2019: Issue 2 Archives - The Dulwich Centre

Re-storying children’s nightmares and night terrors — Kelvin F. Mutter

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 05:08:43 +0000

Nightmares and night terrors are common childhood experiences. Through the use of first-person narrative and composite stories, this essay documents an emergent incorporation of narrative therapy practices in work with families seeking help for children experiencing nightmares and night terrors. Key transitions and innovations in clinical practice are identified. Reflections identify and discuss potential success factors and limitations regarding the outcomes of this practice. This paper concludes by identifying and reflecting on three novel outcomes that emerge from the paper.

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Responding to grief and loss using therapeutic documents — Karen Esakin Mittet

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 05:05:40 +0000

This article demonstrates some of the healing practices that narrative therapists have available to them when helping people who are grieving the death of someone they love. It emphasises the healing effects of therapeutic documentation and the significance of effective note taking when preparing therapeutic letters for individuals who have been bereaved.

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Narrative therapy approaches in single-session trauma work — Amelia Batrouney

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 05:01:45 +0000

This paper outlines opportunities to incorporate narrative approaches in single-session telephone counselling, with a particular focus on working with women who have experienced sexual violence. Practices described include externalising the problem, deconstruction, re-authoring, double listening, double-story development and re-membering conversations.

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She/he/they/ze/hir: Talking about pronouns and gendered language — Rosie Maeder, Tiffany Sostar and David Denborough

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 04:58:22 +0000

When participants arrive at a workshop at Dulwich Centre, they are invited to indicate their pronoun(s) on their name tag. As this practice is new to many people, this resource explains what it’s all about, why we care about this, and how readers can join in this collaborative project.

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Non-binary Superpowers! A collaborative conversation between non-binary youth in Adelaide, South Australia, and non-binary youth in Calgary, Alberta — Rosie Maeder and Tiffany Sostar

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 04:54:35 +0000

A common experience of folks who identify outside of binary gender is that of erasure, an experience of not being seen, fighting daily to ‘prove’ that our identities and experiences are ‘real’ and ‘valid’. In April and May of 2019, two small groups of Trans and Non-Binary (enby) young people and some of their loved ones came together on opposite sides of the world. Tiffany Sostar (they/them) and Rosie Maeder (she/her) hosted narrative conversations in Adelaide, Australia, and Calgary, Canada, and linked them through a collective document. This was the beginning of an ongoing trans-continental conversation exploring the skills, knowledges and experiences of Non-Binary young people and of the ways they are or hope to be seen and supported by loved ones. Tiffany and Rosie hoped to draw out rich, multi-storied accounts of Non-Binary experiences and to make visible the skills, knowledges and complicated superpowers required to resist rigid constructs of gender. They seek to further subvert Non-Binary invisibility by sharing these stories with other enby folks and anyone else who wants to learn more about Non-Binary experiences or identities ‒ including and especially Narrative Practitioners who work with Trans and Non-Binary young people.

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Moments to treasure: Narrative family therapy with trans children and cisgender parents — David Nylund

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 04:38:37 +0000

David Nylund’s primary work is at the Gender Health Center in Sacramento, California, with family members, caregivers, and parents of young trans and gender diverse folks. David works primarily with parents to invite them to come to a place of supporting and affirming their child’s gender identity. This interview explores the ways in which he engages in narrative family therapy in this context.

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‘Some of us have a body that we need to adjust in order for them to be a good place to live’: Belonging, resting places and gender talents — Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 04:33:12 +0000

Dr Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad is a Norwegian trans/bi-gendered doctor who has presented at many International Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conferences and whose work has been a significant influence for many narrative practitioners in relation to transgender experience and gender relations and identities more generally (see Benestad, 2016). For instance, Esben Esther’s concepts of gender belonging and gender talents have proved very helpful to practitioners. In this interview, Esben Esther introduces further concepts of ‘bodily adjustments’ and ‘resting places’ that can be significant in relation to gender belonging. The interview took place in Adelaide in March, 2019. Esben Esther can be contacted c/o esben.esther@uia.no

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Winter stories: Therapeutic conversations from the land of ice and snow — Julie Tilsen

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 04:25:44 +0000

People living in colder climates often diagnose themselves with ‘winter depression’ or ‘seasonal affective disorder’ when they experience sadness, low energy, fatigue and other difficulties that they attribute to the cold and dark days of winter. There are limitations to locating these problems only in bodily and medical discourses and ignoring the culture-bound ways these discourses are constructed and circulated through the kinds of stories we tell about winter. I use a narrative approach to these problems, inviting people to remember their childhood relationships with winter, and to situate their experiences in context, thus making new ways forward possible. When their childhood winter stories become available, people reconnect with a history that helps them construct preferred relationships with winter.

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Living like playing: Working with online gamers from a narrative therapy perspective — Mehmet Dinc

admin@dulwichcentre.com.au — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 04:03:03 +0000

Many young people and their parents experience ongoing conflict about online gaming. These conflicts can lead to shame, distance and decreased self-esteem for young people. This paper explores the use of co-research, re-authoring, therapeutic documents and other narrative practices for working with young people experiencing issues with and conflict about online gaming.

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