We hope you will join the authors – Mehmet Dinc, Murat Dincer, Hasan Avcı, Merve Arabul, Zahide Tepeli Temiz & Hilal Aslan – at the next Meet the Author event! 

The book has three sections. The first section is a short introduction of narrative therapy and describes the history or narrative therapy and the main ideas and practices of narrative therapy.

The second section is about narrative therapy practices with individuals. In this section there are six chapters:

– Living like playing: working with online gaming with narrative ideas by Mehmet Dinc
– When the discourse becoming concrete by Murat Dincer
– The power of letters as a therapeutic document by Hasan Avcı
– A natural gas issue: Working on children’s fear with narrative therapy by Merve Arabul
– Working with depression with narrative therapy: The campaign for overcoming hopelessness by Zahide Tepeli Temiz
– The loneliness in the box: understanding loneliness with narrative therapy by Hilal Aslan

The third section is about narrative therapy practices with groups. In this section there are three chapters: 
– Growing flowers: willpower by Merve Koca
– You can ask me by Mehmet Dinc
– On the way: a narrative therapy practice about working with young people on psychological resilience

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

Billy lives on land that has been stolen and that is under current occupation by the nation-state of Canada. The land he lives and works on is made up of the bones, prayers, and love of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-cree, Dakota, Dene and Metis ancestors. Billy is a white man and primarily the descendant of settlers. Billy affirms that his privilege is afforded because of the injustices and impacts of colonialism that are experienced by Indigenous people and that continue to be perpetuated by colonial power structures today. Billy is a therapist who has for the past 10 years worked with youth who are affected by street gangs.

This meeting 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 Billy’s article.

Edited by Rwandan narrative practitioners Joseph Kalisa, Beata Mukarusanga and Serge Nyirinkwaya, this powerful book showcases the work of Rwandan counsellors and community workers who have developed innovative ways of responding to mental health struggles and profound social suffering. From the early work of counsellors in Ibuka (the national genocide survivors association) to recent decolonising practice, these stories from the land of a thousand hills will move, challenge and inspire!

The authors include Benoit Kaboyi, Adelite Mukamana, Chaste Uwihoreye, Beata Mukarusanga, Joseph Kalisa, Claver Haragirimana, Sister Seraphine Kaitesirwa and Serge Nyirinkwaya.

The book is available in print from Dulwich Centre, and as an eBook on Amazon. Or if you are in Rwanda, contact Joseph Kalisa.

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

To prepare for this meet the author, please look through this contents page:  

Introductions

A living book by Beata Mukarusanga

A letter to the reader and to the future by Joseph Kalisa

Early work from Ibuka

A small light as we walk this long road: The work of Ibuka An interview with Benoit Kaboyi

Recalling the history of the Ibuka counselling team An interview with Adelite Mukamana

Principles and stories of practice of Ibuka Counsellors

Current decolonising practice

Supporting genocide survivors and honouring Rwandan healing ways: Our own names, our own prescriptions An interview with Chaste Uwihoreye

Broadcasting hope and local knowledge during the pandemic lockdown in Rwanda An interview with Chaste Uwihoreye

The mental health peer work of OPROMAMER

Solidarity and friendship An interview with Claver Haragirimana

Collective responses to mental health stigma: Sharing lived wisdom by Joseph Kalisa

Culturally congruent forms of practice: Narrative practice innovations from Rwanda

Games, play and narrative practice: Enabling sparks to emerge in conversations with children and young people who have experienced hard times by Serge Nyirinkwaya

Narrative responses to physical pains An interview with Sister Seraphine Kaitesirwa

The garden metaphor by Beata Mukarusanga

Ways of living and survival by children born out of rape during genocide by Adelite Mukamana

Reflection
Honouring the living and the no longer living by Serge Nyirinkwaya

Peek at Kinyarwandan webpage for the book, and watch these two videos:

The garden metaphor by Beata Mukarusanga

Enabling sparks to emerge: Games, activities and narrative practice by Serge Nyirinkwaya

The next Meet the Author is a launch of three new web resources in relation to suicide:

Holding Our Heads Up offers hope and solidarity for people who have been bereaved by the suicide of a loved one.

