Therapeutic Conversations 23 : LIVE
October 8-11, 2025
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
(more details for 2025 conference coming soon!)
When the World Walks Into the Therapy Room
(The politics of identity and practice)
Confirmed Keynote & Workshop Presenters (so far)
Rosa Arteaga (Mexico/Canada), Christine Dennstedt (Canada),
Rachel Feldman (USA), Julia Gerlitz (Canada), Helene Grau Kristensen (Denmark), Stephen Madigan (Canada), David Marsten (USA), Todd May (USA),
David Rock Nylund (USA),
All Presenter workshops are demonstrated through Live Interviewing & Therapy Session Videos
More information coming March 15th
Conference Dates: October 8-11, 2025
Seating is limited
Conference Location: Holiday Inn Sacramento.
Room night discounts. $179/per night.
Registration Coming Before March 15th
3 & 4 Day Conference Pass: $
3 & 4 Day for Students + Canadian citizens: $
3& 4 Day Group/Agency Rates
Questions? Please contact Sasha Hawkins at:
training@vancouverschoolfornarrativetherapy.com
**Student ID and proof of Canadian citizenship need to be shown at registration check-in.
**Due to conference space and size limitations ~ there are no refunds. Thanks.
Loads (and loads) of great social events
Meet Last Years
Conference Presenters:
Rosa Arteaga, MA, RCC
Rosa is the long-time Clinical Director of clinical practice with a large anti-violence, all woman, non-profit organization in Vancouver. With over twenty years of gender violence experience Rosa works from a unique post-colonial, intersectional feminist, trauma-informed, narrative therapy framework. She is a well known clinical supervisor, trainer, and consultant for local and international organizations and VSNT faculty member.
Christine Dennstedt, PhD, RCC
Christine is a VSNT faculty member who has been deeply engaged in the narrative therapy Vancouver narrative community since completing her Master's degree in 2002. By 2010 she'd completed her PhD and a narrative therapy informed Doctoral dissertation articulated the interconnection between substance misuse and disordered eating in the lives of young women. Christine's latest teaching and practice interest is linking together narrative informed practices with psychedelic medicines and mental health.
Jan Ewing, PhD
Jan is the founder and co-director of Narrative Initiatives San Diego (NISD) a Narrative training center and clinic and serves as faculty at San Diego State University introducing MFT students to Narrative Therapy. Jan also works with a multi-generational community to practice and extend Narrative principles through mentoring, teaching, supervising, and research. She is a co-author of ‘Narrative Neurotherapy: Scaffolding Identity States’.
Julia Gerlitz, MA, RCC
Julia holds an intense interest in developing new and creative therapeutic letter writing practices in responding to trauma that include inviting clients to write letters to clients, using co-created narrative documents in place of group therapy, and the use of letters in supervision. Julia has published several articles on these innovative frameworks of letter writing and has currently recruited Rock Nylund onto her developing and publishing new ideas and therapeutic letter writing practices team.
Helene Grau Kristensen, MA
Helene is a co-founder of Praksis: The Centre for Narrative Therapy in Denmark and VSNT faculty member. She was originally supervised and trained for many years by Michael White, presents workshops internationally, and teaches narrative therapy courses at the University of Copanhagen. Helene publishes on the issues of Grief, Death, Loss and Hope and her therapy practice specializes in working with parents who have experienced the death of a child. Helene is also a regular interview guest on VSNT.live.
Sharon Leung, PhD
Sharon Leung PhD is a highly respected narrative practitioner, teacher, supervisor, and researcher in Hong Kong and London, UK. Until August 2020, she was the Director of the Centre for Youth Research and Practice at Hong Kong Baptist University, where she was a lead organizer of narrative practice trainings and workshops. Sharon has also worked closely with a large number of NGOs to indigenize narrative practice in the Chinese community.
Shannon Macintosh, MSW, RSW
Shannon Macintosh MSW, RSW is a family therapist, member of the (infamous!) Calgary Family Therapy Centre, and a supervisor at Woods Homes in Calgary, Alberta and sessional instructor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary. Shannon is devoted to strengthening relationships, building resiliency, and applying advocacy, collaboration, and creativity in her systemic work. She enjoys using metaphors, expressive arts, and experiential learning to bring forth relational healing.
