Narrative Therapy in Wonderland: Connecting with Children's Imaginative Know-How


Book Description

The remarkable power of connecting with children’s voices and imagination in narrative therapy. Therapists may marvel at children’s imaginative triumphs, but how often do they recognize such talents as vital to the therapy hour? Should therapists reserve a space for make-believe only when nothing is at stake, or might it be precisely those moments when something truly matters that imagination is most urgently needed? This book offers an alternative to therapeutic perspectives that treat children as vulnerable and helpless. It invites readers to consider how the imaginative gifts and knowledge of children, when supported by the therapist and family, can bring about dramatic change. The book begins with an account of the foundations of narrative theory. It explains how such elements as language, characterization, and suspense contribute to the coherence of a story and bring young people into focus. Each subsequent chapter provides specific suggestions for the practice of narrative therapy. Examples of the difficulties children face are offered, along with narrative interventions and tips for overcoming common barriers that can arise along the way. Readers will learn a variety of ready-to-implement strategies, including how to personify problems, compose letters to affirm children’s identities, summon fairies to lend a helping hand, and many more. Sample dialogues between the authors, children, and their parents bring the application of each practice to life, illuminating how even the most stubborn problem can be outwitted, sometimes by mischievous means. With robust professional insight, Narrative Therapy in Wonderland will aid any practitioner in calling on children’s imaginative know-how. How often can a young person be spotted diving headlong into a world of fantasy? This book explores the extraordinary fact that these young people may, upon arrival in Wonderland, be far better equipped to take on even dire challenges than when they remain “up above.”




Re-authoring Teaching


Book Description

Key phrases: blended learning, insider knowledge, online pedagogy, narrative therapy, postmodern pedagogy, practitioners and consumers, practitioner-training, public practices, reflective practitioner, students’ voices, teaching congruently, teacher-practitioner, therapeutic letters, teaching therapeutic practice.




Playful Approaches to Serious Problems


Book Description

The authors describe their success with narrative therapy, a lighter, playful approach to the serious problems encountered in child and family therapy. They provide case vignettes in the first two sections which show how children who might have been labeled belligerent, hyperactive, anxious, or out of touch with reality are found to be capable of taming their tempers, controlling frustration, and using their imaginations to the fullest. They address the helpful role of family members, as well. The third section of the text offers five extended case stories. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Unravelling Trauma and Weaving Resilience with Systemic and Narrative Therapy


Book Description

Unravelling Trauma and Weaving Resilience with Systemic and Narrative Therapy is an innovative book that details how clinicians can engage children, families and their networks in creative and collaborative relationships to elicit change within the context of trauma and violence. Combining systemic, narrative and dialogical theoretical frameworks with clinical examples, this volume focuses on therapeutic conversations that can help children, and those involved with them, deconstruct their experienced difficulties, and create more hopeful stories and alternative ways of relating to one another through a sense of play. Vermeire advocates for serious playfulness as a way of directly addressing trauma and its effects, as well as along ‘trauma-sensitive’ side paths. Puppetry, artwork, interviews and theatre play are used to weave networks of resilience in ever-widening circles and this approach is informed by the awareness that individual problems are always to be seen as relational, social and political. This book is an important read for therapists and social workers who work with traumatised children and their multi-stressed families.




Narrative Psychiatry and Family Collaborations


Book Description

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. This book draws on ten years of clinical research and contains stories about helping people, who are heavily burdened with psychiatric illnesses, to find ways to live a life as close as possible to their dreams. The chapters are organized according to ideas, values, and techniques. The book describes family-oriented practices, narrative collaborative practices, narrative psychiatric practices, and narrative agency practices. It also talks about wonderfulness interviewing, mattering practices, public note taking on paper charts, therapeutic letter writing, diagnoses as externalized problems, narrative medicine, and family community meetings. Each chapter includes case studies that illustrate the theory, ethics, and practice, told by Nina Jørring in collaboration with the families and colleagues. The book will be of interest to child and adolescent psychiatrists and all other mental health professionals working with children and families.




Reimagining Narrative Therapy Through Practice Stories and Autoethnography


Book Description

Reimagining Narrative Therapy Through Practice Stories and Autoethnography takes a new pedagogical approach to teaching and learning in contemporary narrative therapy, based in autoethnography and storytelling. The individual client stories aim to paint each therapeutic meeting in such detail that the reader will come to feel as though they actually know the two or more people in the room. This approach moves beyond the standard narrative practice of teaching by transcripts and steps into teaching narrative therapy through autoethnography. The intention of these 'teaching tales' is to offer the reader an opportunity to enter into the very 'heart and soul' of narrative therapy practice, much like reading a novel has you enter into the lives of the characters that inhabit it. This work has been used by the authors in MA and PhD level classrooms, workshops, week-long intensive courses, and conferences around the world, where it has received commendations from both newcomer and veteran narrative therapists. The aim of this book is to introduce narrative therapy and the value of integrating autoethnographic methods to students and new clinicians. It can also serve as a useful tool for advanced teachers of narrative practices. In addition, it will appeal to established clinicians who are curious about narrative therapy (who may be looking to add it to their practice), as well as students and scholars of autoethnography and qualitative inquiry and methods.




