Virtual Webinar

From Multiculturalism to Cultural Democracy: A Contemporary Narrative Therapy Approach

Presented by Travis Heath, PhD
1.5 CE Hours
Clinical
From Multiculturalism to Cultural Democracy: A Contemporary Narrative Therapy Approach

Information

Date & Time

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Location

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Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

  • Identify at least 3 principles of cultural democracy that can be implemented in narrative therapy to create anti-colonial practices that go beyond traditional multicultural counseling.

  • Demonstrate how to integrate anti-colonial perspectives into therapeutic practices by considering the sociopolitical and ancestral traumas of clients, using mediums preferred by the clients, such as rap music.

  • Analyze the case study of "Ray" as well as video excerpts from other sessions.

  • Explain how anti-colonial narrative therapy can be operationalized in real-world settings, and how therapists can use culturally relevant methods to facilitate healing.

  • Define the importance of language and cultural context in therapeutic questions and responses.

  • Describe how using language and cultural context elements can support or hinder the healing process for individuals from colonized communities.

Description

As cultural diversity increasingly becomes the norm, therapeutic approaches must move past inclusion and towards a model of people from non-European communities speaking on behalf of their own healing in their own cultural languages. This calls for a model that moves beyond multiculturalism toward cultural democracy (Akinyela & Heath, 2016; Heath, 2018). This presentation will seek to demonstrate culturally democratic therapy practices in action through the use of session video clips and autoethnography. This is built on the premise that when we invite a person’s preferred method of healing into our conversations it gives people the moral stamina to continue on with living (Epston, 2011). Participants will receive the exegetical comments of the facilitator as he explores why he asked the questions he asked as well as imagining possibilities for where he might have gone.

Target Audience

  • Counselor
  • Marriage & Family Therapist
  • Nurses
  • Physicians
  • Psychologist
  • Social Worker
  • Substance Use Disorder Professionals

Presenters

Travis Heath, PhD

Travis is a licensed psychologist and is an Associate Professor at San Diego State University where he serves as Chair of the Department of Counseling & School Psychology. Past work he’s been involved with looked at shifting from a multicultural approach to counseling to one of cultural democracy that invites people to heal in mediums that are culturally near. His most recent work involves incorporating the work of Black abolitionist scholars into psychotherapy, community healing, and uprising. His writing has focused on the use of rap music in narrative therapy, working with persons entangled in the criminal injustice system in ways that maintain their dignity, narrative practice stories as pedagogy, a co-created questioning practice called reunion questions, and community healing strategies. He is co-author, with David Epston and Tom Carlson, of the first book on Contemporary Narrative Therapy released in June 2022 entitled, “Reimagining Narrative Therapy Through Practice Stories and Autoethnography.” The book is part of the “Writing Lives” series with Routledge publishing. Travis has been fortunate to facilitate workshops and speak in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, India, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, United Kingdom, and United States.