Foundations of Contemporary Narrative Therapy: Part Two

Foundations in Contemporary Narrative Therapy: Advanced Clinical Applications

Calgary Narrative Collective | Sunalta Community Centre – November 26–28

Due to high demand and a sold-out Part One in February, capacity for this training has been expanded. Early registration is encouraged.

While described as an advanced applications training, this is not a move into technique, nor a departure from foundations. Rather, it is an extension of them.

This two-and-a-half–day training opens with a keynote address by David Epston (joining from New Zealand via Zoom) and serves as Part Two of the Certificate Program in Contemporary Narrative Therapy.

While it follows Foundations in Contemporary Narrative Therapy: Theoretical Foundations, it has been intentionally designed to stand on its own as a meaningful and rigorous experience.

Those continuing from Part One will deepen the conceptual and ethical ground established there. Those joining for the first time will be welcomed through structured teaching that situates clinical practice within contemporary narrative therapy.

Participants may complete the certificate by attending both trainings in any order.

This training is intended for therapists at all levels who are seeking a more thoughtful, ethically grounded, and practice-oriented engagement with narrative therapy.

Contemporary narrative therapy does not begin with technique—it begins with a particular understanding of the person, relationship, and ethical responsibility.

In Part One, we asked:

Who is the person in narrative therapy?

In Part Two, we ask:

What becomes possible in practice when we take this question seriously?

This training is devoted to the clinical life of narrative therapy.

Rather than focusing on methods, it examines how therapeutic conversations are shaped by the therapist’s orientation to the person, to story, and to the effects of their actions.

Clinical work will be engaged through transcripts, live interviews, and therapeutic documents, including letters and poems that extend conversations beyond the session.

A Map of Client Authorship

This training does not offer a map of what the therapist should do.

Many approaches organize practice around therapist action or technique. These contributions are significant. At times, however, they leave less clearly articulated how authorship becomes available to the person themselves.

Here, we begin elsewhere.

We offer a map of client authorship—one that integrates practice and moral inquiry while focusing on how people participate in shaping their lives.

This map traces a movement:

• from global descriptions where authorship is suspended

• to experience-near accounts of what a person is up against

• to the emergence of their own actions and responses

• to an explicit engagement with values and moral positioning

• to deliberate, ethical authorship taken up on purpose

The task of therapy, then, is not to move through steps, but to participate in conversations that make authorship visible, ethically grounded, and available to be taken up on purpose.

In this training, participants will be invited to:

• Examine how their understanding of the person shapes clinical decisions

• Engage deeply with clinical material, including transcripts and live demonstrations

• Develop practices of listening that attend to complexity and unfolding storylines

• Work with therapeutic documents (letters and poems) to extend conversations

• Engage moral inquiry as it emerges within lived responses to life

• Reflect on their participation in shaping the stories people come to live by

Whether continuing from Part One or joining for the first time, this training offers a rigorous engagement with contemporary narrative practice—grounded in its ethical foundations while opening new clinical possibilities.

Presenters

Sanni Paljakka & Tom Carlson

Fees

Professional – $600

Provisional – $450

Student – $300

Event Times

Thursday, November 26 – 4:00–7:00pm

Friday & Saturday, November 27–28 – 10:00am–5:00pm

Certificate Pathway

Participants may complete the Certificate Program by attending Part One and Part Two in any order.