Dharma Bum

Relational Parenting

The outstanding Family Process Journal is experimenting with youtube videos that describe several articles that can be found in the latest issue, for free! It just so happens that in this issue of Family Process, Pepperdine's own Dr. Amy Tuttle has an article titled Parenting as Relationship: A Framework for Assessment and Practice, co-authored with Carmen Knudson-Martin and Lana Kim. Please take a look at Dr. Tuttle's article and video, and be sure to browse the other free articles available which include an article by Harlene Anderson and an article on narrative therapy training which I will post on this blog shortly. Enjoy:

"Love doesnt make you want to drink.." - Sarah

In college, I used to underline sentences that struck me, that made me look up from the page. They were not necessarily the same sentences the professors pointed out, which would turn up for further explication on an exam. I noted them for their clarity, their rhythm, their beauty and their enchantment. For surely it is a magical thing for a handful of words, artfully arranged, to stop time. To conjure a place, a person, a situation, in all its specificity and dimensions. To affect us and alter us, as profoundly as real people and things do. - Jhumpa Lahiri, My Life’s Sentences

I think I will paint this weekend..

 

[No Title]

Sent from my iPhone

Poetry Reading With Luisa Pena & Chris Davidson at the Huntington Beach Art Center

Please join us as the Huntington Beach Art Center hosts another poetry reading as part of the Late8 schedule. On Thursday March 22nd starting at 6:30 two outstanding poets, Luisa Pena and Chris Davidson will be reading. About the poets:

Luisa Peña is a second year MFA student in poetry at CSU Long Beach. Her poetry has appeared in multiple volumes of Spot Literary Magazine, and her obsessions include, but are not limited to, Borges, Early Medieval Britain, and David Foster Wallace. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her non-romantic life partner and three horrible cats.

Chris Davidson received his B.A. in English from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and his M.F.A. from the University of California at Irvine. He directs the Biola composition program and the writing center, and he teaches courses in poetry writing and composition. His poetry has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Caesura, Cimarron Review, CRATE, Dust Up, Orange Coast Review, and other journals. He is currently working on a manuscript of poems, title TK.

Please join us this Thursday!

The Narrative Project's Spring Consultation Group

Well the Project kicked off another narrative therapy consultation group facilitated by Anne Arnold. It was great to be back in community learning, sharing, and having fun as we moved through narrative theory and practice. If you're interested in participating in a future group just shoot me a message. Some pics from today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real

Roshi [his Zen Buddhist teacher] said something nice to me one time. He said that the older you get, the lonelier you become, and the deeper the love you need. Which means that this hero that you’re trying to maintain as the central figure in the drama of your life— this hero is not enjoying the life of a hero. You’re exerting a tremendous maintenance to keep this heroic stance available to you, and the hero is suffering defeat after defeat. And they’re not heroic defeats; they’re ignoble defeats. Finally, one day you say, ‘Let him die— I can’t invest any more in this heroic position.’ From there, you just live your life as if it’s real— as if you have to make decisions even though you have absolutely no guarantee of any of the consequences of your decisions. -Leonard Cohen

Johnella Bird - Reflections In Therapeutic Conversations

Attached is a nice video of Johnella Bird describing her use of reflections in therapeutic conversations with people, couples and families she is working with. Like Johnella I've found taking time for reflections quite helpful in finding out if those I'm working with believe we are moving in a useful direction. In this video Johnella proposes that most clinicians are trained with the idea that we are to do information gathering in an effort to "know" and then act on that idea. Johnella uses relational expressions to create reflections that counter this idea of having to know, and rather as a tool of discovery with people who consult with her. She describes using reflections more regularly as having several positive effects on therapeutic conversations including:

1. Slowing the process down, and allowing considerations for how the contextual environment may be effecting couples or families.

2. Making sense of the work. Are we moving in a useful direction?

3. Provides the opportunity to "experience" the reflections, and allows people access to alternative descriptions.

4. And finally, reflections allows the counselor and those she's working with an opportunity to establish a new narrative platform.