Stephen Madigan, PhD, RCC/ACS
Stephen is an award winning Couple and Family therapist and best selling author of the books Narrative Therapy in 2011 and 2019 (3rd Edition out March 2025). He wrote the first doctoral dissertation on narrative therapy, is the Director of the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy, content manager for narrative's largest online interactive learning site VSNT.live, and longstanding consultant supervisor to international High Conflict Couple Therapy Teams. Stephen enjoys teaching, consulting, and supervising ~ across 5 continents.
David Marsten, MA
David is the Clinical Director of Miracle Mile Community Practice in Los Angeles, California and has practiced narrative therapy and supervised Graduate students for 30 years. He is the co-author of the highly praised book: Narrative Therapy in Wonderland: Connecting with Children’s Imaginative Know-how, and longtime faculty member with the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy. David teaches narrative therapy workshops internationally through session videos, unaltered transcripts, and live interview demonstrations.
Rachel Feldman, MA, LMFT
Rachel is a passionate scholar of Michel Foucault, whose ideas have been central to her narrative informed practice. Based in Los Angeles, her private practice focuses on supporting clients who identify as polyamorous, non-monogamous, kinky, queer, trans, anti-capitalist, and those who exist on the fringes of normative society. Her ambition is to empower clients by facilitating access to the local ’knowledges’ that shape their ethics and values, promoting subversive action that may affect change to the conditions that have allowed for less access to power in people’s lives.
David Nylund, PhD
David “Rock” Nylund, MSW, PhD is a Professor of Social Work at California State University, Sacramento, the Clinical Director of the Gender Health Center, and a faculty member of the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy. He is the author of over 50 articles and books on Narrative Therapy and Cultural Studies and gives workshops and supervision for mental health professionals worldwide.
Karl Tomm, MD
Karl Tomm is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Calgary where he founded the Family Therapy Program and directed the Calgary Family Therapy Centre for 50 years. He is interested in systems theory, narrative theory, social constructionism, and his original ideas on bringforthism. He focuses on interpersonal patterns of interaction and is internationally know as a transformative thinker in developing key understandings about different kinds of therapeutic questions.
Jennifer White, EdD
Jennifer White is a Professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria. She is interested in publishing and teaching on leading edge discourses about youth suicide prevention. Through critically informed, relational approaches to inquiry, she seeks to explore alternatives to the standardized, expert-driven, one-size-fits-all, risk factor-based approach to youth suicide prevention.
Tamara Wilson, MSW
Tamara Wilson, MA, R.Psych., is a registered psychologist in Calgary, Alberta and currently practices as a full-time family therapist at the Calgary Family Therapy Centre, where she also provides clinical supervision and training. Tamara has a passion for Social Constructionism, Systemic Therapy, Nonviolent Resistance, and Narrative therapy. She is particularly interested in socio-cultural discourses related to parenthood, race, ethnicity, gender and the ways in which they implicitly become entangled with families and their relationships.
Angel Yuen, MSW
Angel Yuen MSW is a veteran narrative therapist, supervisor, teacher and consultant. She is one of the co-founders of the Narrative Therapy Centre in Toronto and is in alternative-private practice in the Greater Toronto Area. She is the author of the important 2019 book ’Pathways Beyond Despair: Re-authoring lives of young people through narrative therapy’.
EXAMPLE of Last Years (2024)
TC 22 Conference Daily Schedule
Daily Schedule: November 7-9th, 2024
(Registration 7:15am - 8:00am)
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
8:00am - 8:45am
MORNING TRAINING WORKSHOPS
9:15am – 11:45am
Lunch 11:45am – 1:15pm
AFTERNOON TRAINING WORKSHOPS
1:15pm – 4:00pm
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
4:15pm - 5:00pm
Day One
First Nation Welcome to the Land.
Conference welcome with Stephen Madigan.
