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University courses


 

Due to the number of requests we receive from practitioners who are seeking university courses that emphasise narrative approaches to therapy we put out a call for information about such courses! Here are some of the responses that we have received. We don't know about the details of these courses so please do your own research and draw your own conclusions about them.

 

 

AUSTRALIA

 

The Bouverie Centre, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Graduate Certificate in Narrative Therapy

The Bouverie Centre, Victoria's Family Institute, is a statewide, integrated academic, clinical and community consultation agency, specialising in family therapy. Bouverie is a school within the Faculty of Health Sciences of La Trobe University and offers Graduate Certificate, Master, PhD and professional doctorate levels as well as a comprehensive Continuing Education program.

 

The Bouverie Centre/La Trobe University offers a one-year, part-time Graduate Certificate in Narrative Therapy course designed to present theory and practice for working with individuals, families and communities. It also introduces the theories that influence narrative such as post-structuralism. Participants may come from a variety of professional roles will be encouraged to relate their study to their own work and areas of interest. The course will be undertaken six hours per week over two semesters of 13 weeks each.

 

For further course information, frequently asked questions or admission form visit our website http://www.latrobe.edu.au/bouverie/academic/grad_certificate_narra.html or contact Susan Conduit ph. 03 9385 5112 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Course co-ordinator: Ron Findlay email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Teaching staff include: Ron Findlay, Naomi Rottem. Special Guest Lecturers: David Denborough, David Epston.

 

Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia
Graduate Diploma and Masters of Human Services Counselling

The Department of Social Work and Social Policy offers advanced practice-oriented and experiential professional counselling courses emphasising postmodern, social constructionist and narrative approaches. The courses aim to produce critical reflective and ethical practitioners who have an appreciation of the self in culture and context. Evening classes, week intensives and weekend choices are available with option units allowing students to specialise. In the Masters program students choose between a direct practice stream and a combined direct practice/research stream, the latter a pathway to PhD. A key feature of the Masters course is the extensive field placement. Members of teaching staff are involved in both the practice as well as the theory of counselling. Their aim is to provide education that reflects the diversity of influences and circumstances of students. All share a commitment to providing relevant, contemporary and practical training.

 

Graduate Diploma in Counselling: http://handbook.curtin.edu.au/courses/14/142006.html
Master of Human Services Counselling: http://handbook.curtin.edu.au/courses/30/306361.html
Application Form: http://prospective.curtin.edu.au/docs/pgdegree_coursework.pdf
Contact: Ian Percy, Postgraduate Coursework Coordinator, 08 9266 7233, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

 

Macquarie University, Australia

Social Health Program, Department of Psychology

This multidisciplinary program provides a socio-cultural analysis on physical and psychological health including illness prevention, health promotion, identification, crisis intervention, individual and community interventions, and relapse prevention. Narrative approaches to counselling and therapy are emphasised throughout all the strands in the program. Specific narrative courses include Narrative Approaches, Advanced Narrative, Narrative and Community Interventions and Invitations to Responsibility. Three courses are offered in the Social Health Program: Postgraduate Certificate in Social Health, Postgraduate Diploma in Social Health and Masters of Social Health. Each qualification provides the opportunity to specialise in one of the core strands: Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD), Child Protection, Indigenous Health, or Narrative Therapy. Narrative courses are also available as part of a Post Graduate Diploma or Certificate in Applied Psychology to meet the requirements for registration as a psychologist in NSW, Australia. Individual workshops and course units are offered outside the degree program for professional development. For more information, please see our website http://online.mq.edu.au/pub/PSYMSH/ or contact us on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Michelle Dickson is the Course Director.

 

 

NEW ZEALAND

 

University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

The counsellor education programs at The University of Waikato take a distinctive orientation to counsellor education. These programs, at masters and doctoral level, are situated within a postmodern framework, emphasising narrative approaches in counselling and therapy. Social constructionist ideas are introduced in the first positioning paper for the masters program, Discourse and Counselling Psychologies; the range of practice papers that follow depend upon this theory. The M. Couns. program is available with either a professional or a research emphasis. Papers available include Mediation, and for experienced counsellors, Supervision and Advanced Family and Relationship Counselling. A mix of on campus block courses and online learning/teaching is used to open opportunities for students at a distance from Hamilton.

