Intergenerational conflict brings with it significant challenges. And conflict can be especially complex in refugee and migrant communities, where old and young people alike have to negotiate the ways of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ countries. Sometimes, these challenges can lead to seemingly intractable and irresolvable differences.

This publication introduces a new collective narrative methodology, the Kite of Life, which was developed during a project in St James Town, Canada’s most densely populated community.

This issue contains practice-based papers on some of the topics we receive the most requests for: couples therapy, working with anxiety and depression, and novel approaches to dealing with the problems children face. Part two contains three collective narrative initiatives, dealing with autism, drug and alcohol addiction, and student counselling in a university context.

Poverty, conflict, and disease are like ‘clouds’ that encircle our communities. We must find ways to raise our heads above the clouds and work towards the world we hope for …

This publication documents an emerging field of practice: narrative development work. The Mt Elgon Self-Help Community Project, based in rural Uganda, uses narrative practices to spark and sustain local social action and economic development.

In 1994, the genocide in Rwanda claimed over one million human lives. Today, Ibuka, the national survivors’ association of Rwanda, has developed ways to respond.

The Ibuka trauma counsellors have found ways to heal memories in the shadow of genocide.

Together – and through their formal partnership with the Dulwich Centre Foundation International, based in Australia – they have developed local, innovative, culturally-appropriate methodologies, drawing on principles and practice of narrative therapy and community work.

This publication documents the unique forms of therapeutic and collective practice that Ibuka workers are developing. It contains the stories of this work and its outcomes; the principles they are employing; examples of the methodologies; and ideas for how workers and organisations in other contexts can develop their own effective practices.

Also included in this publication are innovations in narrative practice relating to multiple storylines of memory; personal memory/social memory; sharing the ‘problem of memory’, and ensuring the survival of ideals.

Working with memory in the shadow of genocide is a document of both thoughtful and effective practice, as well as hope and inspiration.

Yia Marra: Good stories that make spirits strong
from the people of Ntaria/Hermannsburg &

Creating storylines: What is it about these stories that ‘make spirits strong’? And how did these stories come to be?

by David Denborough, Barbara Wingard, & Cheryl White

 Over the last few years, Dulwich Centre Foundation has been involved in a project in which Aboriginal communities have been sharing stories about special skills and knowledge in dealing with community hardships.

The first part of this publication consists of stories from Ntaria/Hermannsburg about the ways in which they are dealing with grief, the ‘grog’ (alcohol), and other community hardships. These stories have since been shared with other communities and some of the messages that have been returned are also included here.

The second part of this publication explains the principles informing this project and introduces new concepts in relation to collective narrative practice. Drawing on narrative ideas and the work of Paulo Freire, Sharon Welch, and Hilde Lindemann Nelson, this extended essay will be relevant to those responding to social suffering.

The CD which accompanies this publication contains a selection of stories and songs from Ntaria/Hermannsburg as well as messages from Chile, Norway, and the USA.

If you missed out on subscribing in 2009, you can purchase the set here!

This issue contains a wide range of papers, including an inspiring community research process, a profound oral history project, and a framework for post-colonial and culturally-appropriate therapy. The issue also includes two key articles on externalising and poststructuralism.

This out-of-print journal is now available as a downloadable PDF.

This issue begins with three practice-based papers, covering ways of responding to child abuse, externalising conversations about lateral violence in Aboriginal communties, and narrative approaches to supervision. The second part of the journal, 'Border crossings', explores the intersections of narrative practice with other approaches to working with individuals and families: family group conferencing, relaxation and guided imagery, and psychopharmacology. This issue provides a significant stretch to current thinking and practice in narrative therapy and community work.

This issue offers new thinking and ideas for narrative practice in a range of areas that are close to our hearts.

Part One includes papers on using narrative ideas in child protection and with people affected with intellectual disabilities. Part Two features two papers on using songs and songwriting in narrative practice, in varied settings. The final paper explores how to shape narrative therapy to fit local cultures.

This is a thoughtful collection of creative papers!

Due to requests from readers, this issue focuses on ‘Children & young people: Dreams, responses and dilemmas’. The first paper, by Angel Yuen, proposes a ‘response-based narrative practice’ to assist children who have been subjected to trauma. The second, by Milan Colic, describes the use of narrative practices to explore the meaning of the dreams being experienced by a young person with whom he was working. And the third, by Jodi Aman, conveys ways in which narrative approaches can assist in linking families together when children/young people are going through difficult times. Two papers on the theme of ‘Eating issues’ follow. Ali Borden describes the work of the Eating Disorder Center of California. She conveys how narrative ideas can be used within a treatment centre to provide opportunities for the renegotiation of identity in group settings. Cari Corbet-Owen then provides a brief ‘exposé of body-worry’. The final section focuses on ‘Sharing dilemmas of practice’, with Chris Chapman and David Newman reflecting on their work with men who have been violent and/or abusive.

