lessen the impact of these often-distressing experiences. This paper is informed by research undertaken with people who had been labelled by psychiatry as “delusional”.

This event will be hosted by Tileah Drahm  (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). 

To prepare for this session, please read Delusions: Seeking epistemic justice for the most unusual of stories

And then bring your questions for Hamilton!

Dr. Makungu M. Akinyela is a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) in practice in Atlanta, Georgia and an Associate Professor in the Africana Studies Department at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He is a Clinical Fellow and an Approved Supervisor of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). As a scholar and a therapist, Dr. Akinyela has been a committed Social Justice organizer for over forty-years, focused on struggles for human rights and justice for Black people in the United States and the African diaspora. His research and writing includes such subjects as cultural democracy and mental health care; cultural domination and therapeutic resistance; reparations and the role of mental health workers in repairing oppressions wounds and African centred family therapy. He is currently working on a book on his clinical ideas entitled Testimony therapy and decolonizing mental health practice to be published by W.W. Norton in 2025.

This Meet the author session with Makungu will be a conversation on Testimony Therapy: an African centered narrative practice.

This session will be hosted by Tileah Drahm (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read Testimony Therapy: An African Centred Practice by Makungu Akinyela. This chapter is from an upcoming book and will not be available following the session.

And then bring your questions for Makungu!

Jaya is passionate about creating space for women, girls and people from marginalised and minority communities whose voices are unheard and deliberately silenced. For this, she co-founded The Story Kitchen where she works with communities to help them feel powerful through their own stories. She started her professional career as a radio journalist in 1999. She has spent nearly half of her life listening to and supporting Nepali women to amplify their voices. Since 2015, she has been working with the women survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) of Nepal’s ten years of armed conflict and supporting them in the healing and truth-seeking process. Jaya applies reflective-storytelling methods which are guided by internationally recognised narrative therapy theory and practice. Jaya’s last ten years of continuous work with women survivors of armed conflict–related SGBV in Nepal has equipped women survivors to become justice reporters, get organised and demand justice in a collective way. Jaya carries a strong conviction, which she practices through her heart, that everyone has stories, all stories are beautiful, and that all stories matter.

The Story Kitchen in Nepal is applying the tools of collective narrative practice to ensure that women who have been subjected to sexual violence during armed conflict are not left with a single story or identity. The Story Kitchen has developed a survivor-to-survivor approach, training women as justice reporters to elicit other women’s stories and developing local metaphors to convey their experience. This presentation at the 2022 International Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference in Rwanda shares how The Story Kitchen was created to look at Nepalese history from women’s perspectives, to learn about women’s skills of survival, and to support a collective voice for justice.

To prepare for this session, please watch The Story Kitchen: Igniting and building courage for justice in Nepal with women survivors of armed conflict

And then bring your questions for Jaya!

Mark Hayward studied with Michael White for many years and has a keen interest in the practice maps Michael White developed and ways to teach these maps. He is a founding director of The Institute of Narrative Therapy based in UK and part of the Dulwich Centre teaching faculty.

This is a chance to critique practice! (And critique its relationship with theory)

Take a look at one or both of the live clinical interviews of the two re-membering map/outsider witness group and come with any thoughts about:

1. Questions you might have asked differently.
2. Questions you might not have asked at all.
3. Questions you would like to have seen asked.
4. Non-map interviewing possibilities
5. Limitations of the map or its value
6. How you might offer supervision to the interviewer.
7. Etc!

To prepare for this session, please watch Re-Membering Map and/or Outsider Witness Group from Dulwich Centre’s Maps of Narrative Practice online course.

And then bring your questions for Mark!

Will Sherwin is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice in Orange County, California. He is the clinical supervisor of Story Wellness, a narrative therapy-based treatment program in San Juan Capistrano, California. He is also the co-founder of BANTR-CE, which offers continuing education courses in narrative therapy. He produced the narrative therapy podcast BANTR Radio, primarily from 2014 to 2018.

This paper tells the history of The Read Everything Michael White Published Project, in which Will read all the works available to him that were published by Michael White, the co-originator of narrative therapy. Will describes the reading project’s conception, its effects on his work, some practices that Michael White believed were useful for therapists, tips for others considering a reading project of their own, and new initiatives this project was generative of in his work.

This event will be facilitated by Zan Maeder.

To prepare for this session, please read: The Read Everything Michael White Published Project by Will Sherwin.

And then bring your questions for Will! 

Mark Hayward studied with Michael White for many years and has a keen interest in the practice maps Michael White developed and ways to teach these maps. He is a founding director of The Institute of Narrative Therapy based in UK and part of the Dulwich Centre teaching faculty.

This is a chance to critique practice! (And critique its relationship with theory)

Take a look at one or both of the live clinical interviews of the two Actions to Identity/Re-Authoring maps and come with any thoughts about:

1. Questions you might have asked differently.
2. Questions you might not have asked at all.
3. Questions you would like to have seen asked.
4. Non-map interviewing possibilities
5. Limitations of the map or its value
6. How you might offer supervision to the interviewer.
7. Etc!

To prepare for this session, please watch Actions to Identity Map and/or Re-Authoring Map from Dulwich Centre’s Maps of Narrative Practice online course.

And then bring your questions for Mark!

This week we are going to do something different and discuss together two classic interviews.

The first is an interview by Rachel Hare-Mustin called ‘Thinking differently about gender’. This interview was published in 23 years ago. So much has changed in terms of how we think and talk about gender now and considerations of trans and non-binary lives are not discussed in this piece. But there is a lot within this interview that remains incredibly interesting!  