Further information is available at: www.soe.waikato.ac.nz/counselling/ or contact Elmarie Kotzé ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Kathie Crocket ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

 

 

SOUTH AFRICA

 

University of Pretoria (South Africa), Department of Practical Theology

The department of practical theology, under the leadership of Prof Julian Müller, offers three post-graduate courses to students interested in pastoral family therapy. The Masters program in narrative pastoral therapy aims at acquainting the student with relevant literature in the field, while providing ample opportunity for experiential learning from the volunteer work in community service in which each student is involved and regular group discussions. With the completion of a dissertation in mind, students are introduced to a research methodology that is congruent with the narrative perspective. For further information, please contact Julian Müller at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Website: www.julianmuller.co.za

 

 

UK

 

The University of Bristol, UK

This university offers courses for therapy practitioners (or equivalent) at master's level in narrative ideas and practices in counselling, narrative ideas and practices in reflecting teams, using therapeutic documents and narrative practices in consultative supervision. Students can enrol for individual courses or join them together to form a narrative pathway through the MSc Counselling, or as part of the MEd in Counselling in Education. The university also has a thriving research centre for narratives and transformative learning and a linked doctoral programme in Narrative and life story research. The research centre puts on a wide variety of workshops and seminars each year, many of which are open to the general public, on themes linked to narrative approaches to therapy and research. The doctoral students who come from a variety of professional backgrounds, including counselling and teaching, are encouraged to develop new, collaborative ways of researching with people about their lives.

 

Further information is available at : http://www.bris.ac.uk/education/

 

 

USA

 

University of Florida, USA
Hi. In response to your call for info on training programs, I can tell you that the Counselor Education Dept. at the University of Florida (where I'm a Phd student) is very narrative-friendly. Although there are not yet any specific courses on narrative, many of the faculty are keen on it and do discuss it in class. Actually, one of them told us about your e-newsletter in class. So, if someone is looking for a solid program that includes narrative bits, but is not exclusive to any one school of thought, the University of Florida is a good place to look. Several of the faculty have also published articles on post-modern therapies of various sorts. Hope that helps! Catherine Tucker


Lesley University, Cambridge Massachusetts, USA
Narrative Therapy: Community, Therapy and Social Change
Course Description: This course explores the theory and practice of narrative therapy as a cultural perspective. Students become familiar with the basic goals, concepts, and approach of narrative practice, and the potential contributions of counseling to social change. Participants read and discuss the literature relating to the practice of narrative Therapy and the implications of the narrative perspective for counseling. They will learn about the application of Narrative practice through classroom based experiential exercises and other assignments.

 

Contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Ph: 617-349-8339 John Gearin, Assistant Director for Advising and Student Services

 

University of Oklahoma, USA
I am Marc Charney, Ph.D., LMFT, LPC. I live in Oklahoma City, OK, USA. I teach graduate courses at the University of Oklahoma in the Human Relations Department. I teach a course, 'Narrative Therapies' and several others that are informed by narrative ideas. I have attended many of Michael and David's workshops and also those given by Jeff Zimmerman, Jill Freedman, Gene Combs, Ian Law and others. I provide licensure supervision for licensed marriage and family therapists and licensed professional counselors in Oklahoma. I would like to host a narrative, peer supervision/consultation group for persons in Oklahoma. My office is centrally located and it would be a privilege to meet with and learn together with narrative - minded souls. Marc Charney 405-943-7500

 

Barry University, Adrian Dominican School of Education, Miami Shores, Florida, USA
The Counseling Department of the Adrian Dominical School of Education offers Masters and PhD. degrees. Masters degrees are offered in: School Counseling, Mental Health, Marriage and Family Therapy/Counseling, Dual program, Mental Health/Marriage and Family Therapy/Counseling. The Ph.D. degree is offered in Counseling with a Specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy. Faculty is of diverse theoretical orientations, and the Masters and Doctoral programs offer significant exposure to Narrative and Solution Focused therapies steeped in Systemic, Postmodern and Social Constructionist theory. An on-site, state of the art counseling clinic offers students the ongoing opportunity to utilize outside witness practices on reflecting teams. The program is housed in two campuses; one in Miami Shores, Florida and the other in Orlando, Florida.