MORNING TRAINING WORKSHOP A
9:15am – 11:45am
Internalized Other Interviewing +
Live Couple Therapy Demonstration Interview
Karl Tomm (Canada)
In this workshop Karl outlines a complex and multi-layered therapeutic interviewing framework. It begins when therapists come to view the psychological ‘self’ as constituted by an internalized community. When this theoretical step is taken it becomes coherent to interview any member of that community within the self of the client couple. In so doing, a therapist potentially has access to a significantly wider range of possible therapeutic interventions to enable change. An in person live couple therapy interview is demonstrated.
MORNING TRAINING WORKSHOP B
9:15am – 11:45am
Queer Informed Narrative Therapy with Trans Youth and Families
Rock demonstrates his newly created narrative therapy informed 5-step relational approach to working with trans youth, their families and the communities they live in. The therapeutic process brings together both Wonderfulness interviewing and Internalized Other interviewing as the creative means to move through the relational complexities between the youth, parents and the community. His unique family therapy framework was designed to bring forth parental/caregiver affirmation and ongoing community support of trans youth.
MORNING TRAINING WORKSHOP C
9:15am – 11:45am
Narrative 101: Public conversations on everyday narrative practice
Christine Dennstedt (Canada)
David Marsten (USA)
Within this interactive workshop skills based environment, two veteran narrative therapists share their personal learning experiences and ~ encourage participants to collectively decide what narrative therapy practice ideas and practices they would most like to discuss. Topics may include: surviving in non-narrative therapy environments, developing narrative therapy questions, how to begin interviews, session notes, reauthoring lives and relationships, case consultations and supervision.
LUNCH: 11:45-1:15
AFTERNOON TRAINING WORKSHOP A
1:15 pm – 4:00 pm
Couple Therapy: Narrative Therapy Informed Relational interviewing (NIRI)
Stephen Madigan (Canada)
Working with highly conflicted couple relationships is challenging when conflict helps couple relationships remember to forget the full story and history of their foundational values (respect, caring, kindness etc.). Stephen shows numerous step-by-step NIRI videos that act to dramatically reduce session conflict through remembering relational values; creating relational compassion and care by contextualizing relationship conflict within cultural and socio-economic norms and expectations and, his unique relational style of interviewing and questioning the couple relationship - directly.
AFTERNOON TRAINING WORKSHOP B
1:15 pm – 4:00 pm
Responding to Trauma Through Narrative Writing Practices
Julia Gerlitz (Canada)
Sometimes what’s happened to people is unspeakable and deemed not safe enough to say aloud in a group. With diagnoses of PTSD on the rise, viewing trauma through a structuralist/medicalized lens can create problem-saturated identities, which keep people silent and disconnected. Julia responds to these challenges by building communities of concern through the use of therapeutic letters and co-created narrative documents in place of traditional group therapy.
AFTERNOON TRAINING WORKSHOP C
1:15 pm – 4:00 pm
Reimagining Identity: From 'Self-
Discovery’ to Subversive Action
Rachel Feldman MA (USA)
Through a blend of theoretical insights, practical exercises, live video sessions and client transcripts, Rachel demonstrates her work supporting clients who identify as polyamorous, non-monogamous, kinky, queer, trans, anti-capitalist, and those who exist on the fringes of normative society. The narrative informed workshop invites participants to reimagine the possibilities for therapeutic dialogue and action in the context of identity by fostering a more liberated and imaginative approach to personal and collective growth.
Day One
AFTERNOON PLENARY
Angel Yuen (Canada)
Rescuing the said from the saying of it: Narrative documentation and reclaiming lives from the effects
of childhood sexual abuse
This plenary is dedicated to all who have been subjected to childhood sexual abuse. Many who have suffered several years and some even decades, in silence and secrecy. Special thanks and acknowledgement to Kathy, Mark and Thamini for allowing their stories and ‘rescued’ words, phrases and poems to be shared in hopes of helping others.
