Unravelling Trauma and Weaving Resilience with Systemic and Narrative Therapy: Playful Collaborations with Children, Families and Networks

Description

Unravelling Trauma and Weaving Resilience with Systemic and Narrative Therapy is an innovative book that details how clinicians can engage children, families and their networks in creative and collaborative relationships to elicit change within the context of trauma and violence. Combining systemic, narrative and dialogical theoretical frameworks with clinical examples, this volume focuses on therapeutic conversations that can help children, and those involved with them, deconstruct their experienced difficulties, and create more hopeful stories and alternative ways of relating to one another through a sense of play. Vermeire advocates for serious playfulness as a way of directly addressing trauma and its effects, as well as along ‘trauma-sensitive’ side paths. Puppetry, artwork, interviews and theatre play are used to weave networks of resilience in ever-widening circles and this approach is informed by the awareness that individual problems are always to be seen as relational, social and political. This book is an important read for therapists and social workers who work with traumatised children and their multi-stressed families. Cover Endorsement Page Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Series editors’ foreword Foreword to Unravelling trauma and weaving resilience with systemic and narrative therapy Introduction Three stories to set the scene More than 25 years ago Ten years ago A few weeks ago Three of my many teachers Chapter 1 Dis-covering a web of complexities Introduction The urge to act Actions, emotions and the body hijacking the therapy room The temptation of unhelpful dances Embracing complexity Scientific theories Expert problem definitions A multiverse of worlds Wider social and political contexts Conclusions Chapter 2 A collaborative therapeutic journey An insider’s perspective A systemic and narrative approach What creates well-being? Resilience and resilience processes An invitation to collaborative practices Safe grounds Re(dis)covering a sense of personal agency Social sharing of experiences, emotions and stories New relational dances Re(dis)covering a sense of relational agency Re(dis)covering a sense of coherence Re(dis)covering a sense of belonging Hope as a door to possible futures Serious playfulness and playful seriousness Playfulness as an attitude Doorways to imagination Negotiating playfulness Weaving networks of resilience Chapter 3 First meetings Intake as re-connection and re(dis)covery Doing safety Widening the scope A team of support ‘Talking about our talks’ Possibilities and disadvantages of keeping silent and speaking Utterances of relational involvements What do we need to talk about? Radical re-positioning and listening: interviewing the child Unexplored areas and forgotten stories A manageable way of speaking The rotten feeling ‘The pain of missing’ Ways of responding Future professionals as witnesses Parents, family members and friends as witnesses Planning and documenting our collaborative journey ‘The harvest’ of our meeting Conversational settings Chapter 4 The tentacles of trauma and adversity Creating a context for sharing stories The puppet show: re(dis)covering a sense of agency Responses to the performance The quiz as a context of acknowledgement Ordering the messy stuff into a story Do horses hurt themselves? Brewing stories: imagine the unthinkable Trapped in feelings of guilt Looking at then and there from alternative perspectives Taking a stance: opening doors to new actions Documents as consolidation Chapter 5 Performing new relational narratives Entangled relationships Looking for common ground A collective investigation of relationships and social worlds From immobilising verbs towards new actions Question marks do not fall out of the sky Re-membering the body I am the only one on this planet … Ever widening circles Back to start? Russian dolls unveiling unsuspected intentions Chapter 6 Injured relationships and ‘broken homes’ Ambivalence and complexity Some preliminary thoughts on violence Opening conversations about troubled relationships Family constellations on the table Articulating the unarticulated In search for sparkling lights Relatives off stage Attachment unlimited Revisiting shame and revenge A timeline of shame A sense of belonging as an antidote to shame Kicking against the world Disadvantages then and there What about ‘revenge’? Signs of involvement Witnessing as small steps to reconnection Chapter 7 Engaging with parents, carers and professionals A special bond and position A parent or carer in need Noticing parental pain and values Noticing moments of mattering Turning the spotlight on the child Unlocking shared opportunities A village of parents and carers Parents (or family members) falling short Guilt and reconciliation Involving parents from the start Chapter 8 Laying down a path in walking A sense of coherence and continuity Timelines of the past Timelines of the future Beads to hold on to Involving the audience in life review interviews Networks of acknowledgement and care A theatre play as compassionate witnessing Re-linking lives as social action Ongoing conversations of documents and testimonies Letting go References Index