Responding To So Many Losses And Trying Hard To Find A Future documents the sharing of healing stories among First Nations communities who have lost young people to violence or suicide.

Responding to Suicidal Thoughts offers resources for practitioners working with people experiencing suicidal thoughts.

Together, these online resources highlight stories of lived experience and present insider knowledge and skills about coping with difficult thoughts and living through suicide-related loss. These resources have been made freely available so that they can be accessible to the many people dealing with suicide who never seek in-person assistance. We hope they will provide an additional avenue for those who are struggling in isolation to find helpful ideas and a sense of connection with others who have come through similar experiences.

This meeting 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, look the three web resources and then bring your questions for Marnie, Karl, Carolynanha and David!

Nina’s new book on Narrative Psychiatry and Family Collaborations is about helping families with complex psychiatric problems by seeing and meeting the families and the family members, as the best versions of themselves, before we see and address the diagnoses. When one person is struggling with a psychiatric illness, their family struggles, too. Therefore, the whole family deserves help together. The Meet the Author is a chance to discuss one chapter of this book with the author!   

Nina is a child and adolescent narrative psychiatrist who works as a senior consultant at the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in the Capital Region of Denmark, where she teaches and supervises her colleagues in family collaboration, narrative therapy, and family therapy. She can be contacted c/o ninatejs@hotmail.com   

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

To prepare for this session, please read this chapter of Nina’s book, Narrative Psychiatry and Family Collaborations. 

In this session come and discuss recent narrative practice innovations from three First Nations practitioners: Katie Christensen, Danita Martin, Janneen Wanganeen.

Katie Christensen has extensive experience working in the domestic violence sector supporting women who have experienced violence and men who have used violence via case management and facilitating healing groups. Katie trained and worked as an Aboriginal health worker and a Koori maternity support worker and facilitated Kaalinya Inyanook, a mums and bubs group that focused on wellbeing and information for new mothers. Katie currently works with Open Circle as a restorative justice conference facilitator, embedding narrative therapy skills into the restorative justice process. Katie has a master’s degree in narrative therapy and community work. 

Danita Martin is a proud Kuungkari woman and a First Nations narrative therapist. She has worked in the education sector for over 20 years supporting First Nations students and families.

Janneen Wanganeen is an Aboriginal Narrunga woman from South Australia. She has worked in the area of child protection for over 22 years. Katie Christensen is a Wurundjeri woman who was born and raised on Dja Dja Wurrung Country in Central Victoria. 

This meeting will be facilitated by Zan Maeder. 

To prepare for this session, please read their papers below and then bring your questions!

Yarning as decolonising practice & From Tree of Life to the Sun of Life by Katie Christensen

A Tree of Spirituality: Exploring insider knowledges of balancing Catholic and First Nations identities using narrative practices by Danita Martin 

Decolonising child protection discourses using narrative practices by Janneen Wanganeen

Hong-Ru is an independent psychotherapist and family therapist from Shenzhen, China. He has been working with children, adolescents, couples, families and in one-to-one therapeutic contexts since 2010. He is attracted by the beauty and wisdom emerged from stories about people’s facing the uncertainties, so he is devoting to explore and extend the wonderfulness of these stories and people.

Daydreams can represent moments of resistance to social expectations: small cracks in the walls of separation that oppressive discourses can build between people and their hopes and values. Hong-Ru’s paper shares conversations that emerged from attending to people’s daydreams, using narrative enquiries to explore the ways in which daydreams might represent the ‘yang’ that counters the ‘yin’ of the problem story, and helping to balance oppressive discourses by raising the status of treasured values and meaningful people and relationships. Reveries can represent alternative sites from which to explore and practice our values and principles.

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

To prepare for this session, please read Hong-Ru’s article Daydreams as entry points to counter stories.

And then bring your questions for Hong-Ru!

This session will discuss a paper that builds from the author’s own cultural background and engages the reader to develop a conscious practice of spirituality:

‘My personal journey as a Ugandan and as an African, guides my reflections on how I engage spirituality in family/narrative 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, I discuss ways I use myself as a spiritual being in my work with immigrants and refugees. I also invite others to think about ways of harnessing the spiritual core of their lives.’