Please join us for complimentary Beer & Wine following the keynote
Day Two
MORNING PLENARY
Karl Tomm (Canada)
An Invitation to Bringforthist Therapy
Bringforthist therapy is a version of systemic therapy that has been inspired by Humberto Maturana’s theory of knowledge (which is grounded in both biology and culture). The basic phenomenon of ‘loving interaction’ is regarded as foundational and serves as a major guide in the therapeutic process.
MORNING TRAINING WORKSHOP A
9:15am – 11:45am
Including Physiology in Narrative Conversations: Supporting Preferred Identity States
Jan Ewing (USA)
Narrative informed work is often concerned with supporting person’s changing identities. This workshop will explore how including client’s physiology in our Narrative conversations can support sustained change from one experience of identity to another. Using a concept of “Identity States” an intentional set of practices are proposed whereby we notice, include, name, thicken and depend on physiology to guide and support change.
MORNING TRAINING WORKSHOP B
9:15am – 11:45am
Narrative Approaches to Sexualized Violence
Angel Yuen (Canada)
Narrative Therapy approaches assist people in reclaiming their lives from the effects of sexualized violence and suggest that there is always another story. These are often subordinated stories of responses, skills in living, and resistance. What might seem an ever-so-small form of resistance to sexualized violence may not only be significant, but also can elevate personal agency.
MORNING TRAINING WORKSHOP C
9:15am – 11:45am
Understanding Family Stories through the Lens of the ‘IPscope’
Tamara Wilson (Canada)
Shannon McIntosh (Canada)
The workshop demonstrates our systemic and narrative work with families through the lens of the ‘IPscope’ framework practice (IP signifying Interpersonal Patterns). Presenters reveal how they de-centre the problem from the person from an interpersonal lens, and move their practice process towards deliberately looking and listening for the ways in which larger socio-cultural influences are showing up in our therapeutic work with families.
LUNCH: 11:45-1:15
AFTERNOON TRAINING WORKSHOP A
1:15 pm – 4:00 pm
Therapeutic Letter Writing + Live Counter-Story Demonstration Interview
David Rock Nylund (USA)
Rock's practice-based-hands-on workshop explores the historical roots, writing frameworks, therapeutic values, and practices of therapeutic letter writing. As one of narratives world class letter writers he will also conduct a Live counter-story interview demonstration. Participants are then invited to craft a therapeutic letter in response to the interview they have just witnessed.
AFTERNOON TRAINING WORKSHOP B
1:15 pm - 4:00 pm
A Narrative Approach to Gender-Based Violence: Live Clinical Supervision.
Rosa Arteaga (Mexico/Canada)
Rosa invites a team of women counsellors from diverse backgrounds to the workshop whose work involves counselling and supporting survivors of gender-based violence in their work. She demonstrates a live supervision with these workers, while also inviting a response team to respond back to the counselling team being supervised. The workshop is a beautifully designed live supervision demonstration where the audience is engaged to participate.
AFTERNOON TRAINING WORKSHOP C
1:15 pm – 4:00 pm
Narrative Family Therapy: Working with Children and Families.
David Marsten (USA)
The workshop highlights the lost art of narrative therapy informed work with children in the context of family therapy. David demonstrates his co-creation of 'wonderfulness interviewing' alongside a rich variety of key narrative therapy questions and practice skills. He guides participants inside the theory and practice of his creative narrative interviewing structure through slides, exercises, and family therapy videos.
Day Two
AFTERNOON PLENARY
Helene Grau Kristensen (Denmark)
Reclaiming our Grief, Reclaiming our Loved Ones
Michael White's paper Reclaiming our stories, reclaiming our lives demonstrates how narrative ideas are applied outside the limited context of the therapy room and - transported directly into the communities that form people’s lives. In this keynote Helene will expand on the possibilities for narrative therapy informed community work related to grief.
Day Three
MORNING PLENARY
Jennifer White (Canada)
Sustaining Our Collective Co-existence: Exploring Communal, Creative and Political
Responses to Suicidality
Suicidal thoughts and behaviours are inescapably social and relational phenomena. By recognizing our deep inter-dependence and co-existence with all living things, expressions of suicidality can be a provocation to mutually consider other possible worlds and futures, leading to more communal, creative and political forms of engagement that are aimed at sustaining our collective life.
