Integrating Narrative Therapy and Mindfulness: Ideas & practices for rich therapeutic possibilities.  

With Ian Percy & David Paré

WORKSHOP HOURS:

Two Consecutive Fridays, on December 2nd and 9th, 4:00 pm to 7:30 pm, 2022 (CST – US Central Standard Time)

In this workshop, Ian Percy (Perth, Australia) and David Paré (Ottawa, Canada) offer ideas and practices for integrating narrative therapy and mindfulness. While the two traditions of practice differ in many respects, they also converge in ways that offer rich therapeutic possibilities. Narrative externalizing separates person and problem in much the same way as mindfulness encourages a witnessing stance in relation to lived experience. Narrative contributes insight into the relation between problems and rigid patterns of storying; mindfulness practice explores how this rigidity extends to our attention, which can be locked by problems in habitual unhelpful patterns. Spacious and kind attention in the present moment can be enhanced to support a relationally ethical orientation towards the self and others.

Concepts of attentional capture and attentional choice will be introduced. Attentional capture may compel persons to focus again and again on unhelpful or distressing sensations, physical movements, gestures, emotions, or storylines. In contrast, attentional choice is the ability to skilfully decide what to place attention on, and how, with the aim of increasing opportunities to live a more desired and beneficial life.

Brief and extended composite practice examples will demonstrate the weaving together of storied histories with present-moment embodied affects and emotions.

Learning objectives 

By the end of this workshop participants will:

• Understand the similarities and differences between narrative therapy and mindfulness traditions
• Be clearer about practices that bring forth multivoiced, multistoried and multibodied lives
• Appreciate the significance of turning from attentional capture to attentional choice
• Learn ways to address adverse somatic and storied experiences: befriending the unsettled and troubled body
• Learn ways to sustain desirable somatic and storied experiences: becoming familiar with the pleasant and beneficial body
• Understand how attending to the somatic coexistence of the problem and the beneficial can powerfully evoke a preferred sense of self
• Be clearer about the politics and ethics of mindful attention in narrative therapy

CEU’s

Certificate verifying 7 hours of participation completed will be awarded to each participant.

WORKSHOP HOURS:

Two Consecutive Fridays, on December 2nd and 9th, 4:00 pm to 7:30 pm, 2022 (CST – US Standard Daylight Time)

REGISTRATION FEE:

Early Bird Fee: $170.00 (Register by October 30^th, 2022).

Regular Fee $200.00

Student Fee: $115.00 (Must show proof of status with a student card if requested)

CANCELLATION:

Full refund minus $30.00 cancellation fee until October 30^th, 2022.

50% refund between October 30^th and December 1st, 2022

No refund  December 2nd and thereafter.

NOTE: Zoom log-in information will be provided to the email you registered with close to the workshop dates.

Bio  

Ian Percy is a family therapist, supervisor, trainer and published author in narrative and mindfulness approaches. He has specialized in teaching narrative therapy since 1997. Ian has also studied and practiced various forms of meditation, including mindfulness approaches, for four decades. His PhD thesis researched similarities and differences in approaches to therapeutic mindfulness in Australia and Bhutan.   

David Paré is a counselling psychologist whose has practiced narrative therapy for 25 years. He has written and presented widely on narrative practice. David is the author of The Practice of Collaborative Counselling and Psychotherapy (2012), and co-editor of Collaborative Practice in Psychology and Therapy (2004); Furthering Talk: Advances in the Discursive Therapies (2004); and Social Justice and Counselling (2018).