Johnella Bird • TALK THAT SINGS: EXTENDING THE NARRATIVE TRADITION

We can read about ‘treatment approaches’ for people suffering from ‘post traumatic stress disorder’ or depression, or anorexia, or anxiety states. Yet our therapeutic conversations rarely reflect these descriptions. This practice based workshop addresses the question of how we can use these approaches as guides, while we make discovery with people (clients). The workshop outlines specific ways for therapists to orient therapeutic conversations towards finding people’s resources, strengths and abilities while incorporating their struggles, disappointments and despair.

Johnella Bird is a counseling practitioner and co-director of The Family Therapy Centre in Auckland, New Zealand. Johnella is the author of ‘The Heart’s Narrative’ (2000), ‘Talk That Sings’ (2004) and, ‘Constructing The Narrative In Super-vision’ (2006).

Johnella Birds's Handouts

Researching Experience by Taking Up the Inside/Outside Position
By Johnella Bird

Johnella Birds's Papers

Working with Children, Young People and Families
By Johnella Bird

Stephen Madigan • THE LANGUAGE OF OUR LIVES: THERAPEUTIC CONVERSATIONS WITH INTERNALIZED PROBLEM DIALOGUES

The workshop investigates and locates the outside influences affecting internalized problem dialogues. We will examine why it is so difficult to escape this internalized chit-chat and how come it is so common to most of us living here in North America. We will also explain how problem dialogues belong to none of us in particular and all of us cooperatively. Discussed are the internalized languages of depression, loss, self doubt, less-than-worthiness, anxieties, couple conflict, etc. The power, politic, and secret codes of internalized problem communications are uncovered through post-structural theory and live therapy demonstrations.

Stephen Madigan is the director of training at Yaletown Family Therapy in Vancouver and the Toronto Narrative Therapy Project. In June 2007, the American Family Therapy Academy will honour Stephen with their Distinguished Award for Innovative Practice in Family Therapy Theory and Practice.

Stephen Madigan's Handouts

The Language of our Lives:
Therapeutic Conversations with Internalized Problem Dialogues
By Stephen Madigan

Stephen Madigan's Papers

Counterviewing Injurious Speech Acts:
Destabilising Eight Conversational Habits of Highly Effective Problems
By Stephen Madigan

Anticipating Hope Within Written and Naming Domains of Despair
By Stephen Madigan

A Narrative Approach to Anorexia:
Discourse, Reflexivity, and Questions
By Stephen Madigan and Elliot M. Goldner

Sallyann Roth • INTERVIEWEE-GUIDED WORK: COLLABORATIVE PRACTICES FOR SHIFTING NARRATIVES TOWARD PREFERRED POSSIBILITIES

This workshop will provide exposure to and experience of Interviewee-Guided work with individuals, couples, families, colleagues, and community members in public conflict. Work will be focused on the clients’ development of clarity about, commitment to, and action toward their own preferred outcomes and ways of being.

Respondent – Vikki Reynolds
Sallyann Roth was co-director of and a core trainer at the Family Institute of Cambridge for over 16 years, taught for many years in the graduate programs in social work at both Smith and Simmons Colleges, and is an Associate of the Taos Institute.

Sallyann Roth's Papers

From the Theory to the Practice of Inquiring Collaboratively:
An Exercise in and Clinical Example of an Interviewee-Guided Interview
By Sallyann Roth

Elaine Jones and Fiona Gold • BEVEL UP: DRUGS, USERS, AND OUTREACH NURSING

Elaine Jones

Fiona Gold

Nurses from Vancouver’s Street Nurse Program will present a fascinating new 45 minute documentary illustrating the challenges in providing outreach nursing care to people who use drugs and struggle with health concerns related to pregnancy, sex work, prohibition, homelessness and alienation from traditional healthcare. The nursing team provide ample time for discussion and explore their remarkable field work in addiction, pregnancy and substance use, mental health, acute care, sexuality and street youth.

Respondent: Allan Wade
Elaine Jones and Fiona Gold have worked for the past nine years with the AIDS/STD Prevention Street Nurse Program, through the BC Centre for Disease Control. They work together with many community members to realize supervised safe injection sites in Vancouver. Other members of their team and clientele will join them in their presentation.