How can narrative ideas be engaged with in work with communities of people? This issue responds to this question. Papers include: a description of the work of the Peer Counsellors of the Irish Wheelchair Association and the National Council for the Blind of Ireland; 'Narrative practice and community assignments', by Michael White: and a paper by Yvonne Sliep that describes emerging principles to assist community workers who are seeking to respond to vulnerable children in poverty-stricken environments. This journal also contains the paper 'Feminism, therapy and narrative ideas'.

This out-of-print journal is now available as a downloadable PDF.

These two papers offer options for talking with mothers and their children who have disabilities in ways that are honours mothers’ and children’s skills, knowledges, values, and connections.

This journal is a collection of thoughtful and at times profound papers from England, South Africa, the USA, and Australia, all focussed on new directions in narrative practice.

Part one includes papers about transforming a women's refuge to become a place of celebrating women's stories, as well as a piece on using cartoons in therapeutic practice.

Part two includes two papers about working with older people in aged care home contexts, as well as using collective narrative documents as eulogies.

Part three explores narrative practice in pastoral care contexts, while the final section includes a paper about working in a context of extreme self-harm.

This issue is at once creative, challenging, and hopeful.

This issue includes: five accessible and thorough practice-based papers detailing the use of outsider-witnesses in narrative therapy; school counselling practices; working with people who are struggling with problems of substance use; and ways of destabilising the habits of highly effective problems. The second section contains thoughtful interviews relating to history and healing. Two of these were conducted in South Africa and relate to ways in which Apartheid and Holocaust histories are being engaged with to contribute to healing in the present. The third describes the inspiring work of the Lesbian Herstory Archives in New York City. The final section, entitled 'Voices from Bali' has been created as a response to the bombing that took place there in 2002.

This out-of-print journal is now available as a downloadable PDF.

This groundbreaking issue contains four diverse sections:

• Innovative approaches to working with young people
• Palestinian and Indian narrative practice
• Narrative explorations in clinical health psychology
• Talking about sex and sexual identity

The topics are wide-ranging and likewise span work across the globe. From hopeful work with Palestinian ex-detainees and narrative approaches with a young girl in India, to work combining cultural studies theory and narrative practice with Harry Potter and Grand Theft Auto ... this issue also looks at ways to use fiction-writing in contexts of grief, narrative work in clinical health psychology environments, and polyamory and 'sex addiction'.

If you're looking for stretches in narrative thinking and practice from around the world, this is a great place to start!

This anthology contains a diversity of accessible, engaging, practice-based papers by narrative practitioners around the world. Articles include theoretical considerations; working with individuals, groups, and communities; co-research; and an approach to community mental health. The collection is rounded out by a collection of practice notes by Michael White.

This paper explores some dilemmas, ethical considerations, and ideas for therapeutic practice in contexts where clients may be experiencing some questions in relation to religion, specifically Christianity. Through engaging with Foucault’s notions of ‘subjugated knowledges’, ‘projects of genealogies’, ‘the Gaze’, and ‘power/knowledge’, the author suggests options for nuanced identity projects of reclamation in contexts of power and subjugation.

Part One of this issue includes three diverse practice-based exploring parent-teen conflict dissolution, using the Tree of Life methodology as a gateway to other maps of narrative practice, and therapeutic story writing. Part Two explores ideas of 'home' in Singapore, with refugees in New York, and with Brazillians living in Sydney. Finally, Marcela Polanco and David Epston offer tales of travels across languages.

This issue both expands our thinking about how narrative ideas can be applied, as well as reporting on two projects initiated by Dulwich Centre.

Part One of the journal features three papers on mental health and families: 'Children, parents, and mental health' by Dulwich Centre; 'Growing up with parents with mental health difficulties' by Ruth Pluznick and Natasha Kis-Sines; and 'When your child is diagnosed with schizophrenia: The skills and knowledges of parents' by Amanda Worrall.

Part Two, 'Alternative assessments: Looking for subordinate stories' features the article 'Narrative approaches in Centrelink: "It's those turning questions . . ."' by Lesley Dalyell.

Finally, Part Three documents Dulwich Centre's 'Women and Grief' Project, which features contributions from around the world.

In all, this issue is both profound and moving in its content, as well as stimulating and rigorous in its application of ideas in new ways and contexts - showing that, as narrative practice is engaged with around the world, the ideas are being taken up in innovative and generative ways.

This paper explores some of the possibilities and complexities of engaging in conversations about popular culture with children and young people, and proposes that and understanding of cultural studies and critical media theory have a lot to offer therapists.

This issue of Gecko: A Journal of Deconstruction and Narrative Ideas in Therapeutic Practice features articles exploring the use of reflecting teams in narrative therapy. This issue contains Michael White's article 'Reflecting teamwork as definitional ceremony revisited'.