MORNING TRAINING WORKSHOP A
9:15am – 11:45am
Relational Loss and Grief: Letting people no longer breathing guide the living
Helene Grau Kristensen (Denmark)
Helene has clearly upended traditional grief psychology. Her narrative informed relational practices situates the person no longer breathing as primary guide in navigating the complexities of grief. By remembering and retelling stories about the deceased the relationship with the dead person is rendered visible to what they give value to, and ~ how those values can help those left behind. The workshop demonstrates these narrative informed practices through case transcript examples.
MORNING TRAINING WORKSHOP B
9:15am – 11:45am
New Narratives: Darkening landscapes and rich story development
David Marsten (USA)
David's workshop outlines that unless the circumstances people find themselves in are demanding and even impossible there is no call for ethical consideration or origination. There is no need for a protagonist. There is no story. This new ideas skills of practice workshop considers how darkening the landscape in narrative therapy informed interviewing contributes to rich story development, re-authoring thin identity conclusions, and shores up a person’s sense of dignity and agency.
MORNING TRAINING WORKSHOP C
9:15am – 11:45am
Questions about Narrative Questions
Live counter-story demonstrations
Stephen Madigan (Canada)
David Nylund (USA)
This interactive Live-interview supervision workshop is designed to create more meaningful therapeutic questions through understanding the purpose, direction, politic, intention, context, history, and relational meaning of narrative therapy questions. Participants engage with presenters live counter-story interviewing, close up supervision, discussion, and focused support of their questions and therapeutic letter writing.
LUNCH: 11:45-1:15
AFTERNOON TRAINING WORKSHOP A
1:15 pm – 4:00 pm
Writing Letters of Consultation Directly to a Couple's Relationship
Stephen Madigan (Canada) + guests
Stephen outlines the post-structural relational framework of ideas, therapeutic questions he asks, and letters of consultation he writes - directly to the relationship itself. Numerous session tapes are shown of couples remembering, reauthoring, reading, and responding to their letters written to the couple from the relationships perspective.
AFTERNOON TRAINING WORKSHOP B
1:15 pm – 4:00 pm
Narrative Therapy and Psychedelic Medicines
Christine Dennstedt (Canada)
The workshop highlights Christine's work with psychedelics and narrative therapy. She demonstrates how the two practice frameworks work together as a way to externalize problems and thicken preferred stories in a person's life. This innovative workshop walks participants through the process of preparation, the psychedelic-assisted therapy session and integration, and shows the use of a narrative therapy framework and questions used in each of the three phases of the work.
AFTERNOON TRAINING WORKSHOP C
1:15 pm – 4:00 pm
Narrative Practice with Socially Disengaged youth: Stories about perseverance and finding one’s voice
Sharon Leung (Hong Kong/UK)
In achievement-oriented cultures, many young people are considered to be failures because they refuse social engagement or have interests other than academic success. Narrative practice combined with canine companionship can help young people to reconnect with their preferred identity, which helps them persevere in the face of difficulties. This workshop explores how this can be done, drawing on the presenter’s experience in Hong Kong.
Day Three
AFTERNOON PLENARY
Rosa Arteaga (Canada/Mexico)
Conversations about Trauma and Violence: Re-establishing Relationships with the Body through Re-writing Agreements with Survival Strategies
What do we do as narrative therapists when we witness our consultants' past intruding their present lives while it holds them back from being the person they desire to become? Rosa’s plenary shares a narrative therapy informed approach that supports our consultants to investigate how the past impacts of violence, trauma, and abuse in their present and the possibilities on how to re-negotiate with their survival strategies.
The Gunnar Martinsen Scholarship
VSNT faculty lost their very close friend and narrative colleague Gunnar Martinsen of Bergen Norway who died on July 1st, 2022. To celebrate and remember his wonderfully full-hearted and passionate spirit, we are happy to offer five scholarships to our November 7-9, 2024 conference. (all scholarships claimed for this year)
