Workshop: Solution Focused Narrative Therapy: A marriage of action and meaning

Linda Medcalf

This workshop will illustrate through experiential exercises, cases and lecture, how two postmodern models, solution focused therapy and narrative therapy, can complement each other. The workshop will show how the strength of the solution focused tenets, focused on a preferred future, solution talk and action oriented tasks, based on exceptions, can be added to elegant narrative questions, which derive meaning and value from clients in their quest for new chapter development. A main video with a depressed woman, will illustrate the approach from beginning to end, and will be shown in short segments to illustrate the approach of solution focused narrative therapy. Additionally, a short segment of an eleven-year-old will illustrate the blend of the miracle question with externalizing problems, enabling the young person to develop successfully, a preferred future for success. Handouts containing a very basic template will be provided alongside a PowerPoint that will serve to introduce and reinforce the new model.

Objectives:
Participants will be given basic constructs of solution focused therapy.
Participants will practice the ideas of solution focused therapy.
Participants will view and discuss a case using solution focused narrative therapy.