What Is Narrative Therapy?
Date: Saturday, April 8, 2017; 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Instructor: Stephen Gaddis, Ph.D.

This one-day training is for people who have heard about narrative therapy but have never been formally introduced to its radically collaborative, respectful and social-justice oriented ways of understanding people and problems. Sometimes people mistakenly think narrative therapy is simply about listening to people tell their stories. This is partly true, but there is much more.

Narrative therapy is a way of seeing the world that helps people grow a new sense of personal power, choice, and action with the problems in their lives and relationships. Importantly, it also addresses the political nature of problems. Specifically, narrative therapy raises questions about whether problems should be located in the mental health of the person or on the real effects of power relations and social injustice.

In this workshop, the basic assumption and ideas that distinguish the Narrative Worldview from the culturally dominant Normative Worldview will be explained. The exciting implications and effectiveness of working from a narrative perspective will be illustrated in real examples from clinical work. The intention of this course is to offer participants an initial taste of narrative therapy and its implication for understanding ourselves as people committed to helping. Based on this taste, participants can then assess whether they would like to pursue further narrative training.

The objectives for this course include:

• Understanding the distinction between Narrative and Normative Worldviews
• Understanding the purpose and value of Rich Story Development
• Understanding the landscapes of narrative therapy practice: De-Constructing and Re-Authoring

Fees:

• Early Bird Registration, by March 18 -- $85; $60 for students
  
• Regular Registration, after March 18-- $100; $75 for students