The second is an interview with Michael White called ‘Psychotic experience and discourse’ (by Ken Stweart). There is so much within this wonderful interview!

The idea is, please read these two interviews and underline any passages that are particularly significant to you. Please think about why these particular passages are significant to you, what they make you think about, and any ways they might influence your practice.

Thinking differently about gender, interview with Rachel Hare-Mustin

Psychotic experience and discourse, interview with Michael White

And then, come along to this session and we will discuss these passages together! We will ask people to read out the passages … before making their comment, reflection or question. So please be ready to be precise and particular about which elements of the interviews you are drawn to.

It’s a different sort of meet the author. Unfortunately we can’t meet Rachel or Michael in person anymore. But we can meet with their words and sparkling ideas.

This session will be hosted by Tileah Drahm (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations), Tiffany Sostar and dd.

dd – david denborough has a long-lasting friendship with narrative practice and a long-lasting friendship with songs and songwriting. He has also seen how significant it can be for those experiencing hardship to have songs written from their words.

To prepare for this Meet the Author/Songwriter, please listen to this playlist of songs written with those incarcerated; or watch this keynote in which dd tried to articulate key principles of practice through sharing three songs and the stories of how these were created; or read this short chapter on songs of sustenance from the book Collective narrative practice: Responding to individuals, groups and communities who have experienced trauma (or watch/read/listen to all three!) and then bring your questions and reflections.

dd looks forward to chatting about songs, narrative practice, lyrics and melody!

Mark Trüdinger has a long-standing interest in narrative practice, having worked on and off for Dulwich Centre from 1996 to 2021. He has used collective narrative approaches with young men in schools and juvenile justice settings, in preparing collective eulogies in aged care, and in post-disaster contexts. He has a special interest in the relationships of place and identity. Mark is currently the Group Recovery Manager for Northland Civil Defence Emergency Management and is currently coordinating the Recovery from 2023’s Cyclone Gabrielle in Northland, New Zealand. He is the convenor of the Community Wellbeing Recovery Network, which runs regular online sessions exploring the intersections of social work, health, mental health, community work, and disaster recovery.

This session will cover:

• A simple approach to post-disaster rapid community consultation and community work
• Ways of asking questions that shift from individualised experiences of identity to collective identity
• Ways of producing collective documents that include individual voices yet still speak to collective experiences
• The relevance of Deleuze’s notions of difference and repetition, and Ewa Ziarek’s concept of ‘dissensus’, for allowing both similar and divergent individual voices in collective narrative documents.
• And more!

This event will be facilitated by Tiffany Sostar. Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read:

• Cyclone Gabrielle and Tai Tokerau Northland: Stories of community resilience and messages of support for the rest of Aotearoa New Zealand,
• Recovery planning with communities at heart, and
• Maps of violence, maps of hope: Using maps to explore identity, gender and violence

And then bring your questions for Mark!

We are very much looking forward to launching a free web resource of engaging video interviews and readings about the Just Therapy approach developed by Māori, Samoan and Pākehā colleagues at The Family Centre in Aotearoa New Zealand. Featuring Taimalieutu Kiwi Tamasese, Charles Waldegrave, Warihi “Wally” Campbell, Monica Mercury and others, this resource conveys the inspiring and challenging Just Therapy approach to cross-cultural partnerships, gender accountability, culturally appropriate responses to mental health, and much more. The work of the Just Therapy Team has profoundly influenced the field of family therapy and narrative practice. We’re looking forward to seeing how current and future generations of practitioners engage with their ideas and stories.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations).

To prepare for this session, please check out the free web resource and bring your questions to ask the Just Therapy team!

David Newman lives and works on the lands of the Gadigal people, also known as Sydney, Australia. He is a faculty member of Dulwich Centre and an honorary clinical fellow at The University of Melbourne’s Department of Social Work. Through his independent therapy practice, Sydney Narrative Therapy, he meets with individuals, couples and families. He delights in this work and narrative practices have offered invigorating company.

In this Meet the Author, David will discuss the document ‘The things to get you through’ which includes ideas and stories from young people living in a psychiatric in-patient unit about ways of getting through the toughest of times. As they say in the introduction, ‘We know just how easy it is to get lost in life. We hope these documents offer one way for others to find a way back.’

This event will be facilitated by Tiffany Sostar. Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read The things to get you through: Ideas and stories from young people who have been through mental health struggles

And then bring your questions for David about the use of narrative practices to create such documents and what this makes possible.

Michelle Bates, a descendant of the Gamilaroi, Anaiwan and the Irish, lives and works across several bases. On Awabakal country, east coast New South Wales, and the Barkly Tablelands and Central Australia -Warumungu and Arrernte lands, Northern Territory, Australia.

Michelle studied with Dulwich Centre and University of Melbourne acquiring the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work in 2017, then working and living for a decade in Northern Territory, with victims of crime, people with lived experience of disability, and community projects, and in 2022 established an independent practice, working with families, individuals, groups, family members of missing persons, and elderly people and others in their last chapter of their life. 

After years of practice, Michelle feels she more deeply understands the journey of “moving from the known and into delight” (Michael White), a particular reference to her work with First Nations children, young people and their families in remote Australia, which continues today. 

Oh, what can come from a culturally safe, double listening, holding space! 

Michelle is deeply interested in working with others to surface their strong stories, rescuing words, and connecting people together through collective documents, and the sharing of experiences, wisdoms, and know how.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations).

To prepare for this session, please read the chapter Celebrating children’s culture and connections through story-sharing by Michelle, from Yarning with a purpose: First Nations narrative practice.

