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Cutting the Problem Down to the Size:
Knowledges of Young People and their Families: a new genre of Narrative therapy with children, families and their communities.

This workshop will trace the history of a novel genre of 'playful approaches to serious problems' of young people and their families.

The work is founded on a concern for a kind of enquiry that confers respectworthiness upon everyone, but in particular young people. It's intention is for everyone to respond to their predicaments 'standing' on their own, their family's and community's' dignity.

This requires the therapist to turn the by now well-established and taken-for-granted order of a meeting on its head. Here, any meeting commences with a detailed enquiry into the young person's 'wonderfulnesses', many of which implicate their parents and families/communities. For example, "do you think you got that from your mum or your dad, your sister or your brother or someone else?"
An assumption is made that the young person and his/her family need to introduce themselves to the Problem on the grounds that it (the Problem) has either misjudged them or doesn't really know enough about them. To rectify matters, the young person and his/her family are provided with ample opportunities to impress on the Problem both what they stand for and what their skills and knowledges make available to them.

The justification for this seemingly disordered enquiry is that 'we all need to know what you and your family can put against the Problem that is troubling you all, after which we will get on to the Problem itself.' Examples will survey a wide range of such 'problems' and 'troubles'. We will demonstrate by examples how such enquiries can lead to quite unexpectedly rapid and thrillling results.

Recommended Reading:
Freeman, Epston and Lobovits(1997): Playful Approaches to Serious Problems: Narrative Therapy with Children and their Families, New York: WW Norton or Epston, D(2008)
Down Under and Up Over: Travels with Narrative Therapy, Warrington, Association of Family Therapy(United Kingdom)

David Epston was one of the originators, along with Michael White, of what has come to be known as 'Narrative Therapy'. He attended the Universities of Auckland, Edinburgh, British Columbia and Warwick. Currently, he is co-director of the Family Therapy Centre in Auckland, New Zealand and Visiting Professor, School of Human Sciences and Community Studies, UNITEC Institute of Technology, Auckland. He was awarded a D.Lit (1996) by the Graduate School of Professional Psychology, John F. Kennedy University, Orinda, California and the Special Award for Distinguished Contributions to Family Therapy from the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy. He has published widely and is perhaps best known for White and Epston (1990), Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends, WWNorton, New York which has been translated into 10 languages; Freeman, Epston and Lobovits (1997), Playful Approaches to Serious Problems: Narrative Therapy with Children and Their Families, WWNorton, New York; and recently, Maisel, Epston and Borden (2004), Biting the Hand that Starves You: Inspiring Resistance to Anorexia/Bulimia, WWNorton, New York. He has also made a number of training video-tapes with www.masterworks.com and co-produces the website- www.narrativeapproaches.com. with Dean Lobovits and Jennifer Freeman. His teaching style is reputed to be engaging, creative and always surprising.
This workshop is sponsored by www.narrativeapproaches.com. This may be the only time this workshop is offered in the Bay Area in 2008.
Suzanne Pregerson is the administrator of this workshop.

BBSE Credit hours: 14

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Get Homestudy CEU's for reading Playful Approaches to Serious Problems or Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends
IAPS Courses For Shipment, Homestudy Courses

Sally Ann Roth (US)

Dulwich Centre, Adelaide, Australia (AU)

The Family Centre of Wellington Aotearoa (NZ)

The Public Conversations Project (US)

Family Institute of Cambridge (US)

Jill Freedman and Gene Combs, Evanston Family Therapy Center (US)

Walter Bera, Kenwood Therapy Center in Minneapolis (US)

Bay Area Family Therapy Training Associates (US)

The Centre for Narrative Practice (UK)

Johnella Bird (NZ)

Stephen Madigan Workshop Schedule 2009(Canada)

Family Centered Services Project The Family Centered Services Project (FCSP) is dedicated to inspiring, supporting and enhancing agencies’ ability to develop family-centered philosophy and practice through training, organizational consultation, and ongoing coaching and technical assistance.

TC9 Conference
Vancouver, Canada - May 6-8, 2010

It's the conference you've been training for!

Get involved with dozens of practice based narrative workshops, interviews, up close presenter conversations, keynotes and films.

Participate alongside:

Alan Jenkins, Cheryl White, Ken Hardy, Peggy Sax, David Nylund, Vicky Dickerson, David Denborough, John Winslade, Kaethe Weingarten, David Pare, Julie Tilsen, Vikki Reynolds, Tod Agusta-Scot, Bill Madsen, Colin Sanders, Walter Bera, Sean Spear, Lorraine Hedtke, Stephen Madigan, numerous insider consultants ...and more.

View the full workshop schedule or browse through our presenters.

Registration

Please book NOW for this special offer and quote "Therapeutic Conversations".
Reservations Dept: 1-800-830-6144 or reservations@empirelandmarkhotel.com

Further Information
E-mail: Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy office at tcyft@telus.net

TC Conference registration numbers are limited to 350 inquiring minds. Thanks.

  International summer school of narrative practice

Adelaide, South Australia

Over 4 days and evenings (Wednesday- Saturday) we are planning a smorgasbord of skills-based narrative therapy practice sessions. A range of international presenters will join Dulwich Centre Faculty members in creating a context for the exploration and practice of therapeutic skills. Each day will begin with a practice-based keynote before participants select whole day practice seminars on a range of different themes. Throughout the day there will also be opportunities for practitioners to consult faculty members for individual and group supervision sessions; to meet with publishers and writers over ways of representing their work in a written form; and to watch and reflect with others on videotapes of therapy sessions by a range of respected narrative therapists. In the evenings, apart from gathering over South Australian wines and revelling in the summer atmosphere, we will also be arranging evening talks on broader themes which are nonetheless related to narrative practice, practice, practice! We are really looking forward to this summer school and a chance to have Dulwich Centre filled with practitioners dedicated to talking about the nitty-gritty of therapeutic practice and ways of further developing skills. Inquire or Register

The Enneagram: Opening the Heart of Compassion

Sharon Berbower Presents a Nine Week Series of Panels Interviewing Speakers for the Nine Personality Styles in Berkeley California.