TITLE: Panning for Gold: Sparkling moments and transport in narrative conversations with Jim Duvall, M.Ed., Co-Director and Editor, JST Institute
Friday, November 11, 2022 9:00AM, via ZOOM
DESCRIPTION: Narrative conversations can be developed to find richer (or "thicker") stories, and thus release the grasp that negative ("thin") stories have on people’s lives. As narrative conversations ensue, the gap widens between problem saturated, known and familiar stories, and stories of what is possible to know and do in the journey toward preferred territories of living. Some of these innovative ideas and practices were signposted, but not thoroughly explored by Michael White.
This workshop will revisit the familiar conversational maps of narrative practices and offer innovative concepts for new ones. Conversational maps help to break free from taken-for-granted, deficit-oriented conversations and instead, engage with versions of identity that center people’s values and intentions. Story structure, like rites of passage, provides temporal maps that detect change and movement over time.
The role of story and the human disposition for organizing experience in storied form is the raison d'être of our work. This pattern of inhabiting stories can be traced across cultural traditions and through generations of time. A map for envisioning storied therapy as a three-act play will be described and how it makes space to include people’s hopes and intentions for preferred ways of living. People are invited to inhabit their lives more fully as they reflect on pivotal (sparkling) moments of realization and reconnect with strongly held values. As numerous pivotal moments appear more visible in therapeutic conversations, they form chains of association or, an alternative story that counters the problem saturated story.
Clear presentation, digitally recorded examples, and experiential exercises will be used to create a rich and interactive narrative practice training experience. There will be a focus on skill building and clear and detailed ways of taking these ideas into your own practice wisdom.
OBJECTIVES: Participants will be introduced to:
- Practices for developing deconstructive listening and deconstructive questioning
- Practices for identifying and developing subordinate storylines,
- A decentered therapeutic posture and post-structural curiosity.
- A framework for conceptualizing story as a three-act play.
- A conversational partnership that creates space for sparkling pivotal moments.
Presenter Bio:
Jim Duvall is Co-Director of JST Institute and Owner and Editor of Journal of Systemic Therapies. He is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author who has facilitated hundreds of workshops, courses and has consulted with organizations internationally throughout Canada, US, Australia and Asia. He is committed to collaborative and narrative practices, emphasizing ways to create accessible, time-sensitive and ethical services for children, families, communities and organizations. He is known for his ability to engage people’s curiosity, inviting them to break away from taken-for-granted and constraining beliefs, toward an energizing reflective postmodern philosophy that opens up multiple possibilities. Jim is noted for his approachable and interactive teaching style and is a passionate critical thinker who promotes collaborative, postmodern and socially just practices.
Jim is the previous Director of Training and Education at Hincks-Dellcrest Institute and the former Director of Brief Therapy Training Centres –International (Toronto, ON). Jim is also the architect of Winds of Change conferences, which promote cutting edge postmodern and collaborative ideas, influencing social change and social policy. These “think tank” conferences invite the integration of therapeutic and socially just practices that acknowledge the effects of social context on people’s lives.
Jim has authored and co-authored numerous books, book chapters and articles. His book, (Duvall & Béres, 2011), Innovations in Narrative Therapy: Connecting Practice, Training and Research. WW Norton & Company is the first book to integrate training and research with narrative therapy, resulting in compelling practice-based evidence. Jim also co-authored a policy paper (Duvall, J., Young, K., Kays-Burden, A., 2012), No more, no less: Brief mental health services for children and youth. This project was an exposé of the Children’s Mental Health Service Delivery System in Ontario. As a result of the recommendations of this policy paper, Brief Competency-Oriented Services were mandated by the Ontario Government to be available to children and families in every community in Ontario. He also co-authored an edited book with Marie-Nathalie Beaudoin, entitled Collaborative Therapies and Neurobiology: Emerging Practices in Action. Rutledge/ Taylor-Francis, which was released in April 2017.
Other times, Jim can be found playing music or boating on the Gulf of Mexico with his friends, family and their dog, Banjo.
