Narratives of Therapists' Lives


Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897 edition. Excerpt: ...to intervene at a policy level. He did feel that he was getting somewhere with these initiatives, and it wasn't this that he wished to focus on in our conversation. What concerned him most, and what he wanted to explore in our conversations, was that, despite his awareness of the context of the dilemmas he was facing in his work, he couldn't help but feel that he was failing the persons who were consulting him. It was this sense of failure that he believed was contributing most significantly to the despair that he had spoken of at the beginning of our conversation. As we talked, I asked Paul some questions: 'Despair isn't something that persons experience without having had some hope that things would be different. Could we talk about some of the hopes that you have for the lives of others, those hopes that you have experienced being frustrated?' 'You said that many of your agency's recent policy decisions go against what you stand for. Would you talk about some of your values and beliefs that are contradicted by these decisions?' 'In regard to the sense of failure that you have spoken of, could you say something about your appreciation of the possibilities that are available to persons in their lives?' In the conversation that was shaped by these questions, I also asked Paul to assist me to understand the history of these hopes, of these values, and of this understanding of the possibilities available to persons in their lives. In tracing the history of these hopes, values, beliefs, and this commitment to the exploration of the possibilities for persons' lives, among other things he spoke of his aunt's and uncle's contributions: of his aunt's habit of caring about the less fortunate and marginal people in her community, in ways emotional...




Narratives of Therapists' Lives


Book Description

Today it is commonplace to hear therapists speak of experiences of demoralisation, burden, fatigue and despair. This book proposes that this is significantly an outcome of how therapy is conceived of and practised, and draws out alternative conceptions and practices of therapy, supervision and training that provide a powerful antidote to despair. Readers will be provided with options for taking narrative practices unto their own lives - options that will reinvigorate and renew.




Narrative Means To Therapeutic Ends


Book Description

Starting from the assumption that people experience emotional problems when the stories of their lives, as they or others have invented them, do not represent the truth, this volume outlines an approach to psychotherapy which encourages patients to take power over their problems.




What is Narrative Therapy?


Book Description

This best-selling book is an easy-to-read introduction to the ideas and practices of narrative therapy. It uses accessible language, has a concise structure and includes a wide range of practical examples. What Is Narrative Practice? covers a broad spectrum of narrative practices including externalisation, re-membering, therapeutic letter writing, rituals, leagues, reflecting teams and much more. If you are a therapist, health worker or community worker who is interesting in applying narrative ideas in your own work context, this book was written with you in mind.




Narrative Therapy


Book Description

"This volume is especially useful in demonstrating the effects of placing social discourses at the center of therapy. It gores many sacred cows of the larger modernist therapeutic community, but in doing so it offers new ideas for mental health professionals attempting to help their clients with common and serious life problems." —PSYCRITIQUES "This compilation is an insightful read for practitioners who have not taken the opportunity to use narrative therapy in practice...Experienced practitioners will certainly appreciate the theoretical analysis offered by the writers as well as the opportunity for reflective practice. Narrative Therapy is a meaningful contribution to a Canadian book market lacking in clinical literature for social workers" —CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL WORKERS Narrative Therapy: Making Meaning, Making Lives offers a comprehensive introduction to and critique of narrative therapy and its theories. This edited volume introduces students to the history and theory of narrative therapy. Authors Catrina Brown and Tod Augusta-Scott situate this approach to theory and practice within the context of various feminist, post-modern and critical theories. Through the presentation of case studies, Narrative Therapy: Making Meaning, Making Lives shows how this narrative-oriented theory can be applied in the client-therapist experience. Many important therapeutic situations (abuse, addictions, eating disorders, and more) are addressed from the narrative perspective. Rooted in social constructionism, and emerging initially from family therapy, narrative therapy emphasizes the idea that we live storied lives. Within this approach, the editors and contributors seek to show how we make sense of our lives and experiences by ascribing meaning through stories which themselves arise within social conversations and culturally available discourses. Our stories don’t simply represent us or mirror lived events; they actually constitute us—shaping our lives as well as our relationships. Narrative Therapy will be a valuable supplemental textbook for theory and practice courses in departments of Counseling and Psychotherapy and of Social Work as well as for courses in Gender and Women Studies.




