Description of the track

As narrative practitioners we have often been asked: what about the body in narrative therapy? Our answers have often gone in the direction of the importance of embodying subordinate initiatives, and seeing the body as being affected and policed by different discourses - and then maybe going on to other areas. This has made us wonder if the body gets invisible in narrative therapy and if it gets rendered more visible by other approaches. As a consequence of this, we have found that we sometimes experience ourselves in unfamiliar and somewhat dangerous grounds, when we encounter invitations to ask questions about the body. This has put us on the quest to look for possibilities for multiple ways of making the body visible that supports new meaning making and help us regain a sense of directions when it has been lost. We would like to invite you to come with us on this journey and we are very excited to get to know how you make the body visible and how you make bodily issues appear in helpful ways with the people you talk to. 

This track is arranged and designed by Narrative Praksis (Denmark).



Plenaries

Keynote by Maggie Carey 15th August Morning

What understandings might we use to navigate the increasingly complex field of human endeavour so that we do not sell our souls to the forces of economic pragmatism and scientific rationalism? How helpful is the narrative approach in the arenas of increasingly diminished resources for social services with the attendant pressure and push toward performance outcomes and evidence-based practice? How might the narrative metaphor be of use as we move further and further into a world of cyber-connection and online life?

 
Keynote by Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad 15th August Afternoon

Addressing the disturbed, like ripples in water: Intervention with the social networks of children who transe

Children who ”transe” (i.e. children who perform gender different from their assigned sex) constitute a group deserving of attention. The majority of these children grow up to be either lesbian, gay bisexual and/or transe and, as a result of the attached social stigma, are at increased risk for grave psychological consequences. When brought to professional attention, children who transe will often be brought to designated specialty clinics. This is especially true for somatic boys, since boys in girls' attire and performance evoke more anxiety in their environment than boyish girls. Centralized clinics can only to a certain degree meet these children's special needs concerning how to cope with the challenges they face, because those challenges are found in their immediate and extended networks, located far away from the specialists’ consulting rooms. The clinical work described here has been collected over a period of 10-15 years. The work focus has been with those who are or might be disturbed by the children. Like ripples in water, the children's networks are educated to achieve a more nuanced understanding of sex and gender. This work has proved to be very effective in relieving the anxieties in the networks of children who transe.



Keynote by Narrativ Praksis 16th August Afternoon

Narratives of the Body

At this keynote we would like to focus on the narratives of the body and bodily narratives. There exist many strong and powerful discourses concerning the body which can make us participate in the surveillance and disciplining of our bodies in a number of ways. It is our experience that there is a rather limited focus on bodily responses in narrative inspired literature and praxis.

We experience that when working with narrative maps, bringing in a focus on the body can often help support people in being able to hold on to what is important to them. We would like to explore when it is appropriate and possible to see the voices of the body as something else than symptoms and reactions. When bodily (re-)actions are being viewed as skilled, what difference can it make in the context of us talking to people who experience bodily inconveniences, reactions and/or initiatives? We are reflecting on how the body/mind dualistic ideas give us a special point of view that manifests itself in language and interaction, which at the same time make us both aware and blind. How is it for instance possible to unfold the voices of the body without participating in a dualism or romanticizing of bodily responses and instead maintain the complexity in the bodily voices? We are fascinated by different cultural and historical bodily practices and how they can inspire us in our work to help people live more preferred lives with their bodies. We hope that this keynote can inspire us all to see possibilities in how the body can support us in making new meanings and help us regain direction when it has been lost.