And then bring your questions for Michelle!

We’re delighted to invite you to the online launch of a new web resource featuring videos, articles, audio clips and songs from a wide range of narrative practitioners from Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Uganda, Rwanda, Somalia, Somaliland, Ethiopia, Zanzibar/Tanzania as well as from Africans in the diaspora. 

This free resource has been quite some years in the making.

It features sparkling work with children, adults, families and communities provides moving and skilful ways of assisting those who are suffering. There are so many African contributions to the field of narrative therapy and community work and many of these are conveyed in this resource. Also included are videos from the 13th International Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference that took place in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2022.

Many of the practitioners whose work appears in the resource will be part of the online launch.

We hope you can join us for this celebration, which will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations).  

To prepare for this session, please explore African-centred narrative practices: A rich history and constant invention

And then bring your questions!

Loretta lives and work in Western Sydney on Dharug Country, and she has Irish/English heritage. Loretta’s current work is a mix of supervision and counselling and she is also temporarily managing an Intensive Family Preservation team, working to keep families safely together and out of the child protection system. Most of her work has been working with women who are experiencing distress and she worked for 17 years at a free service with families using a narrative approach to counselling, group work and case management. Loretta is passionate about walking alongside people as they go through hard times.

Loretta is interested in the feminist underpinnings of narrative practice, and has found this a supportive approach to listening to stories of hardship, making sense of our experiences and seeking solidarity.

This event will be facilitated by Tiffany Sostar. Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read Voice and solidarity from Loretta’s new book and then come together to consider ways we can explore the social and political contexts of people’s experiences of ‘depression’ and ‘anxiety’ and create pathways for solidarity.

And then bring your questions for Loretta!

Lyra (pronounced LEE-dah) Barrera is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist working in private practice at Larchmont Associates in Los Angeles. She earned degrees in Psychology from Harvard University, Pepperdine University, and the California School of Professional Psychology. Her areas of academic emphasis included Women’s Studies; Marriage, Child, and Family Therapy; and Multicultural Community Clinical Psychology. Lyra has provided training and supervision in both agency and private-practice settings. She has been working with individuals and couples at Larchmont Associates since 1998.

One of the most compelling aspects of Narrative Therapy for Lyra is its insistence on giving voice to marginalised ideas, knowledges, and experiences. One way to honour that intention and bring those knowledges forward is by asking tiny questions — questions about the details of people’s lives.

We believe that it is a political act to engage in conversation with someone about their life — the way we hear, the things we say, and the questions we ask all have effects. From this perspective, if a person describes their life in a general or broad way, and we respond by stopping our inquiry and settling on this broad account, we run the risk of reducing their experience to a pre-made/pre-existing standard that was not created by them, their family, or their community.

From a narrative way of thinking, every utterance of ours is an opportunity to get closer and closer to a telling of the person’s life that is exquisitely specific to their lived experience – a telling that in its detail activates nuance and possibility that can be noticed, seen, and known by only the person telling it. It is through our pursuit of specificity that we co-create meaning that is truly liberating.

This event will be facilitated by Tiffany Sostar. Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please watch Tiny Questions and read the companion piece of writing by Lyra. 

And then bring your questions for Lyra!

Carol was drawn to narrative ideas way back in 1990 when she was introduced to Michael White’s ideas via colleagues. Since then, Carol has done lots of workshops with Michael, David Epston and Jill Freedman and Gene Coombs and the Dulwich team. These explorations have helped her practice and thinking travel – as well as numerous long plane journeys! Carol’s white privileged thinking was firmly taken in hand by the Just Therapy Team in Aotearoa/New Zealand and how this impacts on her way of being in the world as well as her practice. She has enjoyed working in NHS in UK as Consultant lead Family therapist in West London Mental Health trust Child and Adolescent Mental Health service for many years alongside teaching in UK and internationally.

Ben is a family therapist who lives on Whajuk country in Perth, Western Australia. He has many years of experience working primarily in social work and child and adolescent mental health in London, UK, and in Perth. He is an associate of The Institute of Narrative Therapy (UK) and part of the teaching faculty of PartnershipProjectsUK and Dulwich Centre. In recent years, Ben has worked with families in diverse contexts, including with CYPRESS (Children & Young People’s Responsive Suicide Support). CYPRESS is a postvention counselling service provided by Anglicare WA, working with children, young people and their families bereaved by suicide. He also works in independent practice as a family therapist and supervisor.

Just as language is political, so too is the way we listen to people. Our listening shapes the way we witness and respond to others and the stories of life that are co-constructed in the process. Co-constructing resiliences includes returning the gaze on the political and social contexts in which harm to people takes place. In the process, we explore listening practices associated with therapeutic activism (D’Arrigo-Patrick et al., 2017) and the generative potential offered by tuning into the meanings people attribute to their responses to violence and how people do resilience in their lives offers. This article will demonstrate how Carol and Ben’s work with a family has led them to think about how we can all be jointly sustained in the work by making moments and practices of resistance and resilience visible. They will explore how these practices can enhance a sense of personal agency and create experiences of vicarious resilience (Hernandez-Wolfe, 2018) that help people access more possibilities in their lives.

This event will be facilitated by Tiffany Sostar.

To prepare for this session, please read Listening as activism: Re-thinking resilience and justice-doing as a response to trauma and listen to this interview with Carol and Ben on The Radical Therapist podcast.

With thanks to Journal of Family Therapy for providing free access to this article for Meet the Author participants. The article will be unavailable following this session.

And then bring your questions for Carol and Ben!

