Diploma in Narrative Therapy

The Diploma in Narrative Therapy is a modular training programme, offering studentswho have completed Level 1 and Level 2 courses an intensive and rigorous training in advanced narrative practice.

The diploma consists of the five Level 3 modules PLUS an additional Practice Assessment Module. This modular format creates multiple contexts for skills practice and supports the development of thorough understandings of the orientations, ethics and practices of Narrative Therapy.

Students who wish to be awarded the Diploma in Narrative Therapy are required to complete all five Level 3 modules within a three year period and undertake an additional Practice Assessment Module.  The Practice Assessment Module must be completed within 4 months of the last taught Level 3 module the student has undertaken.

Diploma/Level 3 module dates 2011 - 2012

• Clinical practice intensive: June 13th – 17th 2011 (NOW FULL) and June 25th - 29th 2012

• Working with the effects of trauma: November 7th – 11th 2011

• Linking lives, working with groups and communities: January 16th – 20th 2012

• Working with children, young people and their families: May 14th – 18th 2012

• Using narrative in the process of supervision: September 10th – 14th 2012

• Social context, discourse and power: December 3rd – 7th, 2012
  

Structure

Each Level 3 module is 5 days long and offers a combination of didactic teaching and clinical practice related to the particular module topic. In addition to course attendance, students are required to complete set readings and a written project specific to each module.

Cost

Each module is £575 + VAT per participant, this does not include accommodation, travel or meals.

Diploma Practice Assessment Module

This module requires the submission of a video of therapeutic practice, a written transcript of a 20 min extract of this video, plus a written reflection of the student’s intentions and practice during this extract.

Students are also required to complete an extended written project (4500 – 6000 words) which demonstrates an understanding of the ideas, orientations, ethics and practices of Narrative Therapy.

Both the video submission and written project must be completed within 4 months of the last taught Level 3 module the student has undertaken.

A member of the Institute of Narrative Therapy’s teaching faculty will provide an individual hour long phone tutorial in response to the submitted video. Students will also receive a written evaluation of their extended project.

Cost

The Practice Assessment Module is £250 + VAT per participant

Award

Students who successfully complete this Practice Assessment Module, in addition to the five Level 3 modules, will be awarded the Diploma in Narrative Therapy and are eligible for Associate Membership of the Institute of Narrative Therapy.

Application forms

• Please click here to apply for Diploma in Narrative Therapy training

• Email us at info@theinstituteofnarrativetherapy.com for a fuller course description or any general enquiries.

Diploma/Level 3 module content

Clinical practice intensive module

Taught by: Mark Hayward and Amanda Redstone 
Date: June 13th – 17th 2011 (NOW FULL) and June 25th - 29th 2012
Venue: London

This is an intensive week of focused skills practice around a variety of themes and common clinical dilemmas, for example: what do you do when a young person doesn’t talk? Or when someone has been labelled “hard to engage”, “obstructive” or “defensive”? Or when you’re faced with an entrenched anorexic presentation? Or when someone doesn’t want to be there?

All participants are invited to bring a couple of real life dilemmas from their practice for the group to work with. Videotaped or DVD’d examples are particularly welcome. Additionally, there will be opportunities to be interviewed and experience an Outsider Witness Group. We will practice using different maps in interview scenarios, linking the maps together and charting conversations as we go. Interviews will be reviewed and learning points detailed.

This module will be hard work but the atmosphere is highly supportive. We are confident that participants will experience a clear advance in their narrative practice skills, and that these skills will be relevant to a variety of work and clinical contexts. This module includes:

• Practicing using different maps in a variety of clinical situations

• Using the scaffolding Distance meta-map to guide questioning sequences in live and role-played clinical interviews

• Using “Therapist Positioning” ideas to orientate ourselves in de-centred but influential ways when under pressure.

• Trying out a variety of practice strategies in demanding and challenging role-played clinical situations

• Opportunities to be interviewed about your work and to be at the centre of Outsider Witness Group reflections.

• Deconstructing interviews as they unfold to chart them on different practice maps

• Supporting the learning of others using different styles of feedback

• Reviewing videotape of clinical practice and participating in peer supervision

• Intensive focus on the micro-skills of practice – the language, the sequencing of questions and the moment by moment attunement to the interviewee’s experience.

