Village Hotel Katong
Course Meeting Dates
This ZOOM course is comprised of two segments: Segment 1 (Day 1 meeting 25 June 2020) & Segment 2 (Days 2-3 meeting 15-16 October). Segment 1 of the course may be completed before deciding to join Segment 2 of the course in October.
A Course Brief
The stories people tell themselves and others about traumatic events do affect how they live their present and future lives. While the actual events and their effects can be helpfully explored, a narrative approach also seeks to bring forth and richly describe people’s responses to traumas. Often these responses have been, and still may be, of value to the person. Typically, these response stories are undeveloped or completely invisible.
In bringing together therapeutic skills that focus on story, body, affect and power, this workshop will give participants many practical methods and conversational approaches to assist people in moving beyond trauma. Keeping this in mind, we will consider four therapeutic dimensions:
Storied:
• Identify and name resistance to trauma events: thoughts, feelings or actions taken that reduced the negative effects at the time and/or later
• Assist people in telling unsaid stories: noticing details, asking helpful questions, and bringing forth a valued sense of self in spite of the effects of trauma
Embodied:
• Befriending bodied distress and becoming familiar with beneficial bodied sensations
Affect:
• Using mindfulness for strong adverse emotions and attending to and increasing desirable emotions
Power:
• Identifying and unpacking the social contexts and relations of power in traumatic incidents
We will also think about how we might bring these constructive responses to trauma, the actual incident/s, and the effects of trauma, into a fuller storied life.
This practical and interactive workshop will explore the importance of asking different kinds of questions while creating a felt-sense of compassion. Participants will be introduced to a variety of ways of working with people including some mindfulness and somatic awareness skills as complementary to narrative question-asking. Brief and extended examples from participant’s clinical work will also help illustrate narrative approaches.