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This is an online event.Contact
Narrative Therapy InitiativeNarrative Therapy Initiative
978-743-9684
narrativetherapyinitiative@gmail.com
Working with People Facing Despair, Unworthiness and/or Suicidal Thoughts: Moving Beyond Risk Assessment Towards Stories of Resistance and Hope
Date: Friday, October 22nd, 2021; 10:00 am to 6:00 pm Eastern
Location: Online via Zoom
Instructor: Amy Druker, MSW
Maximum Participants: 60
Working with people who are facing Despair and/or Suicidal Thoughts can sometimes invite Worry and even Panic for counsellors; and can, at times, take us away from our preferred ways of being with people. This workshop will focus on how we can bring social justice values into our work with people who are facing the difficult problems of Despair, Feelings of Unworthiness and/or Suicidal Thoughts through Narrative Therapy practices and principles.
The workshop will cover:
- The theoretical framework (ethics, principles, politics) that underpin a narrative worldview.
- Deconstructing dominant discourses or common cultural understandings & responses to ‘suicide’ which may be linked to ‘totalizing’ identity conclusions (eg. “I’m a failure.”). The broader socio-political context which may be implicated in the production of these totalizing identity conclusions will be discussed, and how these can be deconstructed through intentional lines of inquiry.
- Participants will be invited to consider their own preferred ways of responding when a person consulting us discloses that they are struggling against Despair/Suicidal Thoughts.
- The narrative practices of externalizing and re-authoring. Participants will have opportunities to try out these ideas/practices in small groups.
- The Statement of Position Map (SOPM) and its use in exploring a person’s preferred relationship with suicidal thoughts/Despair.
- Moving away from checklists that are meant to evaluate ‘safety’. Participants will be invited to consider an alternative checklist of questions they might want to ask themselves to help them know if they haven’t (or have) strayed from their own ethics.
This training will be a live, interactive event using the Zoom web conferencing platform. This training will be live streamed but will not be recorded. By registering, you agree to be a participant in a live-streaming event. No segments of this training will be recorded or be made available via video.
Registration Fees:
- Regular Registration Rate -- $125.00
- Student/Senior Registration Rate -- $75.00
Additional Information:
- Group Rate: We offer discounts for groups of four or more people from a single agency or organization; to register a group, email narrativetherapyinitiative@gmail.com.
- CEUs: We are applying for 6.5 CEUs for LMFTs and LICSWs/LCSWs. If you need LMHC CEUs, we will assist you with the application process. If you will need a CE certificate, please order one in the registration form and let us know your professional license number. CE Certificates are $25.00.
- Cancellation Policy: Refunds will be given up to 14 days prior to the training minus a $25 cancellation fee. Within 14 days of the training, no refunds will be provided.
- Questions? Email NTI at narrativetherapyinitiative@gmail.com.
About the presenter: Amy Druker (she/her) first met narrative ideas a decade ago when she was working as a harm reduction outreach worker with pregnant people in downtown Toronto. At the time, the idea of working as a therapist wasn’t on Amy’s radar. In 2011, at her first narrative therapy workshop on collective narrative practice, Amy felt she had finally found a language for the work she had already been doing in community. Amy recognized a strong alignment between the politics and ethics of a harm reduction approach and Narrative Therapy. Both worldviews take into account the social and political context that can give rise to problems (like the opioid crisis). Harm reduction recognizes that our drug laws, which deny people access to a safe drug supply (and criminalize people who use drugs), are largely responsible for the harms caused to people who use illicit drugs. In this way, harm reduction, like narrative therapy, refuses to locate problems inside of people, recognizes people as the experts of their own lives and stands against the individualizing and pathologizing of people’s suffering. Amy’s practice is guided by a commitment to social justice, anti-oppressive practice, to the questioning of taken-for-granted ways of thinking about things (including the practice of therapy and clinical ‘supervision’, and the imposition of expert knowledge). Amy sees narrative therapy, not as a technique, but as a worldview which helps her to live out her social justice values. For over 7 years Amy worked as an individual and family therapist at a youth mental health agency where narrative therapy was the guiding framework/worldview of all oft he therapists and the clinical director. She now runs her own independent practice, where she offers therapy and clinical supervision, and consults at a harm reduction agency in so called Toronto, Canada. Amy is on Faculty at the Narrative Therapy Initiative and The Narrative Therapy Centre, in Ajax, ON. To be in touch with Amy please reach out to her at therapy@amydruker.com.