Working with the effects of trauma module

Taught by: Rachel Morley and Hugh Fox
Date: November 7th – 11th 2011
Venue: London

There are many contexts within which people experience trauma.  This module explores how narrative ideas and practices are used both to help people find preferred identities that have been lost through trauma, and also how a narrative ethic might lead us to respond to the contexts of trauma.  Participants will be encouraged to bring issues and dilemmas from their own work experience for the group to work with.  This is a highly practical module which is mindful of the many dilemmas when working in this area. Topics covered include:

• Understanding the absent but implicit and it’s use in working with the effects of trauma

• Working with the effects of sexual abuse.

• Considerations when working with issues related to domestic violence

• Working with families when there has been a traumatic loss

• Working with refugees and asylum seekers

• Practices of accountability

• Use of the Tree of Life

• Developing nurturing teams

• Taking testimonies

Linking lives and working with groups and communities module

Taught by: Amanda Redstone and Hugh Fox
Date: January 16th – 20th 2012
Venue: London

This module focuses on different practices which link people together around the values they hold as important, and which can be used to address concerns shared by different communities or individuals. We will be exploring practices that address how to work with relationships where there has been a history of conflict. We will also be exploring practices that challenge conventionally held notions of working with the dying and bereaved. We will be making links between participants own agency contexts. This module is an energetic mix of ideas and skills practice and will include:

• Working with people around issues of loss and bereavement

• Working with couples in conflict

• Working with communities

• Working with groups

• How to work when you don’t have a therapy room?  

• Outsider witness practices

• Other practices of linking lives

Working with children, young people and their families module

Taught by: Sarah Walther, Hugh Fox and Mark Hayward
Date: May 14th – 18th 2012
Venue: London

This module focuses on the particular skills, practices, positions and dilemmas relevant to working therapeutically with under 18’s and their families and networks. We will focus on:

• Self harm and safeguarding issues

• Children’s special skills and knowledge

• The rise of child development theories and the discourses of expert knowledge in relation to children

• The effects of the discourses of good parenting and how they position parents and professionals

• Young people who a)have nothing to say or b) mostly respond with “I don’t know” or c) simply don’t want to be there

• Parents or carers who have different agendas from their children

• Anorexia and bulimia – and ways to respond, particularly using ideas from externalising practices and modern power

• The popularity of ADHD and ASD and ways to use narrative practice both with those who are in receipt of these diagnoses and also family members caught up in these discourses

• Working with whole families and connections with systemic, solution focused, internalised other and social constructionist approaches

This is a practice-rich module and participants are invited to bring dilemmas they have experienced as a basis for skills development. Together, Mark Hayward, Sarah Walther and Hugh Fox have forty years experience working narratively with this client group.

Using narrative in the process of supervision

Taught by: Amanda Redstone and Hugh Fox
Date: September 10th – 14th 2012
Venue: London

Details of this module will be posted shortly.

Social context, discourse and power module

Taught by: Amanda Redstone and Sarah Walther 
Date: December 3rd – 7th 2012
Venue: London

This module is an exploration of broader social contexts, how these influence all of us in the way we make sense of life and how narrative therapy brings these considerations into practice. These understandings will be explored in relation to a variety of working contexts and practice issues, including eating disorders. This module will include opportunities to learn about the most recent developments in narrative practice.  The module includes a consideration of:

• The theories of Foucault and modern power

• Different ways to bring considerations of power and discourse into conversations

• How to make the ‘shoulds’ of life’ visible

• How to respond when people are experiencing an overwhelming sense of personal failure as workers, parents, carers, partners etc: reviewing the Failure Conversations Map.

• How to have respectful conversations which invite an evaluation of the norms and ‘shoulds’ of living: the Context and Discourse Map

• Externalising practices which move beyond ‘technique’

• How to respond to complexity and avoid positioning people into impossible ‘for’ or ‘against’ positions

• Working with disorders of eating such as anorexia  

• How to work with ‘ambivalence’

• Recent developments in narrative practice: the theories of Gilles Deleuze, lines of flight and practices of possibility