Narrative Therapy


Book Description

Narrative Therapy provides an introduction to the theory, history, research, and practice of this post-structural approach. First developed by David Epston and Michael White, this therapeutic theory is founded on the idea that people have many interacting narratives that go into making up their sense of who they are, and that the issues they bring to therapy are not restricted to (or located) within the clients themselves, but rather are influenced and shaped by cultural discourses about identity and power. Narrative therapy centers around a rich engagement in re-storying a client's narrative by re-considering, re-appreciating, and re-authoring the client's preferred lives and relationships. In this book, Stephen Madigan presents and explores this versatile and useful approach, its theory, history, therapy process, primary change mechanisms, the empirical basis for its effectiveness, and recent developments that have refined the theory and expanded how it may be practiced. This essential primer, amply illustrated with case examples featuring diverse clients, is perfect for graduate students studying theories of therapy and counseling, as well as for seasoned practitioners interested in understanding how a narrative therapy approach has evolved and how it might be used in their practice.




Stories We've Heard, Stories We've Told


Book Description

If you ask someone the question, "Tell me a story that changed your life," there will almost certainly be a thoughtful pause before a huge grin emerges. Everyone's life has been guided and impacted by stories, beginning with the earliest fables and nursery rhymes our parents used to instill moral values to the last time you wanted to illustrate a point in a meeting or get a laugh out of a friend over dinner. Storytelling is a uniquely human activity, among our first and most enduring forms of communication. This is a book about the meaning of stories in people's lives, especially those that have produced enduring changes in their values, behavior, lifestyle, and worldview. Carefully documented and supported by research from the social sciences, as well as from neurobiology, the humanities, media studies, and arts, Jeffrey Kottler will explore how and why stories are so powerfully influential in people's lives, especially those that lead to major life transformations.




If Problems Talked


Book Description

In this unique book, noted family therapists Jeffrey L. Zimmerman and Victoria C. Dickerson explore how clients' problems are defined by personal and cultural narratives, and ways the therapist can assist clients in co-constructing and reauthoring narratives to fit their preferences. The authors share their therapeutic vision through a series of stories, fictionalized discussions, and minidramas, in which problems have a voice. Written in an engaging and personal style, the book challenges many dominant ideas in psychotherapy, inviting the reader to enter a world in which she or he can experience a radically different view of problems, people, and therapy. A wealth of stories told from the clients' point of view illustrate the creative ways they begin to deal with problems: Individuals escape them, couples take their relationships back from problems, kids dump their problems, and teenagers work with their parents to fight their problems. Training and supervision from the perspective of students are also discussed. As entertaining as it is informative, this book will be welcomed by family therapists both novice and experienced, from a range of orientations. Offering a creative and accessible approach to clinical work, it also serves as a supplementary text in courses on family and narrative therapy.




Innovations in Narrative Therapy: Connecting Practice, Training, and Research


Book Description

Presenting a compelling evidence base for narrative therapy. Narrative therapy introduces the idea that our lives are made up of multiple events that can be strung together in many possible stories. These stories can be developed to find richer (or "thicker") narratives, and thus release the hold of negative ("thin") narratives upon the client. Replete with case examples from clinical practice, this is the first book to present a compelling evidence base for narrative therapy, interweaving practice tips, training, and research. The book’s rigorous, research-based approach meets the increasing demand on therapists to demonstrate the effectiveness of their approach, critically reflecting on both process and outcomes, expanding on the concept of evidence-based practice.




Maps of Narrative Practice


Book Description

Michael White, one of the founders of narrative therapy, is back with his first major publication since the seminal Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends, which Norton published in 1990. Maps of Narrative Practice provides brand new practical and accessible accounts of the major areas of narrative practice that White has developed and taught over the years, so that readers may feel confident when utilizing this approach in their practices. The book covers each of the five main areas of narrative practice-re-authoring conversations, remembering conversations, scaffolding conversations, definitional ceremony, externalizing conversations, and rite of passage maps-to provide readers with an explanation of the practical implications, for therapeutic growth, of these conversations. The book is filled with transcripts and commentary, skills training exercises for the reader, and charts that outline the conversations in diagrammatic form. Readers both well-versed in narrative therapy as well as those new to its concepts, will find this fresh statement of purpose and practice essential to their clinical work.




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