Understanding Postmodern Family Therapy


Book Description

This accessible textbook provides therapy students and practitioners with an understanding of postmodern theories, founders, and practical applications to family therapy. It introduces complex concepts in bite-sized pieces so readers can cultivate and master competent real-world applications of postmodern philosophy in therapy. Relying predominantly on primary sources, Kelsey Railsback shows how postmodernist ideas influenced the development and implementation of postmodern family therapy models, focusing on collaborative-dialogic practice, narrative therapy, and solution focused brief therapy. It describes why certain therapeutic techniques developed and explains the context and history of their development. Each section begins with an introduction to the model before moving to the philosopher and ending with the founders’ application of philosophical ideas to therapy techniques. These chapters summarize prominent ideas from esteemed professionals in their fields, covering the philosophical pioneers Wittgenstein, Foucault, and Gergen and the therapy pioneers Anderson, White, Epston, de Shazer, Berg, and more. Critically, this book demonstrates how postmodern theory can be applied in mental health practice. By the end of the book, students will be able to interweave the philosophers, founders, and applications of postmodern family therapy into a comprehensive picture. To better understand their epistemology and why they are more inclined toward certain practices over others, students can utilize the included self-quizzes to deepen their understanding. Filled with etymological explanations, reflective questions, keywords, and summaries throughout, this book is designed for students and practitioners in systemic and relational therapy or related fields such as psychology, social work, and mental health counseling.




StoryFrames


Book Description

StoryFrames: supporting silent children in the classroom. How does a teacher support a child who has recently arrived at school, speaking another language, and who remains completely silent at school for weeks or months, not participating in class and not even playing with other children? The child's parents often report that the child speaks and plays normally at home, with their family and with other children who speak the child's language. These children, undergoing the "Silent Period", are usually children who have relocated from another country, either voluntarily or as refugees or migrants. For a variety of reasons, these children do not have the resilience needed to cope with the many changes and anxieties they have experienced. The losses for these children are more than the loss of familiar faces, places and conversations; the loss of their home language is experienced as a loss of the self they had known before the relocation. The psychoanalytic theories of Colette Granger provide a way to understand the experiences of these migrant children. The StoryFrames book sets out an easy-to-follow, low-cost method of supporting these children, enabling them to emerge from their silence, and to play with other children. The book is written by a speech and language therapist, but any teacher, social worker or volunteer, who is experienced in working with young children, can run this programme. The methodology of this programme is grounded in the developmental theories of Winnicott and Vygotsky and as such it stresses the nature and quality of the teacher/child relationship which is at the core of this kind of work. The book explores the feelings not only of the child in this situation, but also of the teacher working with such a child; such a teacher must deal with their own anxieties about what the child is experiencing, and about whether they, as the teacher who is expected to solve these problems, could be doing something different. The StoryFrames method is not only for second language learners. It has been successfully used with children who have a wide range of communication disabilities. Children with Developmental Language Disorder, children who stutter, children with intellectual disabilities and Highly Sensitive Children have all benefited from the use of this programme, which uses narrative and pretend play to help the child to develop linguistic and cognitive skills, as well as to have the confidence needed to communicate with others, in spite of the difficulties. This book is an invaluable source of information for anyone wanting to understand the nature of the teacher or speech therapist's relationship with children with communication difficulties, and should be essential reading for trainee speech and language therapists, as well as for teachers training in early years education.




Brief Narrative Practice in Single-Session Therapy


Book Description

Brief Narrative Practice in Single-Session Therapy emphasizes collaboration, meaning making, and relational ethics in single-session conversations. Chapters provide a thorough orientation to the therapy and address the diverse circumstances clinicians face in these conversations. Separating from many long-held traditions in therapy, this book explores a guiding framework and the accompanying micro-skills that therapeutic conversations demand. In these pages, readers will learn how to recalibrate their listening habits and talk differently about problems in ways that help them quickly hear and generate possibilities. All those who provide psychotherapy, counselling, and coaching in time-constrained contexts will find this book useful and engaging, including those working in crisis and call-in settings, walk-in clinics, medical centres, and live-in contexts where change conversations are brief.




Relational Practice: New Approaches to Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools


Book Description

A clear and compelling text written by teachers, psychologists, and educationalists, Relational Practice: New Approaches to Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools proposes a dynamic and relational approach to supporting the mental health needs of children and young people within education. Contributing authors advocate a movement away from the deficit, medicalised model of mental health and instead encourage readers to embrace a relational approach, considering philosophical and spiritual dimensions, as well as the wider everyday contexts that shape the mental health of individuals, groups, and school communities. Filled with case studies, intervention strategies, and CPD activities, this essential guide bridges the gap between theory, research, and practice to offer evidence-based resources for practical application within schools. Areas covered include, but are not limited to: Supporting neurodivergent and LGBT+ students to thrive Creating and actioning an anti-racist approach Multi-agency interventions Relationships in SEND settings Creating a supportive culture to enhance staff wellbeing Appreciative inquiry Staff perceptions of Building Relational Schools (BRS) The role of intersubjective processes and the impact they have on relationships in educational settings Providing a comprehensive introduction to relational practice within education, this is an indispensable resource for anyone working in education who wishes to support the mental health and wellbeing of their school community.