Hugo Kamya is Professor at Simmons University, where he teaches, research, clinical practice and trauma, family therapy, spirituality, group work, narrative practice; and working with complex and diverse populations. 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.

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

Before this session, please read Hugo’s article Harnessing Spirituality within Traditional Healing Systems: A Personal Journey

And then bring along your questions!

Born on the west coast of ‘canada’, Emily Salja lives in an intergenerational matriarchal house with her spouse, Evren Salja, and Montenegrin mother- and aunt-in-law on the unceded traditional land of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, Secwépemcúl’ecw and Nlakaʹpamuxʷ (Nlaka’pamux) peoples (‘kamloops, b.c., canada’). Emily trudges through life holding contexts such as living as a transmisogyny-exempt white Jewish dyke with an ambivalent relationship to gender (pronouns she/her), and living with multiple, mostly invisible, disabilities and neurodivergences. Her ethics and politics are in opposition to clinical professionalism and institutionalism; instead, she seeks to gather stories, learn and share in ways that strengthen community. 

In this Meet the Author session, come chat with Emily about her article which introduces the concept of ‘landscapes of possibility’ as an extension of and prequel to Michael White’s landscapes of action and meaning. As Emily describes: This article focuses on landscapes of possibility found in fantasy realms as they affect 2SLGBTQIA+ populations and disabled populations (communities in which I and many people I am in conversation with hold membership). I discuss considerations and limitations for landscapes of possibility and offer examples that illustrate the mechanics of implementing landscapes of possibility and integrating the results into landscapes of meaning and action.

Before this session, please read Emily’s article Landscapes of Possibility: Fantasy in 2SLGBTQIA+ and Disabled Contexts. 

And then bring along your questions!

Tuesday 6th September / 4:30pm (Adelaide time)

In narrative therapy, documents written by counsellors as part of therapy can assist with the re-authoring of clients’ lives in tune with their preferred narratives. Rescued speech poems are an addition to documentation such as letters and certificates. In this thera-poetic practice, a therapist writes poems directly from the client’s talk, offering these poems back as a retelling. In this session, hear from Sarah about the writing of rescued speech poems and how this kind of poetic writing can assist with the re-authoring of client’s identities through the therapist’s tuning of their ears to hear the tones of the poetic in ordinary talk.

Sarah Penwarden is a counsellor, educator and therapist based in Auckland. She completed her doctorate in rescued speech poetry and re-membering practices. She is interested in how found poetry can be used both in therapy and research.

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

To prepare for this session, please read Sarah’s articles:

Developing a thera-poetic practice: Writing rescued speech poetry as a literary therapy by Sarah Penwarden

The power to speak by Sarah Penwarden and Laurel Richardson

And then bring your questions for Sarah!

In this session, read about Lesley’s work with collective narrative practice and how it can be an effective antidote to the lingering effects of trauma and violence against women. These practices acknowledge and dignify the complexity, defiance, resistance and agency of women who live with the ongoing effects of violence. Sharing ideas and resources that women have about their own lived experience can address the isolation that too many women experience after violence, and these ideas can foster solidarity and rekindle a glimmer of hope.

Lesley Grant is a social worker in independent practice working with women and children who have experienced trauma through gendered violence. Lesley has been engaged with narrative ideas for well over 20 years and is committed to social justice and feminism. She is inspired by and grateful for the constant generation of ideas by the narrative therapy community.

This meeting 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 Lesley’s article Bringing together women like you and me: Collective narrative practice with women and trauma

Tuesday 12^th July / 4:30pm (Adelaide time)

This Meet the Author session features Jean Pierre Ndagijimana who is a co-founding member of the Rwanda Psychological Society and his practice and research interests are around community-driven culturally and contextually relevant educational and psychosocial strategies to heal/reduce impacts of individual and societal toxic stress both in post-genocide Rwanda and in the African immigrant communities. Jean Pierre is also committed to decolonizing mental health, the Indigenization of Genocide Healing and honouring the significance of Indigenous languages.

