You must complete the course and quiz by 31 December 2024
About this course:
I will be introducing you to Narrative Therapy which falls under the social constructionist/postmodern approach to theory and practice. This is a critically alternative therapeutic model to the mainstream. The approach emphasizes that knowledge, meaning, and identity are constructed through interaction with others. The central points are:
- that people make meaning of their lives by organising their experiences into stories
- these personal stories that guide their beliefs and practices are historically and cultural situated
- experience of life is multi-storied and there are always feelings and lived experience not fully encompassed by the problem story.
- these contradictions, exceptions, unique outcomes, open up the possibilities to reauthor our stories we tell.
- the therapist sees clients as experts in their own lives and see themselves as experts in certain kinds of conversational processes
- therapeutic process is not seen as a cure or treatment, but as a conversation in which meanings and alternatives are co-constructed by the therapist and client and as they engage in a process of shared inquiry
Practices and skills related to this will be demonstrated through my work with communities in the rural Transkei .I will be showing real video footage which demonstrates Narrative and Collaborative practices.
I hope that this course will encourage you to reconsider many of the traditional premises about problems (diagnosis) and the therapeutic relationship.