Meet the Interviewer with Mark Hayward

Mark Hayward studied with Michael White for many years and has a keen interest in the practice maps Michael White developed and ways to teach these maps. He is a founding director of The Institute of Narrative Therapy based in UK and part of the Dulwich Centre teaching faculty.

This is a chance to critique practice! (And critique its relationship with theory)

Take a look at one or both of the live clinical interviews of the two Statement of Position/Externalising Conversation maps and come with any thoughts about:

1. Questions you might have asked differently.
2. Questions you might not have asked at all.
3. Questions you would like to have seen asked.
4. Non-map interviewing possibilities
5. Limitations of the map or its value
6. How you might offer supervision to the interviewer.
7. Etc!

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations).

To prepare for this session, please watch Statement of Position Map 1 and/or Statement of position Map 2 from Dulwich Centre’s Maps of Narrative Practice online course.

And then bring your questions for Mark!

Celebrate International Refugee Week with us by participating in a discussion on how stories shape our sense of ‘Home’. We invite you to listen to episodes of a mini podcast series hosted by Sarah, where she engages with individuals involved in grassroots community events that share refugee stories to create awareness and foster reflection and positive action. These dialogues, extensions of Sarah’s research, offer profound insights into the experiences and learnings of those sharing personal narratives or creating platforms to amplify diverse voices within their communities.

This session will offer a chance to reflect on the podcast episodes and discuss the power of storytelling in fostering inclusive communities. Together, we’ll ponder how each of us can contribute to creating a shared home in this world and explore how storytelling can impact our own lives and communities.

Sarah Strauven is a psychologist and narrative therapist. Specialising in refugee mental health and complex trauma, she worked alongside people seeking asylum for ten years in Belgium. Her doctoral research explored grassroots community initiatives in Australia where people with and without refugee experience co-create a shared world through narrative practices. Sarah is currently a research fellow in post-disaster mental health at the University of Melbourne. She is passionate about translational research to support community recovery and improve access to care for marginalised groups. She also maintains an independent practice ‘Liminal Spaces’ (www.liminalspaces.net.au).

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please listen to the podcast series People with and without refugee experience co-creating a shared world through narrative practices

And then bring your questions for Sarah!

Sabine Vermeire works at the Interactie-Academie, a training and therapy centre in Antwerp, Belgium. For more than 30 years she has been engaged in several youth care projects and goes on therapeutic journeys with children, youngsters and families in contexts of trauma, violence and abuse. She leaves the beaten tracks in playful, creative ways when speaking becomes difficult. Sabine is a Narrative and Systemic trainer, psychotherapist and supervisor and responsible for the year-long training ‘Narrative Therapy and Community work’ and the postgraduate ‘Family counselling’ at Interactie-Academie. As an associated trainer at The Institute of Narrative Therapy (UK) and at the faculty of Dulwich Centre she shares her work with children, youngsters and families. She has published several articles and books on this work.

Danny Keuppens worked 15 years as a theatre director. After creating a performance in a closed juvenile facility, he switched to youth services. Danny began to work with adolescents and parents, studied systemic and narrative counseling and started Parcoeur, a project in which young people work creatively with their life stories. Within Parcoeur he directs theatre performances and – together with his son Warre – documentaries, such as ‘The Suns of Zone 050’ and ‘Chelsea’s Blues’.

After hardship or traumatic experiences in childhood times, young people often get stuck in solidified stories about themselves, their lives and relationships. Using theatre, documentary film and other artwork in therapy and community work can be helpful in re(dis)covering a sense of agency, belonging and coherence and in finding new pathways to go on in life. Making this work public is an inseparable part and can be considered as a form of social action. Sabine and Danny will be sharing their experiences and ideas of re-walking with youngsters through their lives, re-dis-covering old and new, alternative stories and the co-creation of a documentary film of this process. Through life review interviews and re-visiting important people and places, these youngsters can again become the authors or directors of their own lives in ongoing dialogues with many people involved, while moment-by-moment, more coherent and hopeful stories emerge.

The documentary ‘Chelsea’s Blues’ tells the story of Chelsea Smekens-Demedts (19). She was placed in youth care shortly after her birth. Danny, as a narrative counsellor, made this film in collaboration with his son Warre.  Through watching the documentary, you get the opportunity to see and experience how creative pathways invite these young people to go on a re-dis-covery journey and take a new stance in relation to their lives and the hardship. By watching the documentary, you become a witness and Chelsea’s life, her efforts and responses but also skills and knowledge can be acknowledged in multiple ways. We also hope it opens some new perspectives on these young people and youth care!

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations).

To prepare for this session, please watch Chelsea’s Blues (unavailable after the session) and read the accompanying article Chelsea’s Blues: A documentary of hope about growing up in youth care by Danny Keuppens.

And then bring your questions for Sabine and Danny!

Poh is a practitioner interested in considering non-extractive and decolonial approaches to engaging with lived experience, whether this be in therapeutic, community or creative processes. For many years Poh was engaged in co-research with people and communities responding to themes of experience within family and state violence, displacement (from rights, land, home, body, identity, relationships), liminality and reclaiming practices of staying with experience and preference. Poh collaborated on the award winning film Island of the Hungry Ghosts (2018) with director, Gabrielle Brady and for the past decade has been innovating with narrative therapy to create workshops and consultations that offer anti-oppressive pathways, movements and possibilities in creative, research and therapeutic projects and practices. To find out more visit www.narrativeimaginings.com 

What happens when we shift from viewing our bodies as a single entity or story to experiencing and consulting our bodies as a community of diverse members each with their own experience, position and stories? What might it be like if we can resist narrating for members of body and instead be curious to lively, creative and community-centred exchanges? These practices and ideas honour decolonial feminist(s) movement within narrative co-research to actively reappear communities and the multiple members and bodies we are in relationship with moment-by-moment.

