Therapeutic Conversations Conference 23
Sacramento, California
A World Class Narrative Therapy Affair
October 8th- 11th, 2025
TC 23 Conference Presenters
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
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’.
Makungu Akinyela PhD, LMFT
Makungu is a licensed marriage and family therapist practicing in Atlanta, Georgia and Associate Professor in the Africana Studies Department at Georgia State University. He created and developed an African Centred approach to narrative therapy called Testimony Therapy. As a scholar, activist, and therapist Makungu has been a committed Social Justice organizer for over forty-years focused on struggles for human rights and justice for Black people in the United States and the African diaspora. He is a Clinical Fellow of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT).
Rosa Arteaga, MA, RCC
Rosa is a long-time gender violence activist, Director of Clinical training and practice with a large anti-violence, all woman, non-profit organization in Vancouver, Canada. With over twenty years of gender violence and complex trauma experience Rosa works from a unique post-colonial, intersectional feminist, trauma-informed, narrative therapy framework. She is a well known clinical supervisor, trainer, community organizer, and consultant for local and international organizations and longtime VSNT faculty member.
Malakai Coté, PhD
Malakai (he/they/fam) is a licensed psychologist in Sacramento holding a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Oregon. As the Gender Health Centre’s executive director their approach is deeply rooted in African-centered and liberation psychologies, specializing in the unique needs of Queer, Same-Gender-Loving, Trans, Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color across all stages of life. His work includes providing culturally specific and LGBTQ+ liberatory mental health services, clinical supervision, and consultation for community-based organizations. He is also a seasoned facilitator and instructor, offering workshops on transgender healthcare and African-centered healing practices.
Christine Dennstedt, PhD, RCC/ACS
Christine lives in Whistler, BC and has been deeply engaged in the Vancouver narrative therapy community since completing her Master's degree in 2002. By 2010 she'd completed her PhD and a narrative therapy informed Doctoral dissertation that articulated the interconnection between substance misuse and disordered eating in the lives of young women. Christine's leads the international narrative therapy community through her current teaching and practice passion linking together narrative informed practices with Psychedelic Medicines and mental health. Christine is a longtime VSNT faculty member.
Todd Disney, PsyD
Todd is a deeply committed Narrative Psychologist living in northern California who has worked in the mental health field in various family therapy settings and more recently, a private practice working with couples through an narrative therapy informed Relational Interviewing framework (NIRI). He teaches and supervises students and new therapists and is a certified trainer tor the International Center for Clinical Excellence – through Feedback Informed Treatment (FIT). Todd is also a Board Member of the art activist group LifeonArt.org and views poetics as a powerful tool for personal activism through a concept of “Life as Lived Art".
Rachel Feldman
MA, LMFT
Rachel is a passionate scholar of Michel Foucault, whose ideas have been central to her narrative therapy 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.
Julia Gerlitz, MA, RCC
Julia lives in Nelson, BC, and holds an intense interest in developing new and creative therapeutic letter writing practices in responding to Trauma. These include creating communities of concern and care by inviting her clients to write letters to other 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 highly innovative letter writing frameworks and recruited Rock Nylund onto her team where they are developing and publishing new ideas and therapeutic letter writing practices.
Stephanie Disney, PsyD
Stephanie lives in Northern California, holds a PsyD and certificate in Ecopsychology, and considers herself a Narrative Ecopsychologist. A Narrative therapist for over 20 years she is interested in Earth inspired individual and collective story creation as living art and community building. This year she will host a book discussion series on the intersection of Ecopsychology and Narrative Therapy through philosophical, anthropological and design lens.
Charlie Hutchinson
ASW
Charlie Hutchinson (they/she) lives in Sacramento, and is a trans femme, nonbinary individual who started down the path of social work while navigating through institutional transphobia and barricades in obtaining access to gender-affirming care. Charlie is passionate about queer-informed narrative therapy and liberatory practices in mental health care, specializing in working with neurodivergent, gender-nonconforming, and non-monogamous community members, and committed to creating compassionate and culturally competent spaces for QTBIPOC individuals to thrive.
Helené Grau Kristensen, MA
Helene is a co-founder of Praksis: The Centre for Narrative Therapy in Denmark and longtime 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.
Ari Lozano, LMFT
Ari Lozano (they/them/elle) is a trans/nonbinary, queer, Chicanx, first-gen person living on unceded Nisenan territory. Ari is a practitioner of Curanderismo (traditional indigenous Mesoamerican practices), a certified grief doula, and a certified yoga teacher. They are a licensed marriage and family therapist, a clinical supervisor, and hold certifications in LGBT Human Services and Mental Health. Ari is the Director of Mental Health at the Gender Health Center, as well as a mental health provider in private practice.
Shannon MacIntosh
MSW, RSW
Shannon Macintosh MSW, RSW is a family therapist, member of the (infamous!) Calgary Family Therapy Centre, a clinical 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 July 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.
Todd May, PhD
Todd is the resident teaching philosopher and faculty member with the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy and has taught philosophy for over 25 years, (currently at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC). Todd is the author of eighteen books of philosophy, including Michel Foucault (2006) and Gilles Deleuze (2005), Friendship in the Age of Economics (2012), A Fragile Life (2017), Shall We Go Extinct (2024), and was consultant philosopher on the NBC series The Good Life. Todd continues to be highly active in a wide variety of grassroots political movements in immigration rights and anti-racism campaigns.
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Tamer Sa'id Mostafa, LCSW
Tamer is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker from Stockton, California with nearly 10 years of experience in disability rights, substance use recovery, community health, and LGBTQIA+ centered care. His work draws from Narrative therapy, which allows an examination of how these stories show up in the context of anxiety, stress, depression, and trauma. He is also a published poet and storyteller who embraced his own healing journey and redefined what it means to identify as an Arab-
American Muslim who believes in the power of self-expression
to confront the adversities that life throws our way.
David Nylund, PhD
David “Rock” Nylund, MSW, PhD has practiced narrative therapy for 30+ years, is a Professor of Social Work at California State University, Sacramento, narrative informed clinical training Director of the Gender Health Center, and long time faculty member of the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy. He is the author of over 50 published articles and books on Narrative Therapy as well as Cultural Studies, considered one of our narrative communities world class letter writers, and gives teaching workshops and supervision for mental health professionals across the globe.
Abby Walker, MA
Abby Walker lives in Sacramento, graduated from the University of San Francisco’s Counselling Masters program, completed her clinical training at the Gender Health Center and fell in love with narrative practice. In 2021 she joined the Sacramento Narrative Collective which grounded her practice and passion in community-based narrative approaches. From 2022 to 2025, she has facilitated community workshops at The Creation District for young adults facing homelessness, where she incorporated and prioritized community wisdom by creating a community oracle deck for healing with workshop attendees.
Tamara Wilson
MA, R. Psych
Tamara Wilson, MA, R.Psych., is a registered psychologist in Calgary, Alberta and currently practices as a full-time family therapist at Karl Tomm's 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.
Geoff Wren
LMFT, MA
Geoff Wrenn lives in Los Angeles, holds an LMFT, MA, and has practiced narrative therapy since first being introduced to the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy community 10 years ago. He was an adjunct professor of Anthropology, Sociology, History, Philosophy, Communication, Religious & Cultural studies before becoming a Counseling Professor at California State University, San Bernardino, and CSU Fullerton. He has a private practice where he utilizes therapeutic letter writing to create ways of accessing marginalized stories of experience.