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

To prepare for this meeting, please read Jean Pierre’s paper Kongera Kwiyubaka (rebuilding ourselves again): Culturally responsive and contextually relevant collective healing in post‐genocide Rwanda.

The next Meet the Author session is with Jill Faulkner and is a chance to discuss the ‘chapter’ Responding to State Violence and Intimate Violence within the free online course on Feminisms, Intersectionality and Narrative Practice.

It can be hard to think beyond what we know and imagine our way into new territories of possibility. This chapter seeks to inspire you to dream new and remember old ways of preventing and intervening in interpersonal violence without relying on oppressive carceral systems. It also seeks to convey what is at stake and who gets left behind if we disregard the broader systemic context of violence and histories of colonisation, imperialism and war. We invite you to consider what this might mean for your practice. If you find yourself addressing gendered violence in your work, how do you attend to the context of state violence? What kinds of safety discourses, assumptions or policies guide your work? Where do these come from? Are they ever challenged? How might they look different and how would this shape the kinds of questions you ask or conversations you host about responding to violence?

Jill Faulkner was born in Aotearoa, and has lived on the lands of the First Nations peoples of Australia longer than she has lived on the country of her grandfather, descendant of the Ngati Te Whiti hapu of the Ati Awa iwi. Jill has worked with children, families and communities for more than 40 years. Her thinking and work are shaped by these multiple relationships and storied journeys. A therapist/activist, consultant, researcher, community practice worker, supervisor and social justice storyteller, Jill is committed to sharing knowledges.

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

Please read and view the resources here and then bring your questions to ask Jill.

This Meet the Author session features David Nylund’s work with transgender children/young people, and explores the ways narrative family therapy can be engaged in this context.

David Nylund has worked in a broad array of settings including community mental health, non-profit agencies, managed care, and private practice. David specializes in working with people struggling with anxiety and depression; LGBTQ identities; couples therapy; trauma and abuse; life transitions (grief and loss, divorce, career changes, etc.); children and teens struggling against problems; ADHD; youth and adults with eating/food related issues; substance abuse problems; parenting difficulties; and family therapy. David has a particular interest and specialty in working with transgender and gender non-conforming youth and their families. David is the Clinical Director of the Gender Health Center, a non-profit agency in Sacramento that serves transgender and LGBQ communities.

This meeting will be facilitated by Zan Maeder. Jill Freedman will be offering reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read an interview of David Nylund: Moments to treasure: Narrative family therapy with trans children and cisgender parents

In the next Meet the Author come and chat with Anthony Corballis about deconstructing addiction.

Please have a look at the www.deconstructingaddiction.com website and read the following three pieces before we meet up:

INTRODUCTORY INTERVIEW

• https://www.deconstructingaddiction.com/new-page-1

THE DECONSTRUCTING ADDICTION PRIMER

• https://www.deconstructingaddiction.com/writings

HOW THE PROJECT BEGAN

• https://www.deconstructingaddiction.com/working-with-existing-resources

And see also:

• Narrative maps of practice: Proposals for the Deconstructing Addiction League

Then bring along your questions for Anthony!

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

Considerations of power and privilege are integral to narrative approaches to therapy and community work. The resources for this Meet the Author session invite narrative practitioners to consider which bodies, sexual practices, orientations and forms of relationship are privileged and which are marginalised in the contexts in which we work; and what might be at stake if we do not intentionally invite themes of sex, pleasure, diverse genders and sexualities and respectful relationships into narrative conversations.

Manja was born in the Netherlands, was raised on the lands of the Ngawait people of the Meru nations in an immigrant community in the Riverland region of South Australia, and is part of an extended queer family.
Manja has worked with individuals, couples, groups and communities for over 40 years in a range of roles within feminist and community services. She first came across Narrative approaches and the Dulwich centre training programs in 1997 while working as a sexual assault counsellor/advocate and has continued to weave these ideas into her practice ever since.
Manja currently works in independent practice as a counsellor/consultant. They are a member of the Dulwich Centre faculty and are the Ethic of Care Liaison person for the Masters of Narrative Therapy and Community Work program.