The accompanying video fragment is shared with the hope of offering a possible place on the landscape to invite a gentle unpacking around the theme of agreement. Recently, in a consultation group for our multi-storied bodies practice and ideas we began our conversation with a welcome/warm up exercise. Beginning with warm up/welcome exercises is a way we can begin to unlearn assumptions of how we are supposed to arrive. Warm up/welcome exercises can also support us in resisting ‘othering’ practices by beginning with centering our own lived experience. This is not a ‘complete’ exercise in the sense that it covers all possibilities or promises to arrive at a certain place, instead it is an invitation into experiencing a couple of questions and seeing what movement begins to emerge and how you might question, adapt or re-word according to your specific location of experience.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read Our Bodies as Multi-storied Communities: Ethics and Practices and watch the short video Co-researching agreement.

And then bring your questions for Poh!

Mehmet Dinç is a narrative therapist living in Türkiye. He is an Associate Professor and Head of the Psychology Department at Hasan Kalyoncu University. He works on psychological resilience, with a focus on conducting extensive research, and has authored several books on the subject.

Muhammed Furkan is a Turkish narrative therapist who works with adolescents and adults. He graduated from Istanbul Sehir University Faculty of Islamic Studies and the Psychology Department with a double major degree. He has a Master’s Degree in Narrative Therapy and Community Work from The University of Melbourne. He is currently working as a research assistant at Istanbul Zaim University. He is particularly interested in learning from people who are resisting the effects of trauma.

Canahmet Boz works as a research assistant in the Psychology Department of Hasan Kalyoncu University and as a clinical psychologist/ narrative therapist in Türkiye. He conducts narrative therapy–based studies and practices on chronic diseases.

Trauma represents a profound and emotionally intense experience within the human condition. Beyond its evident impacts on both the physiological and psychological dimensions of an individual, this complex phenomenon encapsulates moments of resistance and strength in the face of adversity. From a narrative standpoint, individuals invariably manifest unique responses to trauma, which necessitate a close and nuanced examination for recognition and comprehension. Muhammed’s paper proposes a framework for the systematic collection and organisation of diverse responses to trauma through a checklist of innovative moments of social and psychological resistance, contributing to a greater comprehension of this intricate phenomenon.

Mehmet and Canahmet’s article discusses the response of a university psychology department to the devastating earthquakes that struck Türkiye on 6 February 2023, resulting in significant loss of life and widespread destruction. Their paper focuses on the narrative practices undertaken by the department in the affected region, particularly the establishment of a psychological support telephone line staffed by volunteer psychologists. Beyond the initial establishment of the support line, the university extended its outreach to address the immediate needs of affected individuals in five cities, and subsequently, within the university premises. A “Tent of Hope” was established within a “container city” of displaced families to continue psychosocial support. This involved the volunteer efforts of psychology students to offer assistance to both children and adults. Initiatives also included the dissemination of a culturally sensitive booklet for the public and the development of a comprehensive booklet for therapists, aiming to empower individuals and communities in the aftermath of trauma. This paper includes reflections from people who contributed to these initiatives, sharing learning and insights relevant to others responding to natural disasters.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations).

To prepare for this session, please read:
Standing upright against trauma and hardship: Checklists of innovative moments of social and psychological resistance by Muhammed Furkan Cinisli, and
Psychosocial support initiatives in the aftermath of the 2023 earthquake: A university-led community approach by Mehmet Dinç and Canahmet Boz

And then bring your questions for Mehmet, Muhammed and Canahmet!

Tiffany Sostar (they/them) is a bisexual, nonbinary, neurodivergent, disabled narrative practitioner and community worker. They usually live as a white settler on Blackfoot land in Treaty 7 territory in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, but are living on Kaurna land right now. This work is undertaken in collaboration with Elliot Trimble (he/him) and with Nathan Viktor Fawaz (they/he/she).

This audio practice note and the collective document it describes are part of “narrative projects in support of trans lives”, a collection of work being undertaken by Tiffany Sostar, Elliot Trimble, and Nathan Viktor Fawaz. This practice note and collective document are the first to be published in this collection of work. Not to fix anything, but just to offer a millimetre of relief or breath or humour or companionship: A collective document about caring for trans community brings together many stories of care within and with trans community. Our hope is that this document will help connect readers to a sense of community and collective action, and will invite readers, regardless of gender identity, to join us in taking actions of care within a social context that is increasingly hostile to trans lives. These stories, reflection questions, and invitations describe and welcome a wide range of care, including small, personal, and beautifully imperfect actions taken by and alongside trans community.

This event will be facilitated by David Denborough. Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please listen to Caring for trans community, an audio practice note from Tiffany Sostar. The collective document described in the audio can be downloaded here: A collective document about caring for trans community

And then bring your questions for Tiffany!

Kaur Serendipity is a mother, marathon runner, teacher, social justice activist, narrative therapist and chaplain of Eastern European and Middle Eastern cultural backgrounds. She writes under other pseudonyms , on issues of the stigma of sex working, feminism and the devastating effects of locating problems inside people. She works in communities where people experience marginalisation, and is committed to her journey and message of bringing dignity , safety and solidarity in relationships.