Elaine Jones and Fiona Gold's Handouts

Bevel Up: Drugs, Users, and Outreach Nursing
By Elaine Jones and Fiona Gold

Victoria Dickerson • FOLLOWING THE CLIENT

This workshop demonstrates the fine balance between keeping one’s theoretical map in one's head while remaining focused and involved with the clients story and the craft of asking therapeutic questions. The workshop begins by interviewing participants about
their own theoretical maps and situating these maps in their own lives. Vicki then highlights how to question and follow the client’s experience with rigor, imagination, and precision. She will show therapeutic examples through live demonstration and participant practice.

Respondent – Margarita Tarragona.
Victoria Dickerson is one of the first proponents of the narrative approach in North America; she is the co-author of If Problems Talked: Narrative Therapy in Action (Guilford, 1996) and is the author of a self-help book for women in their 20’s and early 30’s, Who Cares What You’re Supposed to Do?: Breaking the Rules to Get What You Want in Love, Life, and Work (Perigee, 2004). She is on the editorial board of Family Process.

Victoria Dickerson's Papers

Remembering the Future:
Situating Oneself in a Constantly Evolving Field
By Victoria Dickerson

Allan Wade • COMING TO TERMS WITH VIOLENCE: A RESPONSE-BASED APPROACH TO THERAPY, RESEARCH AND COMMUNITY ACTION

In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, David Trimble suggested that “a sense of the unique, specific and concrete circumstances of any situation is the first indispensable step to solving the problems posed by that situation” (1998). Mr. Trimble was referring to “the
troubles” that plagued Northern Ireland but the same is true in cases of rape, wife-assault, physical assault, sexualized harassment, racism, and armed robbery. Allan will review recent research on social responses to victims of violence, examine the connection
between language and violence, and present a response-based approach to interviewing that can be used in a variety of direct service settings.

Respondent – Victoria Dickerson
As a therapist, Allan often works with victims of violence and other forms of oppression. As a researcher, he is especially interested in microanalysis of face-to-face communication, social responses to victims, the nature of violence and resistance, and the connection between violence and language. Allan Wade lives on Vancouver Island.

Allan Wade's Handouts

Coming to Terms with Violence: A Response-Based
Approach to Therapy, Research and Community Action
By Allan Wade

Allan Wade's Papers

Coming to Terms with Violence: A Response-Based
Approach to Therapy, Research and Community Action
By Allan Wade

Coming to Terms with Violence and Resistance:
From a Language of Effects to a Language of Responses
By Allan Wade and Nick Todd

Language and Violence: Analysis of Four Discursive Operations
By Allan Wade and Linda Coates

Margarita Tarragona • AN INTRODUCTION TO POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

The goal of Positive Psychology is to understand and promote the factors that allow us to live fully and flourish. Positive Psychology studies happiness, personal strengths, virtues, resiliency, creativity and wisdom, among other topics and it can be applied to
education, clinical work, community and organizational development and every day life. This workshop will offer a general overview of Positive Psychology and some of its most exciting research findings, as well as experiential exercises that can give participants “a taste” of some of what Positive Psychology may add to their
professional and personal lives.

Respondent – Stephen Madigan
Margarita Tarragona is one of Mexico City’s most well known therapists and teachers. She is a co-founder of Grupo Campos Elíseos, and is on the faculty of the Universidad Ibero a m e r i c a n a and ILEF in Mexico City, and of the Houston Galveston Institute in Houston, TX.

Margarita Tarragona's Handouts

An Introduction to Positive Psychology
By Margarita Tarragona

Our work in therapy is neither innocent nor fair. This experiential workshop invites participants to reflect on the ways we replicate dominance and sites of oppression in the therapy and community work we do - despite our best efforts and our commitments to
social justice. The workshop highlights a practice based on an “Ethics of Resistance”. Throughout the workshop, participants will be invited to map their relationship to ethics, accountability, and sites of resistance. The workshop demonstrates how “Doing Justice” is possible through acts of solidarity and holding ourselves collectively accountable.