This meeting 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 Manja’s Review of the Non-Monogamies and Contemporary Intimacies Conference (NMCI), and watch the following three videos:

Tuesday 31^st May / 4:30pm (Adelaide time)

Joseph Kalisa (Joe) is a licensed clinical psychologist and narrative therapy practitioner in Rwanda. He is interested in the intergenerational transmission of resilience, survival skills and resistance after genocide as well as collective approaches to mental health and works with communities experiencing mental health difficulties in Rwanda. He works at the University of Rwanda and is an honorary Tutor at the University of Melbourne. Joe is also a faculty member at Geruka Healing Centre and Dulwich Centre.

Joseph’s work draws on the rich history of collective narrative practice. The article to read in preparation for this session describes a series of conversations with people in Rwanda who had been subject to the stigma associated with mental health issues. Although stigma was an experience shared by group members, we were careful to avoid generalisation and to attend to both individual and collective experiences. Working in ways that honoured local culture and tradition, we arrived at a shared metaphor of mental health stigma being like imungu, the cowpea weevil. This enabled us to draw on participants’ extensive knowledge of managing the destructive effects of imungu on crops and harvests when eliciting local responses to mental health stigma. Rich stories emerged about the diverse ways in which people resisted stigma, and how these were connected to sustaining relationships and cultural resources. Participants drew connections between poverty and mental illness and emphasised the role of solidarity and collective economic development in responding to the effects of stigma. These local knowledges, which sometimes diverged from ‘mainstream’ psychological prescriptions, are shared here in the hope that it might contribute to other communities facing similar hardships.

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

Claver Haragirimana and other members of OPROMAMER (an association to promote solidarity among people with mental illness in Rwanda) will also be invited to participate.

To prepare for this session, please read the following:

• Collective responses to mental health stigma: Sharing lived wisdom by Joseph Kalisa
• Solidarity and friendship: An interview with Claver Haragirimana by David Denborough

This will discuss the paper ‘Travelling down the neuro-pathway: Narrative practice, neuroscience, bodies, emotions and the affective turn’. In recent times, a complex interplay of factors has led to the social sciences grappling with neuroscience, affect/emotion and embodied experience in new ways. This paper engages with the following four questions: How does narrative therapy fit with neuroscience? How does narrative practice engage with emotion? How does narrative practice relate to the affective turn? How does narrative therapy engage with the body/somatic experience/embodied experience? Throughout this paper examples from Michael White’s therapy practice and contemporary examples of collective narrative practice are discussed.

As David Denborough mentions at the beginning of this piece, this paper started with a concern, about how neuroscience ideas are being engaged with in the field of narrative practice, and then became a bit of an adventure: “It was as if I started travelling down a neuro-pathway and unexpectedly found myself detoured into writings by feminist theorists (such as Ann Cvetkovich, Clare Hemmings, Ruth Leys, Margaret Wetherell and Deborah Gould) and diving into early writings and videos of Michael White that relate to how narrative therapy engages with bodies and emotions. I’ve really enjoyed the adventure, and I have the narrative practitioners who are engaging with neuroscience to thank for this. I hope I can convey some of my enjoyment and intellectual delight in the following pages.”

Lobna Yassine suggested a Meet the Author on this paper and will be a key interlocutor during the session. Jill Freedman will offer reflections. 

Lobna Yassine has been connected to narrative practices for almost 15 years, with a particular passion for people affected by the criminal legal system. Lobna is interested in exploring alternative possibilities, alternative knowledges, and in people’s acts of resistance from the periphery. Narrative therapy practices have allowed Lobna to remain committed to acts of social and political activism, while at the same time positioning individuals and communities as experts and knowledge-producers. Lobna’s research and teaching areas at the University of Sydney include the social constructions of crime, juvenile justice risk assessment tools, and the racialising of crime in Australia. She is also interested in Countering Violent Extremism policies and programs and the impacts on Muslim communities. Currently, Lobna is investigating how Whiteness is embedded across human service systems, such as child protection, criminal justice, mental health, and welfare policies. In other current projects, she is exploring how social work curriculums in universities maintain and replicate White norms.