Julia Sharp lives and works on the beautiful unceded land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Julia is from settler coloniser heritage and completed her Masters in Narrative Therapy in late 2022. Her work is strongly shaped by the feminist movement, and values of activism, solidarity and justice-doing. When Julia was involved in this piece of work, she was working in a sexual health clinic as a Social Worker and during her Masters she started becoming curious about ways to de-centre herself in conversations with people and ways to create space for those with lived experiences as the experts in their lives. In all Julia’s work she is interested in exploring alternate knowledges, peoples’ acts of resistance and responses to violence and abuse that often go unnoticed or are undervalued. Julia currently works for a Royal Commission for the Federal Government and as a counsellor for a Sexual Assault Service.

Kaur’s paper explores the use of narrative therapy and community work to respond to the complexities surrounding women’s experiences in the sex industry. It offers practices for therapists and community workers seeking to engage with sex workers in ways that are respectful of their hard-won knowledge and seek to elicit double-storied accounts in relation to hardship, thicken stories of preferred identities, and explore absent-but-implicit values, hopes and commitments. These practices include an innovative use of re-membering questions and a collective Tree of Life process adapted to the specific experiences of women in the sex industry. The paper elevates the insider knowledge of sex workers, particularly the lived experience of women engaged in sex work in which they have a high degree of choice and autonomy. It includes a collective document of sex workers’ insider knowledge about confronting stigma and isolation, addressed to people whose work intertwines with sex workers in some way: therapists, support workers, lawyers, police, activists.

Western culture and Western health care systems have created places of sexual health care that are highly individualised, privatised and professionalised. For people engaged in sex work, this reduces the possibilities for sharing skills and knowledges and instead leaves people with internalised feelings of shame, guilt and isolation. Julia’s paper describes collective therapeutic work that elicited insider knowledges, skills and sparkling moments from sex workers. These accounts sidestepped negative identity conclusions and fostered mutual support among the workers, even though the participants never met each other. The work was guided by narrative practice concepts including externalising, double listening, re-authoring, privileging insider knowledges and developing collective documents.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations).

To prepare for this session, please read:

Departing from stigma and secrecy and elevating storis of agency: Narrative practice in the voices of sex workers by Kaur Serendipity, and

Safety and solidarity: using collective documents to share sex workers’ insider knowledges by Julia Sharp

And then bring your questions for Kaur and Julia!

KJ Wiseheart is a multiply neurodivergent counsellor and narrative practitioner. They are committed to co-creating neurocosmopolitan conversations and communities where all neurocognitive differences in experience, communication and embodiment are appreciated and affirmed. KJ is also enthusiastically exploring therapeutic applications of tabletop role playing games. KJ is a graduate of the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work program at The University of Melbourne.

In this video, KJ introduces the accompanying collective document “How we deal with Autistic burnout: A living document created by Autistic adults for Autistic adults”. This document was created through a series of interviews with lived experience experts who generously shared their skills and hard-won knowledges. KJ describes the process of creating this document, and how they endeavoured to adapt and localise existing practices of collective documentation, for accessibility and cultural resonance with Autistic community values and ways of being.

This event will be facilitated by Tiffany Sostar. Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please watch How we deal with Autistic burnout

And then bring your questions for KJ!

Believe it or not, 30 April 2024 marks 40 years of Jane Hales working at Dulwich Centre! 40 years! So this meet the author is a very special occasion. It’s a celebration and a chance to share stories from behind the scenes of 40 years of narrative therapy and community work.

40 years! Can you believe it?

To prepare for this meeting/celebration please read this conversation with Jane Hales, ‘Laughter and issues of class’, that appears in A Memory Book for the Field of Narrative Practice. And then bring your questions and stories.

Hugo Kamya is a Professor and the Associate Director of the Center for Innovation in Clinical Social Work at Simmons University, where he teaches clinical practice and trauma, family therapy, spirituality, group work and narrative therapies. He combines an interest in social work, psychology, and theology. His work has focused on immigrant and refugee populations as well as international efforts to assess the social service needs of people affected by HIV/AIDS and transactional sex. He practices, consults for, and develops collaborative partnerships with, agencies and organizations, as well as presents nationally and internationally on multicultural, diversity, racial justice, and cultural sensitivity issues. He collaborates in Caring Across Communities, a project of community-based services for refugees and immigrants that examines social, cultural, and human capital toward family functioning and well-being. He is the American Family Therapy Academy recipient for the 2003 Distinguished Contribution to Social and Economic Justice Award. In 2014, Dr. Kamya was accepted into the Fulbright Specialist Roster Program. Dr. Kamya is founding member of the Boston Institute for Culturally Affirming Practices (BICAP).

This video of Hugo’s presentation from the International Narrative Therapy and Community Work conference in Kigali, Rwanda in 2022, builds from his own cultural background and engages the audience to develop a conscious practice of spirituality. Hugo’s personal journey as Ugandan and as an African guides his reflections on how he engages spirituality in family therapy conversations. These conversations are anchored in African traditions, and they value prayer, metaphors and rites of passage through which they find their own sense of purpose and meaning. Attending to issues of history, context and social location, Hugo discuss ways in which he places himself as a spiritual being in his work with immigrants and refugees

“People are full of stories. I still find myself at a crossroad of many stories. These stories shape who I am and where I belong.  My story has been woven together by the threads of others.  Stories of home. Stories of identity. Stories of belonging and longing, stories of connecting and encountering.  Stories strung together across person, place, and time. They reveal passion and perseverance, surviving and thriving, fear, pain, hope, courage, and a will to live.”

To prepare for this session, please watch Harnessing spirituality within traditional healing systems

 And then bring your questions for Hugo!

