training

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INTENSIVE TRAINING COURSES

LEVEL 1:

Using recent developments from narrative therapy the Level 1 course will show you how to:

      1. Understand peoples actions from the stories of their lives
      2. Use this understanding to  clarify a sense of identity and develop problem solving skills that can turn lives around.
      3. By-pass those methods that simply don’t work - distinguish between techniques that waste time and techniques that open   up   more positive futures.
      4. Develop respectful ways of relating to clients that makes them the expert on their lives.
      5. Become an effective practitioner with the most chronic and complex problems that ordinarily induce despair - discern hope in    the most dire situations.
      6. Move past those ‘revolving-door’ situations so entirely new perspectives emerge.
      7. Provide powerful acknowledgement of people’s problems that can free them from burdensome consequences.
      8. Move conversations quickly from problem-saturated to problem-solving.
      9. Avoid dead-ends with a range of questions that can rescue conversational cul-de-sacs.
      10. Question taken for granted norms and integrate an ethical approach with brief practice.
      11. Find collaborative & respectful approaches that honour the skills, experience, knowledge and significant relationships of the people who come.
      12. Take account of the wider social, economic, cultural and political contexts of peoples lives

DAY 1 – How stories shape lives and re-storying can re-shape lives. A structure to guide your questions. Multiple ways to externalise problems. How to retrieve conversations from despair and instil hope. How to rewrite the past without erasing past experiences. How to spot nuggets of gold in conversations that lift the atmosphere. How to intrigue clients by using their own skills in surprising ways. How to make vague problems concrete and manageable.	DAY 2 – What to look for when a conversation seems negative or hopeless. How to turn small initiatives into substantive developments. A simple question structure that has profound effects on a person’s thinking. Questions that make small improvements much bigger.
DAY 3 – How Freud’s legacy has made it hard to think ‘outside the box’. Techniques for liberating your thinking from any one theory. How to use any piece of information to identify a person’s strong values. A simple sequence of four questions that keeps the conversation on track. Why counsellors and therapists end up giving advice that doesn’t work. The questions that avoid those “yes, but…” replies. How to write simple letters that have powerful therapeutic effects and get changes widely recognised.	DAY 4 – Understand Michel Foucault’s critique of cultural norms and how they affect all our lives. How to discern and appreciate the power of these norms without getting captured by them. How to use language to avoid applying norms to peoples lives. How to provide those moving and powerful acknowledgements of people that unstick them from repetitive processes. How to use imagery to evoke strong and positive feelings.
DAY 5 – How to use memories to support people in the present. How to bring figures from the past or mythical characters to life as co-therapists. The two domains of conversation that make up every new story – learn how to weave them together. Evaluation. How to have multiple possible questions in mind at any time.

LEVEL 2 INTENSIVE
·This course builds on the learning from Level 1 and progresses participants skills and knowledge to self-sustaining levels.
·Advanced level understandings and skills are taught.
·Learn concrete techniques for working with trauma, violence, supervision, personal failure and in-the-room conflict.
·Attention to the dilemmas of particular work situations make the learning relevant and sustainable.
·It will include the latest developments and techniques in narrative practice.

UK Intensives cost £525.00

DAY 1 –
How to spot ideas about learning that could slow your progress. Learn the different ways that values get expressed in conversation. Getting back up to speed with stories, maps and questions. Learn ways to chart therapeutic conversations that identify new areas for enquiry. Refining skills in using narrative maps to guide your questions. How to understand actions as initiatives and take them up into an enquiry.

DAY 2 –
Ways to respond when someone says “I don’t know”. Questions that consistently move conversations forward. How to understand conversations so that you’re never stuck for a question. How to chart conversations that reveal where and why they got stuck. Understand the eight areas for discussion that promote the most radical shifts. How to have multiple possible questions in mind at any time.

DAY 3 –
Learn how the practice maps fit together and how to develop dexterity in questioning skills. How the politics of gender and power can be exposed. How to take notes that add to the therapeutic influence. Expert knowledge, truth claims and how to address them. Trauma — why it happens, what it means and the most therapeutic ways to respond. Ways to support protest against injustice that empowers clients.

DAY 4 –
The implications of Vygotsky’s research for clinical practice. Three techniques for responding when clients get in conflict in the room. How to re-author a story without being in charge of it. How to give great supervision that empowers the supervisee. What to do when a person feels a failure. Learn how David Epston expands small exceptions into significant developments. Understand why Michael White’s painstaking approach yields such dramatic results.

DAY 5 –
How to recognise power practices and what to do about them. Questions that make children and adolescents want to engage with you. How burnout happens and the ways that Western culture contributes to it. How to develop an anti-burnout practice that is invigorating for you and will surprise your colleagues. Evaluation.

In 2010 we are also planning to run a post-graduate level course in narrative therapy for those seeking to practice at the highest level. This course will feature teaching blocks, reading and writing assignments, and a major focus on participants skill development. Prior attendance on a Level 1 Intensive is a requirement for application. Contact us for more details.

Mark Hayward has 25 years experience working with children, families and individuals. He works as Principal Family Therapist for the NHS in Plymouth, UK and has published widely in journals in UK, US and Australia. He is a UKCP registered psychotherapist and AFT registered supervisor.			Amanda Redstone works as a counsellor and family therapist in Primary Care in Devon and has been studying the Narrative approach for the past 11 years. She has been teaching narrative courses since 2000 and offers supervision in London and in the South West of England
Sarah Walther works with children, young people and families in Manchester and is connected with the Centre for Narrative Practice. She has an interest in exploring creative ways in which different communities can share knowledges and thicken each other’s preferred stories.			Keith Oulton trained as a psychologist and family therapist and has been interested in narrative practices for a number of years. He completed the international training program run by the Dulwich Centre in 2003 and since then has been supervising and training people in narrative practices in venues throughout Ireland.

Print and mail the registration form, below, with a cheque, payable to "Narrative Training", and post to Mark Hayward, Little Clicker, Horningtops, LISKEARD PL14 3QA, UK.

5-day Intensives @ Level 1 In London, Dublin Birmingham, Belfast, 5-day Intensives @ Level 2 In London