David Denborough is a community worker, teacher, writer and song-writer at Dulwich Centre and coordinates the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work at the University of Melbourne. His latest writings involve reckoning with colonial histories and their implications in the present, and considerations of ‘moral injury and narrative repair’.   

To prepare for this session, please read the article Travelling down the neuro-pathway: Narrative practice, neuroscience, bodies, emotions and the affective turn by David Denborough.

And  then bring your questions for Lobna and David!

Mindfulness has become a popular buzz word that is over-used and unfortunately often severed from its original meaning. This leads to many misconceptions about what the practices entail, and what they make possible in everyday lives.  When one has delved into the mindfulness experience and lived the profound shift that it engenders, it becomes easier to see how it is powerfully connected to narrative practices.  In this Meet the Author event, Marie-Nathalie will answer questions on what defines mindfulness practices and how they can enrich our therapeutic journey with clients. A particular attention will be given to how mindfulness practices can facilitate the scaffolding and sustenance of rich preferred experiences as was described in her recently posted Friday Afternoon video.

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

Marie-Nathalie Beaudoin started training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction at about the same time, in the mid 1990s, as when she developed a 9-month narrative therapy training program in California. Since then, she has expanded many narrative practices with mindfulness and neurobiology/positive psych ideas to enhance their effectiveness with clients living under the fire of intense problems.  She finds the integrated combination of these approaches to be more transformative than the sum of their individual influences. Marie-Nathalie deeply cherishes nature, and values being a wife, mother, activist, consultant, and compassionate practitioner. See www.mnbeaudoin.com for a list of upcoming events and sample articles.

To prepare for this session, please watch Marie-Nathalie’s Friday Afternoon Video and read her article Intensifying the preferred self: Neurobiology, mindfulness and embodiment practices that make a difference.

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

This meeting will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Joseph Kalisa will be offering reflections.

In this meet the author, come and discuss with Marnie her feminist insider research and her work to support families who have lost loved ones to suicide. Please read the following articles:

• An extract from Marnie’s thesis that includes a series of letters – to first responders; to future insider researchers; and a letter to the participants of this study
  

• Holding our heads up – Sharing stories not stigma after losing a loved one to suicide (compiled by Marnie Sather and David Newman)

Jim Duvall is Co-Director of JST Institute and Editor of Journal of Systemic Therapies, www.jstinstitute.com. His experience as a therapist, educator, consultant, speaker, editor, and author spans over four decades. His work aims to integrate time-sensitive narrative practices within social justice principles. In addition to many articles and book chapters, Jim co-authored a policy paper (Duvall, J., Young, K., Kays-Burden, A., 2012), No more, no less: Brief mental health services for children and youth. As a result of the recommendations of this policy paper Brief Competency-Oriented Services (e.g., Narrative Therapy, Solution-Focused Brief Therapy and Collaborative Dialogical Therapy) were made available to children and families in every community in the Province of Ontario, Canada. His co-authored a book (Duvall & Béres, 2011), Innovations in narrative therapy: Connecting practice, training and research, WW Norton and Company which is the first book to integrate training and research with narrative therapy resulting in compelling practice-based evidence. He is the co-editor of (Beaudoin & Duvall, 2017) Collaborative therapy and neurobiology: Evolving practices in action. Jim has facilitated hundreds of workshops, courses, and keynote presentations with organizations throughout Canada, US, Australia, Asia and Europe. Other times he can be found playing music with his friends or boating on the Gulf of Mexico with his partner, family and their dog, Sailor.

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

This Meet the Author provides an opportunity to ask questions of Jim Duvall about two aspects of his work and writings. Before attending, please read the following two pieces, which can be found on our website: https://dulwichcentre.com.au/meet-the-author/ 

Storied Therapy as a Three Act Play: which provides a conversational micro-map which conceptualises therapy as a three act play, moving from the known and familiar, through the zone of proximal development, to what is possible to know. This is a chapter from the book Innovations in narrative therapy: Connecting practice, training and research (Duvall & Béres, 2011, W.W. Norton)

and

Narrative therapy as re-search: Integrating narrative practices, participatory training, and co-research which briefly describes the ways in which Jim and colleagues have integrated training and research with narrative therapy resulting in compelling practice-based evidence.

