Part 2: Narrative Therapy Approaches to Trauma (Oct 2025)
Part 2: Narrative Therapy Approaches to Trauma (Oct 2025)
Event Date
October 2, 2025
Event Time
10:30 am
Event Location
This is an ONLINE EVENT, Hosted on Zoom, Eastern Time CANADA US
Event Description
10:30 AM to 4:30 PM Eastern Time | Convert to your time zone here
Facilitated by Tiffany Sostar and Angel Yuen
Early rate $320 until September 5, 2025
Regular rate $360 thereafter
Part 2 of our ‘Narrative Therapy Approaches to Trauma’ online training will extend participants learning following Part 1 and provide further opportunity to practice. Over two days participants will learn about and delve into three areas of narrative practice:
~ Therapeutic documents as ‘Rescuing the said from the saying of it.’ (White, 2000; Newman, 2008)
~ Elevating agency and resistance
~ Moving from individual to collective narrative practice (Denborough, 2008)
Therapeutic documents as ‘Rescuing the said from the saying of it’:
- Over two days together we will practice ‘rescuing’ people’s words and phrases to create narrative therapeutic documents (i.e. sticky-notes, poems and more) that can support people of all ages in reclaiming their lives from the effects of trauma
Elevating agency and resistance:
- People suffering from the ongoing effects of trauma often experience a diminished sense of agency. We may hear statements such as ‘There was nothing I could do to stop the violence.’ ‘I’m messed up from my childhood abuse.’ However, there are many acts of resistance that we can be on the lookout for. These acts of protest, refusal and resistance are not necessarily grand or overt actions, but more often are hardly visible.
- On Day 1 we will discuss and co-discover how it is possible to elicit descriptions and render meaning to small acts of resistance to traumatic events of violence, oppression, and injustice. Moreover, what might seem an ever-so-small form of resistance may not only be significant, but also can elevate personal agency.
Moving from individual to collective narrative practice:
- On day 2 there will be a focus on responding to trauma and hardship with collective narrative practices. We will discuss how it is possible to work with people individually while also linking their life to some sort of collective. Ideas and practices will also be shared for working with groups and communities responding to hardship.
Multiple modes of learning will be used to facilitate this online event including practice-based narrative exercises, video, breakout rooms and wider discussion.
About Angel Yuen
Angel (she/her) works as a narrative therapist, supervisor and consultant in alternative-private practice in Durham region of the Greater Toronto Area. Angel’s previous work in the public sector spanning three decades included experiences in school, community, and adult and children’s mental health settings.
Angel facilitates narrative workshops locally, internationally and virtually. Within these spaces she continually is honoured to share hopeful stories, skills and wisdom of the people who consult with her. As a member of the Dulwich Centre international faculty in Adelaide, Australia Angel is part of their team for the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work program. Angel is the author of the 2019 book titled’ Pathways beyond despair: Re-authoring lives of young people through narrative therapy. Angel has also published the following papers re: narrative ideas and responding to trauma: Discovering Children’s Responses to Trauma: a response-based narrative practice (2007) and Less Pain More Gain: Explorations of responses versus effects when working with the consequences of trauma (2009).
About Tiffany Sostar
Tiffany Sostar (they/them) is a narrative therapist and community worker living as an uninvited guest on Treaty 7 land (in Calgary, Alberta, Canada). They love collective narrative practice and documentation, and are interested in the ways collective narrative practice overlaps and intersects with legacies of queer and feminist zine culture. They graduated from the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work program in 2018 and enjoy being an ongoing part of the program as a faculty member and subject designer in Canvas. Tiffany is queer, non-binary, non-monogamous, and disabled, living in lots of liminal spaces, and interested in working in these spaces.
Recently, as hostility towards the trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming communities continued to escalate, Tiffany’s community lost two cherished trans community members, Bekett and Theda. For the next long while, they are undertaking a series of community work projects responding to these losses and hoping to create a body of narrative responses in support of trans lives.
This program will be relevant for a diversity of service providers including counsellors, therapists, community workers, child protection workers and mental health practitioners working in settings such as victim and crisis services, private practice, hospitals, women’s shelters, sexual assault centers, schools, Violence Against Women (VAW) organizations, and other community-based and social service agencies. This workshop is relevant to those working with adults (including adults who are survivors of childhood sexual abuse), young people and children
- Prerequisite* – Completion NTC workshop titled ‘Less Pain More Gain: NT Approaches to Trauma’ from 2021 to 2023. Or completion of NTC workshop/intensive titled ‘Responding to Trauma’ workshop or intensive from 2013 to 2020.
- If you are new to the ideas and practices of Narrative Therapy, you should first attend ‘Part 1 – Narrative Therapy Approaches to Trauma’ on September 18-19, 2025
- * Exception to the prerequisite – If you are already familiar with and using narrative practices, but have never attended a previous Narrative Therapy Centre ‘Trauma’ workshop, you can still register for this workshop. We still however would suggest attending the September 18-19, 2025 ‘Part 1 – Narrative Therapy Approaches to Trauma’ workshop for the refresher on the ideas that shape narrative therapy and to also participate in the beginning conversations about trauma discourse, and the ideas of co-discovering people’s responses to trauma.
Certificates of Training can be requested at the end of the online workshop and will state 9.5 hours of narrative therapy training. Certificates can be used to qualify for eligibility for continuing education credits from professional colleges and licensing boards. Please contact your own college or association to confirm requirements.
STUDENTS – At checkout in ‘discount code’ enter STUDENT10. Also in the ‘additional info’ box please include your student info – i.e.: Name of institution and program of study
For groups of 3 or more, please register together in one transaction and at checkout in ‘discount code’ enter GROUP10. One main person can be registrant, and please type info (name, email, address) for other group members in the ‘additional info’ box
Cancellations will be accepted if requested at least 14 days prior to the event via email to contact@narrativetherapycentre.com. A 10% admin fee will be deducted from the amount to be refunded.
We regret that a refund cannot be offered after the cancellation date, but a colleague may be substituted for attendance.
Part 1 Narrative Therapy Approaches to Trauma – Sep 18-19, 2025
Click here for workshop details and registration