2020: Issue 1 Archives - The Dulwich Centre

Some useful narrative therapy practices for responding to people seeking psychological assistance — Chris Dolman

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 03:07:14 +0000

This paper was originally delivered as a webcast presentation in mid-February 2020 for psychologists, counsellors and others in China who had volunteered their time and skills to a free WeChat service that was established to respond to medical staff and community members who were seeking psychosocial assistance due to the effects of the coronavirus. It explores various narrative practices including establishing collaboration, developing double storied testimonies, responding to expressions of distress, and taking-it-back practices.

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Walking in Sunshine: Collecting insider knowledge about detaching from depression — Sun Chao

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 03:00:10 +0000

In China, there is significant stigma associated with depression. This article describes the founding of a co-research group that resisted the stigma and isolation of depression and instead sought to identify and share insider knowledge and skills for gaining distance from depression. It describes the use of externalising conversations, re-authoring, documenting insider knowledges and therapeutic letters in the group, which met both in person and online.

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Narrative therapy, Buddhism, Taoism and Chinese medicine — Ming Li

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 02:55:22 +0000

Ming Li is a narrative practitioner in Beijing, China, with an interest in the resonances he sees between some narrative ideas and practices, and those of Buddhism, Taoism and other aspects of Chinese culture, history and medicine. In an interview with David Denborough, Ming draws on multiple domains of knowledge and experience to describe some of the congruencies and points of difference he has noticed, and to explain what draws him to using a narrative practice approach in his own context.

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Story variations: Resisting the cultural gaze — Sophie Shuang Cao

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 02:50:49 +0000

In contemporary China, concepts of individualism and collectivism have become entangled in ways that have established a complex array of norms and expectations that can make it difficult to escape a sense of personal failure. This paper describes how engaging with narrative practices of co-researching problems, making discourses visible and deindividualising collective experiences through definitional ceremony enabled two young Chinese men who were living with unwelcome effects of social expectations to reclaim their preferred sense of identity, develop alternative storylines of their lives and make important contributions to the lives of others.

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Games, activities and narrative practice: Enabling sparks to emerge in conversations with children and young people who have experienced hard times — Serge Nyirinkwaya

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 02:42:46 +0000

Drawing on narrative practices – re-authoring conversations, the absent but implicit and collective narrative practices – and on experiential learning models, this paper describes a playful practice to assist children and young people who have experienced hard times to respond to traumatic memories from a safe territory, without requiring them to speak in the first person about their experiences. Games and other activities are used to create a shared experience in which young people employ skills and values. These experiences are used as the basis for a cycle of experiential learning in which children reflect on their experiences and make links with their pasts and futures to support alternative story development and rich acknowledgment of what they give value to and their skills of living and being. In addition to seeking ways to avoid retraumatising, pathologising and stigmatising young people, this process has been developed to offer practitioners an easy to apply and locally resonant way of engaging with children and young people who have been through hard times. It uses local metaphors like making visible young people’s capacity to resist and endure (being mudaheranwa), inviting young people to stand together on Akarwa k’amahoro (Peace Island), and enabling mutual contribution through features of traditional Itorero schooling, including the use of stories of pride, songs and poetic mottos (ibyivugo).

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Child-centred play therapy and narrative therapy: Consilience and synthesis — Lani Castan

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 02:32:06 +0000

This paper explores some of the ways narrative therapy can be combined with child-centred play therapy when working with children, families and other relevant systems. It considers the ways in which these two, seemingly theoretically contradictory philosophies and approaches, has conciliant features. The author draws on her own therapeutic experiences to highlight how these two approaches can work well together, and hopes for a continued discussion and evolution of these ideas with those who work with children and families.

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Queer Invitations: Fostering connection between queer young people and their loved ones — Rosie Maeder

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 02:26:21 +0000

This paper demonstrates ways that queer theory can inform narrative practice, including through practices of invitation, deconstruction, questioning dominant discourses and mobilising nonbinary superpowers. The particular focus of the paper is on counselling conversations with queer and trans young people and their families. However, the paper argues that queer theory, with its critical practices that unsettle hegemonic assumptions and call into question the naturalness of taken-for-granted binaries, can fruitfully inform narrative practice in general. Specific examples of practice are included, such as inviting loved ones to join counselling conversations, using therapeutic letters to foster collaboration, guiding conversations about preferred names and pronouns, and responding to pathologising discourses including in relation to gender dysphoria.

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Narrative approaches in a domestic violence hotline — Ryo Lumsden

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 02:20:43 +0000

This paper explores how narrative approaches – externalising, unique-outcomes, re-membering and re-authoring conversations – have been used in work at a domestic violence hotline to assist clients in deconstructing dominant stories and getting in touch with their personal agency. Examples are drawn from experiences in Japan and highlight certain aspects of Japanese culture. However, the focus is on the applicability of narrative techniques to counselling in a single telephone conversation.

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