David Newman lives and works in Sydney. 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’; founder of Sydney Narrative Therapy Centre; and a member of Dulwich Centre faculty.  

This meeting will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Joseph Kalisa will be offering reflections.

In this Meet the Author come and meet David Newman and the dictionary of obscure experience.

We are sharing three different resources to engage with first:

• The Dictionary of Obscure Experiences generated by young people in an in-patient psychiatric unit in collaboration with David Newman
• This video by Tiffany Watt Smith on the history of human emotions
• And this paper by David Denborough on ‘Travelling down the neuropathway: Narrative practice, neuroscience, bodies, emotions and the affective turn’

Sarah worked for ten years as a clinical psychologist and narrative therapist in the refugee space in Belgium. She completed her doctoral research exploring Australian grassroots community storytelling events involving people with refugee experiences through the lens of definitional ceremonies. In her current job as a research fellow, Sarah hopes to contribute to a better understanding of posttraumatic mental health in disaster-affected communities and continues to engage with narrative therapy in private practice.

This series of videos by Sarah Strauven takes a close look at definitional ceremony and presents different angles on its practice. It first conveys how Barbara Myerhoff developed the concept of definitional ceremony and then how Michael White brought these ideas into his therapeutic and community work. Particular attention is paid to the historical developments and adaptations of Michael White’s practice. Sarah also engages with Marc Kaminsky’s generative critique of Barbara Myerhoff’s work and expands upon the notion of ‘communitas’ in definitional ceremony.

Joseph Kalisa will be facilitating this session. Jill Freedman will be offering reflections.

Prior to the session, please watch Sarah’s video series below

Maya Sen is a mental health social worker and narrative therapist from Kolkata, India.  She started her journey with narrative practices in the child protection sector. Currently she is working in Mansitherapy, a psychotherapy service in India. She is also a part of the Dulwich Centre International Teaching Faculty.

The following resources describe some of her experiences  responding to hardship in these spaces. The article on “Responding to Grief and Loss in the context of COVID 19” is a collaboration with Anwesha that explores the possibilities of using narrative practice to respond to grief that is complicated by the pandemic. The paper “Working with young people in residential care in India: Uncovering stories of resistance” makes visible what young people are up against while accessing institutional care.  It also explores the ways in which narrative practices can acknowledge injustice, highlight resistance and connect young  people to preferred ways of living.

This meeting will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Joseph Kalisa will be offering reflections.

Prior to the session, please read Maya’s articles Responding to Grief and Loss in the context of COVID 19 and Working with young people in residential care in India: Uncovering stories of resistance. 

And then bring your questions for Maya!

Wonderfulness Cards aim at identifying and enriching the wonderfulness of a person through Narrative-based questions and conversations. The spotlight is shifted from problems affecting persons to their preferred identities, moral character, abilities and qualities, values and beliefs, hopes and dreams, passion and sparkling moments.

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

To prepare for this session, please watch the short video below and read this document.

And then bring your questions for Yee Mei Wong and Fiona Sze Siu Fung!

David Nylund has worked in a broad array of settings including community mental health, non-profit agencies, managed care, and private practice. David specializes in working with people struggling with anxiety and depression; LGBTQ identities; couples therapy; trauma and abuse; life transitions (grief and loss, divorce, career changes, etc.); children and teens struggling against problems; ADHD; youth and adults with eating/food related issues; substance abuse problems; parenting difficulties; and family therapy. David has a particular interest and specialty in working with transgender and gender non-conforming youth and their families. David is the Clinical Director of the Gender Health Center, a non-profit agency in Sacramento that serves transgender and LGBQ communities.

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

To prepare for this session, please read David’s paper here.

And then bring your questions for David!