Respondent – Sallyann Roth
Vikki Reynolds is a therapist/activist interested in liberating justice, resistance, and solidarity from the margins of our work into the ethical centre. She “super”vises teams of therapists, teaches Trauma and Addiction counseling, and is proud to be a member of Yaletown Family Therapy training team - where she learned therapy

Vikki Reynolds's Papers

Weaving Threads of Belonging: Cultural Witnessing Groups
By Vikki Reynolds

Peter Fraenkel • The Ways of Engagement: Collaborative Methods for Building Successful Community-Based Programs for Multi-Stressed Families

Families struggling with poverty and social marginalization need to be engaged as experts who help to shape and evaluate any community based program. In this preconference workshop, you will learn the ten steps of the Collaborative Family Program Development (CFPD) model, used to build a successful, longstanding program for homeless families and domestic violence survivors in New York City, as well as a program to support first-generation Latina immigrants and their families. With videotape examples from these programs as illustrations, and several hands-on exercises, you will learn how to build a strong, supportive team with all members of the agency; how to make sure the program is culturally sensitive; how to design and conduct empowering and informative program development interviews with family members - and more!

Peter Fraenkel is Director of The Center for Time, Work, and the Family at the Ackerman Institute for the Family; and Associate Professor, Clinical Psychology, The City College of the City University of New York in New York City.

Peter Fraenkel's Papers

Engaging Families as Experts:
Collaborate Family Program Development
By Peter Fraenkel

Multiple Family Discussion Groups for Families That are Homeless
By Peter Fraenkel

Bill Madsen • COLLABORATIVE THERAPY WITH MULTI-STRESSED FAMILIES

Examine a strength-based, collaborative approach to engaging difficult families by helping them envision desired lives, address long-standing problems, and develop more proactive coping strategies. The workshop offers participants a chance to examine their
own therapeutic maps, highlights strength-based questions, and offers specific directions on working with the broader cultural and philosophical contexts in which multi-stressed families find themselves.

Respondent- Paul Gallant
Bill Madsen is the author of the newly revised book Collaborative Work with Multi-stressed Families (2007)

Bill Madsen's Handouts

A Model of Collaborative Clinical Practice
By Bill Madsen

Bill Madsen's Papers

Collaborative Inquiry:
An Anthropological Approach to Intervening with Families
By Bill Madsen

Sustaining a Collaborative Practice in the "Real" World
By Bill Madsen

Ali Borden • COLLABORATIVE CONVERSATIONS IN MEDICAL-MODEL SETTINGS: SCENES FROM IN-PATIENT TREATMENT OF ANOREXIA & BULIMIA

The workshop will discuss specific work/examples that demonstrate options for how to be collaborative in challenging settings and with challenging problems. The workshop explores how to: 1) Illuminate and take apart pre-established ideas of anorexia/bulimia and
recovery. 2) Interrupt ‘restrictive’ ideas of a person’s identity and the problem itself. 3) Offer an audience to people’s initiatives and stories. 4) Hold onto concerns about physical health *and* sustain personal agency.

Respondent – Stephen Madigan
Ali Borden is the Clinical Director of The Eating Disorder Center of California and co-author of the book, “Biting the Hand That Starves You” (2005).

Ali Borden's Handouts

Collaborative Conversations in Medical Model Settings:
Scenes From In-Patient Treatment of Anorexia and Bulimia
By Ali Borden

Ali Borden's Papers

Collaborative Conversations in Medical Model Settings:
Scenes From In-Patient Treatment of Anorexia and Bulimia
By Ali Borden

Eduardo Villar • THERAPEUTIC CONVERSATIONS IN CONTEXTS OF TRAUMA AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE

The workshop focus is on therapy and interventions with victims, families and communities subjected to sociopolitical violence. The workshop offers a contextual understanding about Columbia’s 50 year war, the five groups involved, and how the people survive daily life. Eduardo outlines how this warring context influences his work
with various populations and problems including kidnapping, displacement, and violence. This workshop ‘wowed’ everyone at TC6 in Vancouver.

Respondent – Art Fisher
Eduardo Villar is an MD and psychotherapist practicing in Bogotá, Columbia. His work with people experiencing trauma and political violence, and his therapy with families whose members have been kidnapped is known and respected worldwide.

