This groundbreaking issue contains four diverse sections. The first focuses on innovative approaches to working with young people. The lead paper, by Julie Tilsen and David Nylund, ‘Popular culture texts and young people: Making meaning, honouring resistance, and becoming Harry Potter’ describes ways in which narrative therapy practices and an engagement with popular culture can work hand-in-hand.
The second paper, by Susannah Sheffer, explores how fiction-writing can assist young people to communicate experience after the death of a loved one.
The second section includes papers from Palestinian and Indian therapists. Dulwich Centre has a long history of partnership with therapists in the Middle East. Our team makes regular visits to this region to work closely with the Barcai Institute and Qesem Center in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and the Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (TRC) in Ramallah. Recent journal issues have featured the work of Israeli therapists Yael Gershoni, Saviona Cramer, Tali Gogol-Ostrowsky, Yishai Shalif ,and Rachel Paran.
This journal issue includes a paper by Palestinian therapist Nihaya Mahmud Abu-Rayyan, ‘Seasons of Life: Ex-detainees reclaiming their lives’. We believe this paper will be of significant assistance to those working with ex-detainees, or ex-prisoners in many different parts of the world. By publishing the papers of both Israeli and Palestinian colleagues, all of whom deplore violence against civilians, we hope to convey how therapists from both sides are seeking to stop the cycle of violence. There is something extremely significant to us about the ways in which Palestinian and Israeli therapists, out of experiences of profound conflict, terror and violence, are offering practitioners in different parts of the world new ways of responding to hardship.
Following Nihaya Mamud Abu-Rayyan’s paper, we are delighted to include the first paper we have ever published describing narrative therapy within India. Kalyani Vishwanatha describes the use of narrative approaches with a young girl.
Part three of this journal issue focuses on narrative explorations in clinical health psychology, featuring a paper from Rob Whittaker.
Finally, we have included two papers that involve talking about sex and sexual identity. Barbara Baumgartner’s ‘A multiplicity of desire: Polyamory & relationship counselling’ was offered as a keynote address at the 9th International Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference in Adelaide. Ash Rehn’s paper, ‘Is this sex addiction? Questioning “sex addiction” in therapeutic counselling conversations’ poses questions about the construction of sex addiction within psychotherapy.
This issue contains writings from authors from the USA, Canada, Palestine, UK and Australia. It is a diverse collection!
This edition aims to take some small steps towards creating new conversations about ways of working with people experiencing problems related to alcohol, other drugs and gambling. Through a series of articles, interviews and reviews, practical ideas for ways of working are offered and the broader social and historical context of the work is discussed. By focusing on the context and stories which shape people's lives, and by exploring alternative metaphors to those of 'addiction' and pathology, it is hoped creative ways of working with gambling and drug related... More info
This issue contains papers around a number of themes, first of all ‘Psychiatry and narrative ideas’. We’re pleased to include here the first of a series of papers by psychiatrist SuEllen Hamkins in which she explores the use of narrative practices within her psychiatric practice. This paper follows on from the formation of a group of psychiatrists who are interested in narrative ideas, which occurred in Oaxaca, Mexico at the 6th International Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference. The second paper in this issue, also by a psychiatrist, Nacho Maldonaldo,... More info
One of our key hopes for this journal is to enable practitioners in different contexts to learn about each other's explorations and to be inspired by them. Each issue consists of a range of practice-based papers detailing hopeful and creative applications of narrative ideas. This particular journal issue is no exception. It contains papers by authors from Zimbabwe, Australia, Hong Kong, the UK, USA and New Zealand. We are delighted to include here a lead paper by Ncazelo Ncube (Zimbabwe/South Africa) about creative and inspiring work with vulnerable children... More info
