Foundations of Contemporary Narrative Therapy: Part One

Foundations in Contemporary Narrative Therapy: Theoretical Foundations

Calgary Narrative Collective | Sunalta Community Centre

A foundations training like you have never seen before.

While described as a foundations training, this is not a repetition of narrative therapy foundations as they are often taught. It is intended for therapists at all levels of experience, including those who have practiced narrative therapy for many years. The training returns to foundational questions—not to rehearse established answers, but to reconsider how contemporary conditions, ethical commitments, and taken-for-granted practices shape what narrative therapy has become.

This two-and-a-half–day training opens with a keynote address by David Epston and serves as Part One of the Certificate Program in Contemporary Narrative Therapy offered by the Calgary Narrative Collective.

The certificate is completed by attending Part Two: Foundations in Contemporary Narrative Therapy – Advanced Applications, a follow-up training scheduled for Fall 2026 (dates to be announced).

Contemporary narrative therapy emerges in response to a cultural moment that favors psychological labels, simplified identities, and thin explanations of human life. In this context, people are increasingly shaped to understand themselves through categories, while therapeutic practices themselves are often reorganized around technique, efficiency, and self-management—including in ways that have, at times unintentionally, been taken up within narrative therapists themselves.

At the heart of contemporary narrative therapy is a renewed engagement with a foundational question:

Who is the person in narrative therapy?

Narrative therapy is widely known for the phrase “The person is not the problem; the problem is the problem.” Yet how we understand who the person is in narrative therapy fundamentally shapes how we listen, the questions we ask, the stories we help to develop, and the ethical stance we take in our work.

This training is devoted to engaging that question in depth—and to exploring how a clearer understanding of who the person is can profoundly transform therapeutic practice. Participants will be invited into sustained reflection on how this question reorients the therapist’s position, reshapes conversations, and opens richer possibilities for practice.

Rather than offering techniques or formulas, this training introduces contemporary narrative therapy as an ethical, relational, and story-centered practice grounded in rich story development. The emphasis is not on constructing “good” or positive identity stories, but on cultivating stories that are rich, complex, and ethically alive—stories that offer people greater say in how their lives go.

In this training, participants will be invited to:

• Engage deeply with the foundational question of who the person is in contemporary narrative therapy, and consider how this understanding reshapes therapeutic conversations and ethical positioning
• Examine how broader cultural and neoliberal ideas influence both how people make sense of their lives and how therapy is practiced
• Reflect on how certain narrative practices have, at times, been simplified or instrumentalized, and what becomes possible when practice is re-grounded in ethical and relational commitments
• Re-center rich story development as the heart of contemporary narrative therapy
• Be introduced to key developments in contemporary narrative therapy that foreground agency, moral positioning, and people’s capacity to influence the direction of their lives

Whether you are new to narrative therapy or experienced in its practice, Foundations in Contemporary Narrative Therapy: Theoretical Foundations offers a rigorous and humane entry point into contemporary narrative work—and establishes the conceptual and ethical grounding for Part Two: Advanced Applications.

Presenters

Sanni Paljakka & Tom Carlson

Fees

Professional – $600

Provisional – $450

Student – $300

Event Times:

Thursday, May 7th- 4:00 - 7:00pm 

Friday & Saturday, May 8-9- 10am to 5pm