2024 Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference review

Narrative therapy was co-found by Michael White and David Easton in the 80s. It is influenced by post constructivism philosophy.  Originally, it was one of the family therapies approach, and has evolved in the past decades, and is widely applied with individuals and groups. It helps people to understand how their problems are impacting their lives and provides them with an independent, external perspective. It also considers that people are experts on their lives, and they are seen as separate from their problems.  

On 4 and 5 July 2024, I attended the conference on Narrative Therapy and community work, 'Journeys and Hope', in Liverpool with support from the West Midlands BPS Branch conference and event bursary. The conference was held in person and created a platform for Narrativists, including therapists and community workers, to share their practices aligned with the Narrative Therapy beliefs, principles, and understandings. 

I had the honour and privilege of presenting my practice to people from Hong Kong in England at this conference. It provided a chance for me to network with psychologists, psychotherapists, and community workers who are interested in Narrative Therapy. I am grateful to BPS West Midlands for supporting and facilitating my attendance at the conference. 

Since relocating from Hong Kong, I've noticed that Narrative Therapy in the UK is considered a privilege among psychologists and is not included in primary care under the NHS. The Tree of Life is the most promoted Narrative Therapy tool here. This differs from Hong Kong, where Narrative Therapy is commonly used by social workers, psychologists, and counsellors in charities and social welfare services.

From Narrative Therapy to narrative practice

Narrative Therapy has been named as narrative practice in many countries for years with the purposes of not to internalise the problem as the person, with the belief in making cultural changes. Therefore, it is not only for clinical or therapeutic purposes. For example, my presentation titled 'Co-explore the meanings of Canto-pop among displaced Hongkongers', shared my narrative questionings with a Hongkonger to explore the meanings of our pop culture, especially Canto-Pop, songs sang in Cantonese, our native language.  

Hongkongers are forced to leave Hong Kong due to political reasons and a threat to freedom, especially in press and speech. Some of the Canto-Pop songs are not aired in Hong Kong and China, maybe due to self-censorship. The purpose of the conversation is to create a safe space for us to understand the multi-layers of meanings of supporting young and new popular singers, and the echoes with the lyrics in these songs, review the unspeakable political situation, and obtain hopes and strengths to build resilience in displaced life. 

This conference provided a platform for the voices of Hongkongers in the UK to be heard, especially when Hongkonger people are under the threat of National Security Law in Hong Kong no matter where they are in the world. The presentation also created a space for practitioners to reflect on the use of curiosity stressed in Narrative Therapy, to express questions through the therapist to help people uncover and author-preferred narratives buried within problem-saturated storylines. And, how to apply it to achieve a real equal, diverse, and inclusive society with narrative practice. 

There were many lived experiences shared from plenary welcome and keynote speakers. For example, Iris Benson welcomed participants attending this conference in her plenary speech by sharing her lived experience in her capacity from the journey of being a volunteer into a member of staff in the NHS. 

Additionally, Philomene Umawaliya shared her intentions and initiatives in advancing the rights and wellbeing of asylum seekers and refugees based on her identity as a survivor of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda. These experiences echoed the belief of Narrative Therapy, or narrative practice; through Narrative Therapy, practitioners pinpoint the things that people have done, and the ways they have struggled to survive, and try to collaboratively create a story of them as active survivors rather than as passive victims. 

An evolving approach for collecting voices and paradigm shift 

From the workshops I attended, various applications of Narrative Therapy were demonstrated. James McParland, Jaymie Huckridge, and their teams shared 'Rainbow of life', a new collective narrative practice metaphor developed to work affirmatively with gender and sexually-diverse youth. As there were participants involved in the workshop presentation, the impact on participants was well-discussed, and it raised my curiosity about the underlying philosophy in the details of the metaphor of the rainbow in the process of implementation and questioning. 

Dr Shah Alam and their team shared their experiences in supporting men who have experienced migration related to trauma through Narrative Therapy. Through using the metaphor of food and cooking, the team collaboratively navigated the resilient experiences in the journey of immigration among a group of refugees and asylum seekers. Luckily the team can communicate with the group in common languages. 

The involvement of interpreters sometimes could be a concern or barrier for service providers, especially when Narrative Therapy questions could be quite a mystery for people. It reminded me of my recent working experiences in the UK, mainstream service providers tend to signpost Hongkongers to services set up by Hongkongers in the UK, regardless of the concern of safety and spy issues among the community due to National Security Law and the worries of spies.  

From my point of view, as a practitioner, language barriers should not be a reason to limit our services for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.  With the involvement of interpreters, it can not only help us eliminate the language barriers, but also equip them with the awareness of privilege and power in the process, and enhance our cultural awareness.  

Based on my past experiences and knowledge from Hong Kong, if mainstream service providers use language barriers and cultural differences as a reason to signpost migrants to services running by the same ethnic people in the host country, after decades, it would lead to a segregation of service and the community could never be genuinely diverse and inclusive. 

Dr Iiris Kleinberg, a private practice clinical psychologist, shared her experiences in the application of Narrative Therapy with people with intellectual disabilities, many of whom are neurodivergent. She also raised the concern about externalisation in Narrative Therapy by describing an individual as 'people with ASD/ ADHD', as unintentionally aligned with pathology discourses, while neurodivergent literature advocates for the use of identity-first language, such as 'autistic people'.  

As a recently identified neurodivergent adult and narrative practitioner, I am glad that there will be notes and updates in Narrative Therapy training in response to neurodivergent advocates. Also, I strongly agree that narrative conversations can be neuroaffirmative, aligning with lived experience knowledge, by focusing on details of life events, to assist recalling memories suppressed by problems in life. 

Looking ahead to the future 

Overall, I found that the conference created a space for colleagues to share their experiences and widen the audience's perspectives. It gave me the impression that the ideas and concepts of Narrative Therapy are scattered in some parts of the NHS, charity services in the UK and Europe.  

For example, the importance of lived experience work, widely based on the Tree of life concept, is used with different population groups.

The approach can be dedicated to supporting people with various mental health problems, to facilitate the meaning-making process of their mental health issues.  

I highly recommend the Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference to students and psychologists. It's particularly relevant to those interested in feminism and intersectionality, have a commitment to the inclusion of minoritised and subjugated voices, and a commitment to working across barriers rooted in sexism, racism, transphobia, social class, disability, and xenophobia. It is a good chance for us to remind ourselves to attempt to be mindful of issues of privilege and power consistently and in all aspects of our work and life. 

Despite the long days (especially on election day which lasted 12 hours!) there were endless meaningful discussions and plenty of experiences I intend to share with the wider community of practitioners going forward.    

Author biography 

Ada Sze Hang Kot, who relocated from Hong Kong in 2022, is a private practice psychotherapist and counsellor based in Birmingham.  She completed the Masters in Narrative Therapy and Community Work in 2019 and was a Narrative Therapy trainer in Hong Kong until her relocation.  

She is experienced in working with children and young people and their families, neurodivergent people and refugees. Ada is committed to practising narrative therapy and conducting collaborative narrative research with communities.  

X: @AdaKot_UKHK

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/szehangkot/