Ben Shannahan is a family therapist who lives on Whajuk country in Perth, Western Australia. He has many years of experience working primarily in social work and child and adolescent mental health in London, UK, and in Perth. He is an associate of The Institute of Narrative Therapy (UK) and part of the teaching faculty of PartnershipProjectsUK and Dulwich Centre. In recent years, Ben has worked with families in diverse contexts, including with CYPRESS (Children & Young People’s Responsive Suicide Support). CYPRESS is a postvention counselling service provided by Anglicare WA, working with children, young people and their families bereaved by suicide. He also works in independent practice as a family therapist and supervisor.

Ben began meeting with Beth and her family soon after Beth’s older sister Amberly ended her own life. Their conversations lead to Beth writing a song in honour of Amberly. Here, Beth and Ben share the song along with the story of how it was written and eventually performed to family members and friends.

This event will be facilitated by Zan Maeder. Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read and watch “It’s a sausage, not a scone”: A recipe for getting through hard times in response to the suicide of a loved one

And then bring your questions for Ben!

Marnie Sather works as a narrative therapist in Melbourne/Naarm, Australia. She has a long-standing passion for making room in therapeutic and community work for complex understandings of suicide, including with those bereaved by suicide. Her current research interest is women’s and children’s experiences of bereavement as a result of suicide.

David Newman lives and works on the lands of the Gadigal people, also known as Sydney, Australia. He is a faculty member of Dulwich Centre and an honorary clinical fellow at The University of Melbourne’s Department of Social Work. Through his independent therapy practice, Sydney Narrative Therapy, he meets with individuals, couples and families. He delights in this work and narrative practices have offered invigorating company.

In Marnie’s presentation, made at the launch of the Narrative Practice Research Network, she introduces some of the possibilities and complexities of feminist insider research. Drawing on her experience of completing doctoral research with women who had lost a male partner to suicide, Marnie sets out some of the options for positioning the researcher in insider research – from not disclosing insider status to placing it as the centre – and describes how she came to a position of careful utilisation of her own experience in the research process and in the writing of her thesis.

In David’s paper, he explores Clifford Geertz’s distinction between experience-near and experience-distant language. In the process, he draws from mad studies and mental health service user epistemology, both written and generated through my work. David also draws on the work of the historian of emotion Tiffany Watt Smith. Three specific practices in relation to language use are proposed: how we can invigorate the agency or meaning-making in language use; how we can use language to assist people to become familiar with, not alienated from, their experience; and how we might name and question the values or obligations that get smuggled in with emotion talk. He also provides three exercises to explore these themes.

This event will be facilitated by Zan Maeder.

To prepare for this session, please
WATCH: Feminist insider research by Marnie Sather
READ: The effort and intricacies of generating experience-near language by David Newman
ENGAGE: Holding our Heads Up: Sharing stories not stigma after losing a loved one to suicide [an older resource that Marnie and David worked on together].

And then bring your questions for Marnie and David!

Carmen graduated from the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work in 2017 with theatre, music, writing and transpersonal art therapy as important foundations for her therapeutic approach. A therapist, supervisor, speaker and trainer based in (but not from) Vancouver (Canada, Coast Salish Territories), her independent practice Square Peg Therapy is a community centred endeavour that provides low barrier support prioritizing Artists, Queer & Gender diverse clients, in addition to ongoing practice based research employing a collaborative Narrative framework and harm reduction principles in support of substance users exploring Substance Assisted Therapies (aka psychedelic medicine). 

This session provides a peek into some ways narrative practices might inform what you do and inspire some ways of doing them. 

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read The birth of Aura and The chasing of tales: Poetic licence with the written word in narrative practice

And then bring your questions for Carmen!

James is a clinical psychologist at University College London Hospital, working with people living with chronic health conditions and in a paediatric palliative care team. His family roots are Irish, which brings with it a rich appreciation of stories, music and community. He is interested in ways anti-oppressive practices and social justice can be foregrounded in professional healthcare contexts. James’s solidarity team includes: the narrative practitioners who have inspired him, including colleagues past and present; his family of origin, chosen family and wider LGBTQIA+ community; and the young people involved with the Rainbow Project.

Jaymie is a clinical psychologist working with young people with chronic health conditions at University College London Hospital. He also works at a service called TransPlus at 56 Dean Street with trans and gender-expansive people. Before qualifying as a psychologist, Jaymie’s work was in amplifying the voices of people using mental health services, supporting them to influence and shape services. Since qualifying, he has continued to be passionate about centring the voices of people in their own health care and empowering them to influence change. Important commitments to Jaymie are being creative and connecting with stories of hope, joy and community.

This article describes the use of narrative practices for LGBTQIA+ young people with a health condition. It presents a collective narrative practice: the Rainbow of Life. This adapts the Tree of Life metaphor to invite rich story development opportunities when working with LGBTQIA+ people. It involves exploring their commitments, special moments and those who stand alongside them in solidarity, and creatively mapping these on to a rainbow image. The authors outline Rainbow of Life events they have organised, including collective practices in which young people shared their wisdom for responding to oppressive storm clouds that darken the sky and dim their rainbow’s shine, as well as witnessing and honouring each other’s rainbows.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations).

To prepare for this session, please read The Rainbow of Life: A collective narrative practice with young LGBTQIA+ people with a health condition

And then bring your questions for James and Jaymie!