David Nylund & Julie Tilsen • ONE STOP QUEER SHOP

David Nylund

Julie Tilsen

Often, therapists find that being a “good ally” (or, being GLBTQ themselves) is not always enough to help their queer clients out of the quagmires that life in a straight world can create. Discussed is the productive investigation of our own initiation into dominant ideas about sex and gender, conceptual foundations that are just and ethical, and clinical skills that are responsive to client preferences. Self-reflection, theory, and application will be combined as we examine our work with queer clients from a social justice and critical multicultural framework.

Respondent – Esther Perel
Julie Tilsen is a therapist, consultant, and trainer in Minneapolis.
David Nylund is an Associate professor of Social Work at California State University, Sacramento.

David Nylund and Julie Tilsen's Handouts

One Stop Queer Shop
By David Nylund and Julie Tilsen

David Nylund and Julie Tilsen's Papers

Queer Theory Goes Dancing
By Julie Tilsen and David Nylund

The Gender Binary
By Julie Tilsen, David Nylund and Lorraine Grieves

Paul Gallant • IMAGINATION AND METAPHOR IN NARRATIVE PRACTICE WITH CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS

This workshop will present the artful, playful and respectful use of metaphor (‘growing up vs. growing down’, ‘applying one’s strength’) and other problem-undermining strategies and skills. A practical map for engaging in therapeutic conversations with children, adolescents and young adults will be offered.

Respondent – Ali Borden
Paul Gallant is Director of the Narrative Institute - Maitland, Florida and Associate Professor and Clinic Coordinator, Counseling Department, Barry University in Orlando, Florida.

Paul Gallant's Papers

The Metaphor of 'Strength': Ideas for Developing
Meaningful Conversations with Children and Adolescents
By Paul Gallant

Applying the Metaphor of 'Strength': A Teacher and Student
Collaborate to Keep Trouble Out of the Classroom
By Paul Gallant

Art Fisher • EXTENDING A VISUAL NARRATIVE THERAPY AND COMMUNITY WORK RESPONSE TO FAMILY VIOLENCE IN A RURAL REGION

Art will use the walls of the workshop room as a political surface where the maps of narrative practice can be transparently engaged. The workshop explores movement from ‘the known and familiar’ to ‘the possible to know’ in response to family violence and narrative therapy itself. The workshop builds on the skills of participants through live interviews of workshop participants, outsider witnessing, and videotape.

Respondent – Bill Madsen
Art Fisher grew up in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, and coordinates a narrative therapy and community work response to family violence for western Nova Scotia. His background includes community work, gay activism, and anti-oppression - he has conducted workshops in
the USA, Canada, Mexico, Ireland, UK, Denmark, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia.

Art Fisher's Handouts

Narrative Possibilities for Unpacking “Homophobia”:
Responding to the Complexities of Men’s Life Journeys.
By Art Fisher

Art Fisher's Papers

Narrative Possibilities for Unpacking “Homophobia”:
Responding to the Complexities of Men’s Life Journeys
By Art Fisher

Power and the Promise of Innocent Places
By Art Fisher

Makungu Akinyela • ONCE HE’S THERE: AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN IN COUPLE THERAPY

The workshop challenges the notion that African Americans in general, and African American men in particular, are resistant to therapy. The workshop will focus on African American couples, and explore the social, cultural and political barriers that have
contributed historically to the perceived reluctance of African Americans to voluntarily participate in therapy.

Respondents – Julie Tilsen & Eduardo Villar
Makungu M. Akinyela developed Testimony Therapy as an African centered discursive family therapy. He is Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Georgia
State University, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Esther Perel • WHEN THREE THREATENS TWO: SEX AND PARENTHOOD

Researchers now know that marital satisfaction declines dramatically after the birth of the first child. This workshop will teach participants how to help couples predict and negotiate this tricky familial shift without abandoning eroticism. You’ll learn how to challenge the North American cultural stereotype of desexualized motherhood and help
couples create a time and space for sex despite the presence of children.

Respondent – David Nylund
Esther Perel is the author of the widely acclaimed book “Mating in Captivity: Couples and Eroticism” - published by Harper Collins and translated into eight languages. She maintains a private practice in Manhattan.

Esther Perel's Papers

When Three Threatens Two
By Esther Perel