All of this in an effort not just to discover new resources, but actually make new resources in the present moment. Movement. This video has inspired me to use reflections more often in my sessions for all the reasons above. Enjoy the video:

I asked the river
About its destination
And came out lucky:
It babbled about nothing
And never came to a point
- Gyosen

"At Ryoan-ji in Kyoto there is a famous rock garden; wherever in it a person stands, one of the fifteen rocks cannot be seen. The garden reminds that always something unknowable is present, just beyond what can be perceived or comprehended - and that something is as much part of the real as any other stone amid the raked gravel."
- Jane Hirshfield

Narrative & Pizza: Michael White & Trauma

The next event in the Narrative and Pizza series hosted by John Winslade & Lorraine Hedtke at CSU San Bernardino will feature Michael White speaking on video about narrative practice at the International Trauma Studies Program in 2007. The group will be watching the video and will stop it repeatedly to discuss the ideas presented by Michael White. See the attached flyer for more details.

This event will take place in CE120 in the College of Education at CSUSB on Friday March 16, from 6pm to 8pm. All are welcome!  Students, faculty, staff, alumni, practitioners, visitors, friends.

Alaska Update #2

Tomorrow will be our final day in Alaska. Not sure what to say but other than it's been an amazing trip. Alaska is really the last great frontier. I had many crazy experiences here, things I never thought I'd do. All the people we met here, and I mean all, were really friendly and welcoming. I hope to come back some day, but I am looking forward to coming home, thawing out, and getting back in the mix. Some more pics..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Help! & Alaska Update

Before I give the brief Alaska Update I wanted to ask my 6 loyal readers for some help. I'm going to start blogging for OC Family magazine and I need to come up with a name for my blog/column. I will be writing about various problems that effect families, couples, or adolescents, and various ways around these challenges from a poststructuralist/narrative approach. So what's a catchy title that would keep you coming back? If you're too shy to leave a comment please email me your much needed suggestion to narrativechris {at} gmail.com. Thanks!

Alaska is awesome and beautiful. The Iditirod has been a amazing experience. The musher community is very inclusive and friendly. We've had a great time making new friends and taking in the experience. We now head to Alyeska to play in the snow. I'm sure I'll update later. Some pics:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flight

"For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you." - Neil deGrasse Tyson

Alaska Bound

I leave for Alaska first thing in the morning. Michele will be riding in the first leg of the 2012 Iditarod, the Last Great Race. After all the festivities around Anchorage, we then head over to Alyeska to go skiing and see the Northern Lights (hopefully) and check out glaciers and fly around in helicopters and stuff. I'm pretty excited. I've always wanted to see the last great frontier. I'll be throwing up pics and updates around here so please come back and enjoy my boring vacations slides. Cheers!

Therapeutic Conversations X

Hello all. Just a reminder that registration is open for Therapeutic Conversations X happening in Vancouver May 8-12. This year looks to be an epic conference, and just a sampling of the great presenters lined up include: Karl Tomm, Jill Freedman, Cheryl White, Kiwi Tamasese, Colin Sanders, Stephen Madigan, David Denborough, Sheila MacNamee, Aaron Munroe, Charles Waldegrave,  Vicki Dickerson, Ottar Ness, Jeff Zimmerman, Bill Madsen, Lorraine Grieves, John Winslade, Peggy Sax, and Lorraine Hedtke.

I will be there and would enjoy some company in one of the finest cities in the world. All the info can be found HERE. Let's go!

Foucault, Bertolt Brecht & Truth To Power

I like that title.

So hopefully I will be doing a little more posting around here now that I finished my first draft of a review I wrote of Foucault Beyond Foucault by Jeffrey Nealon for possible inclusion in a narrative therapy related journal. It was not a typical review, at least in my opinion. I included a piece on implications for practice where I hope to raise some considerations around taken for granted notions of justice-doing, and the continuing insistence of the scarcity of resistance. Now I wait to hear back from the editor, which I am finding is the hard part. This is the time when the insecurity around writing is the most intense. I hope it doesn't suck... Fun!

Continuing the power theme, yesterday Michele and I visited UCI's Experimental Media Performance Lab to catch the wonderful production of Galileo In America by Robert Allen & Antoinetter LaFarge. Galileo In America is part examination of the mythologizing of history for political ends, part German cabaret, but mostly addresses; under what conditions does anyone speak truth to power, or who gets to speak at all?

As I sat in this performance struggling with insecurity around  my recent writing project, and my insistence that resistance is everywhere. It was the character of Virginia, Galileo's daughter (but also representing Brecht's little known female collaborators who co-wrote many of his plays) that said it best at the end of the performance while calling out Brecht, when she insisted "even the furniture has a story." I couldn't have said it better myself. The show runs for another weekend. Go.