Story Group Workshop Registration

Trauma-focused Narrative Therapy Training

Based on the Allender Center Methodology

The Art of Living Counseling Center
900 Pyott Road, Suite 102
Crystal Lake, IL 60014

815.444.9076

Learn how to facilitate narrative story groups.  This is a training designed for therapists, pastors, lay persons who desire to understand better how to engage peoples stories for the purpose of offering care and healing.  This training will offer individuals a framework for reading and attending to story based on The Allender Theory and Methodology.

In this professional training participants will learn how to read the deeper meaning of personal narratives and uncover the hidden themes and storylines that are present in all stories. The personal narratives that we all carry inside give shape and substance to every area of a persons life. Unfortunately these narratives do not reveal themselves easily and they are layered with complexity. Learning to identify and decipher the themes of these inner narratives allow professionals from a variety of disciplines to better assist their clients in reaching their goals of healing and growth.

Topics that will be engaged:

How to look at healing through the lens of understanding your story.

• Using the Allender Center Theory of Narrative Trauma Therapy.

Understanding Trauma

• Understanding the nature of trauma and what sets up for trauma event to become embedded

How to read a story well

• How to understand context of story including looking at our biases and how they affect our reading of a story.
• Reading the presentation of the reader: face, body, and voice
• Seeing and naming particularity of story
• Seeing and naming themes in stories
• Understanding where the story teller is bound in their story
• Recognizing arousal structures
• Identifying curses, agreements , vows and soul ties

Understanding family systems

• Family roles
• Attachment Styles
• Triangulation
• Character development

Group Dynamics

• Group as a microcosm in identifying style of relating
• Using the here and now as was to create corrective response
• Identify and use reenactments to heal
• Transference and Countertransference
• How to end well

How to structure, market and start a narrative story group

• How to help an individual do some pre-work if not yet ready for a story group
• Creating group for members new to story work
• Structuring ongoing story groups
• Addressing common struggles that come up in groups