Dr. Makungu M. Akinyela is a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) in practice in Atlanta, Georgia and an Associate Professor in the Africana Studies Department at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He is a Clinical Fellow and an Approved Supervisor of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). As a scholar and a therapist, Dr. Akinyela has been a committed Social Justice organizer for over forty-years, focused on struggles for human rights and justice for Black people in the United States and the African diaspora. His research and writing includes such subjects as cultural democracy and mental health care; cultural domination and therapeutic resistance; reparations and the role of mental health workers in repairing oppressions wounds and African centred family therapy. He is currently working on a book on his clinical ideas entitled Testimony therapy and decolonizing mental health practice to be published by W.W. Norton in 2025.

This Meet the author session with Makungu will be a conversation on what it means to “move the cultural centre” of our therapeutic conversations and how this contributes to the work of decolonisation of mental health practice and the experience of people living with coloniality. 

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read Makungu Akinyela on testimony and the Mattering of Black Therapy, an interview with Lawrence Rubin, and De-colonizing our lives: Divining a post-colonial therapy

And then bring your questions for Makungu!

Mariangels is a Catalan woman, living in the UK since 1999. She is a clinical psychologist and a family therapist. Mariangels completed the inaugural Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work in 2015. Mariangels works independently and is involved in many projects. She is a Joint Director of Riverbank Psychology and Atelier Narratiu. She has designed creative tools for therapy and is supporting the delivery of Team of Life across the UK, and is a faculty member of the UK Institute of Narrative Therapy.  She greatly enjoys teaching narrative principles in Spanish and English. Mariangels’ primary interests are closely associated with Narrative Therapy Supervision within the context of Genetic Counselling.  As part of the Whitworth Group, she has been involved in research to investigate narrative interventions in the field of genetics and co-hosting podcast conversations for the European Society of Human Genetics. Creative work, supervisory and therapeutic fields intersect for Mariangels. 

Rhona is a Scottish woman who trained as a nurse in Glasgow before working at the Psychological Medicine Group at the Christie hospital in Manchester.  She now works as a Consultant Genetic Counsellor at Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine, with a special interest in genetic counselling for neurogenic conditions.  Rhona’s connection to narrative practices is through Mariangels.  She feels very fortunate to have been a member of the narrative supervision group facilitated by Mariangels since 2012. Together with Mariangels she is interested in how narrative practices may be useful to genetic counsellors in their day-to-day practice, particularly in the context of loss through illness or bereavement. Rhona is a member of the Whitworth group and is pathway lead for a 3-year MSc program in genomic counselling at University of Manchester.

To what extent are family systems approaches relevant in the genomics era? What difference does it make to remember the wider social context within which ‘problems’ associated with a genetic diagnosis reside? How does this influence the conversations we have with our patients? This paper considers these questions in relation to systemic approaches to genetic counseling practice. Increased uptake of genomic testing and the number of people seeking genetic counseling present opportunities to consider new ways of working, particularly around support following a new genetic diagnosis. Narrative therapy with an emphasis on people’s strengths, wishes, and ways of resisting the effects of a problem may be a particularly useful framework for genetic counselors. Family therapy and narrative practices have the potential to encourage communication and for families to learn from each other.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Steph Badman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read A family systems approach to genetic counselling: Development of narrative interventions

And then bring your questions for Mariangels and Rhona!

Larry Zucker is a Narrative Therapist in Los Angeles, California. He trains therapists through both the Southern California Counseling Center and the Miracle Mile Community Practice, as well in private consultation. He maintains a private practice specialising in couple therapy. He is an active board member of the non-profit organisation Reauthoring Teaching, whose mission is to create and maintain a community that support each other and the continuity and evolution of Narrative Therapy around the world and across generations. Learn more at ReauthoringTeaching.com.

The Reviving Couples’ Dreams video interview was made especially for this Meet the Author session and attempts to convey both the practice and spirit of his couple therapy model.

This very brief reading, ‘Escaping Blame with Larry Zucker’, will give you another window into Larry’s work. It will appear in the forthcoming An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping, edited by Chris Hoff and to be published by Thick Press. It is available with thanks to Thick Press, and this pre-publication draft is not to be shared.

This event will be facilitated by Zan Maeder. Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please watch Reviving Couples’ Dreams and read Escaping Blame with Larry Zucker.

And then bring your questions for Larry!

Luke practices narrative therapy on unceded Muwinina land in Nipaluna (or so called Hobart). At the time of publication, they identify as nonbinary, transmisogyny-exempt and recognise they experience heterosexual, white, male and able-bodied privileges. Luke’s practice of narrative therapy is predominantly situated in partner relationships. They were raised in both London, UK, and so-called Sydney, Australia, by Dutch and Greek “Australian” parents. Their favourite mode of transport is cycling and they love games. Contactable via [email protected]

Luke’s paper documents ways of incorporating gamification (using game design elements in a nongame context) into therapeutic conversations using narrative therapy principles to uncover skills and knowledges suppressed by dominant discourses.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations).

To prepare for this session, please read Gamification: How game design and narrative therapy can work together

And then bring your questions for Luke!

Lúcia Helena Assis is a narrative therapist who lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and works with children, young people, couples and families in her own private clinic. She also develops community work projects with teenagers, youngsters and community leaders who live in disadvantaged communities in extreme vulnerability through Recycling Minds Institute, where she is director. She can be contacted by email at [email protected]

This video was made especially for this first Meet the Author session for 2024! It describes the ways the Team of Life Narrative Approach has been used in Brazil in a collective context to illuminate the ‘causes’ that people wish to struggle for in relation to different social injustices and to assist in building teamwork and sparking ‘social movement’. This is a collective use of the Team of Life approach which is also used by therapists and counsellors with individuals and families.

This event will be facilitated by Zan Maeder. Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please watch Creating teams to fight against social injustice: from the Team of Life adventure series

 And then bring your questions for Lúcia!