The meeting will take place for one hour at the following times:

Adelaide – Tuesday 15 March, at 9:30am
Singapore – Tuesday 15 March, at 7:00am
Beijing – Tuesday 15 March, at 7:00am
Hong Kong – Tuesday 15 March, 7:00am
Auckland – Tuesday 15 March, at 12:00pm
Vancouver – Monday 14 March, at 4:00pm
Los Angeles – Monday 14 March, at 4:00pm
Mexico City – Monday 14 March, at 5:00pm
Chicago – Monday 14 March, at 6:00pm
Atlanta – Monday 14 March, at 7:00pm
Toronto – Monday 14 March, at 7:00pm
Santiago – Monday 14 March, at 8:00pm
Rio de Janeiro – Monday 14 March, at 8:00pm

Register in advance for this meeting: https://unimelb.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvfu2uqjIjGtC3QCpIAKi1tOQ8v4GbM-4m

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

We take great care ensuring that the time differences displayed are correct, however it is always best to confirm the time difference yourself if you are unsure. This is a great website to calculate time differences: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html 

These events are organised by Dulwich Centre, Evanston Family Therapy Center and University of Melbourne. They are free, not recorded, and go for one hour.

Serge Nyirinkwaya is a Rwandan narrative practitioner currently undertaking his PhD in Calgary, Canada. In this ‘Meet the Author’ session Serge will be speaking about his work in Rwanda combining narrative practice and games in work with children and young people. 

Drawing on narrative practices – re-authoring conversations, the absent but implicit and collective narrative practices – and on experiential learning models, this paper describes a playful practice to assist children and young people who have experienced hard times to respond to traumatic memories from a safe territory, without requiring them to speak in the first person about their experiences. Games and other activities are used to create a shared experience in which young people employ skills and values. These experiences are used as the basis for a cycle of experiential learning in which children reflect on their experiences and make links with their pasts and futures to support alternative story development and rich acknowledgment of what they give value to and their skills of living and being. In addition to seeking ways to avoid retraumatising, pathologising and stigmatising young people, this process has been developed to offer practitioners an easy to apply and locally resonant way of engaging with children and young people who have been through hard times. It uses local metaphors like making visible young people’s capacity to resist and endure (being mudaheranwa), inviting young people to stand together on Akarwa k’amahoro (Peace Island), and enabling mutual contribution through features of traditional Itorero schooling, including the use of stories of pride, songs and poetic mottos (ibyivugo).

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

To prepare for this Meet the Author please read Serge’s article here.

For over 40 years Melissa has practiced and taught individual and family therapy, for 25 years in community settings and for the last 15 years in a secure psychiatric inpatient unit.  With James Griffith, she developed therapeutic approaches that attend to the body, that honor the spiritual life, and that address persons in the context of family, community, and culture. She has presented this work internationally and has written about it in numerous articles, workshops, and in two books, The Body Speaks: Therapeutic Dialogues for Mind Body Problems (Perseus Books, 1994) and Encountering the Sacred in Psychotherapy: How to Talk with People About Their Spiritual Lives (Guilford Press, 2002).

Melissa sends this message, “Narrative Therapy, and my colleagues in the narrative community have been the most salient and sustaining influence in my work and have brought joy to my life.  I have long benefitted from your work at Dulwich Centre, so I will come in gratitude to this Meet the Author event  eagerly anticipating our exchange about including spirituality in therapy. In the readings I have shared some moments and movements of grace in my therapy experience.  If you are interested, we can talk about ways to create a hospitable space for these moments.  

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

To prepare for this session, please read these extracts. 

Loretta Pederson works in Sydney on Dharug and Cammeraygal lands. She is interested in working to support people to notice the steps they have taken in responding to hardships, including trauma. She has worked in various communities across Sydney, and now mostly works on Zoom offering counselling and supervision. Loretta is a member of the Dulwich Centre faculty and is currently working on a book about narrative practice and feminism, demonstrating practices through stories.

To prepare for this session, please either read Loretta’s paper Sharing sadness and finding small pieces of justice: Acts of resistance and acts of reclaiming in working with women who’ve been subjected to abuse, or watch this video.

Erling Fidjestøl is a narrative family therapist who has immersed himself in the study of narrative practice at the ROBUST clinic in Oslo. ROBUST is the only all-narrative practice clinic in Norway. Erling works with children, young people and their families suffering a range of difficulties including high conflicts and social and mental health issues of various kinds. 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.

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

To prepare for this Meet the Author please read these six examples of therapeutic letters.