 

For further information, contact:

 

Dept of Social Work, University of Vermont, USA
The curriculum and scholarship of the Department of Social Work at the University of Vermont emphasize critical social construction particularly as it informs human rights, social justice, and a strengths perspective. The social work practice curricula present students with a comparative view of modernist and post-modernist approaches, while emphasizing the latter. Narrative, ethnographic, discursive, and solution-focused approaches and the post-structural theoretical perspectives from which they are derived are infused throughout all BSW and MSW courses. Elective courses and a Final Project in the MSW Program enable students to pursue specific approaches in more depth. Two of the most popular elective courses provide students with a focused study of narrative practices: Narrative Approaches to Social Work, taught by Peggy Sax, and Brief Therapy: Innovations in Individual, Couple, Group, and Family Therapy, taught by Charlie and Diane Gottlieb. Likewise, MSW students often pursue narrative applications through their Final Projects, the Department’s approach to the University’s comprehensive exam requirement. In order to continue learning and practicing a narrative approach, a number of alumni who work in a variety of settings, participate in narrative consultation groups provided by Peggy Sax.

 

For further information, please contact Susan Roche: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or Peggy Sax: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

 

North Dakota State University Couple and Family Therapy, USA: A Feminist-Informed Social Justice Program
A 2 1/2 year M.S. program in the Department of Child Development and Family Science. Accredited by the COAMFTE. Our training focuses on Narrative Therapy, Feminist approaches, anti-racism, relational-based ethics, family play therapy, working with the LGBTQ community, and other socially just approaches to couple and family therapy. CDFS 775: Clinical Applications of Couple & Family Therapy I: Narrative therapy, Feminist, and LGBTQ theories and approaches. This course offers an introduction to socially just approaches to couple and family therapy including narrative and feminist therapies. The course also focuses on working with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered community.

 

For more information see: www.ndsu.edu/ndsu/familytherapy

 

Union Institute & University, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Brattleboro, Vermont, USA

Union Institute & University offers a Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.) program with a concentration in clinical psychology. Consistent with the university’s mission, the program has a strong commitment to diversity and social justice, and offers an optional emphasis in family psychology. Issues of diversity and multiculturalism, as well as the psychologist’s role as an agent of social change, are embed throughout the program’s curriculum.

 

The program utilises a distributed learning model including both face-to-face and online interactions, making it accessible to working adults who need to balance career, family, and other social/civic responsibilities. The program is solidly grounded in the current standards of professional psychology and attends to current and evolving professional, economic and cultural trends.

 

For more information see: www.tui.edu/psyd, contact: 802-254-0152 or email William Lax, Ph.D., ABPP ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Associate Dean, Psychology.

 

Humboldt State University, Department of Social Work, Arcata, CA, USA
The undergraduate and graduate social work programs (BA in Social Work, MSW) at Humboldt State University are guided by the following mission statement: "As a Department, we recognize that people who join us are much more than university students, and that all of us are members of the community. The relational quality between students and faculty reflects a mutual learning and educational process. The faculty is dedicated to the wellbeing of the social work students based on caring and compassion. It is important that the University and Department are seen as an integral part of the overall community fabric (economically, socially, and historically). The Department supports progressive practice that is based on peace, justice, experimentation, risk taking, inclusiveness, partnership, non-expert paradigms of relationships, and a belief in the uniqueness of each student’s own professional goals and vision of becoming the social worker they want to be." The MSW program emphasizes the following commitments: 1) practice with Native American communities, 2) rural social work, and 3) an educational foundation that includes the natural environment and activist environmental movements with peace and justice work. The BA in Social Work program emphasizes a non-expert-based paradigm and respect for multiple ways of knowing. Narrative ideas can be located across the curriculum. More about our programs can be found at: www.humboldt.edu/~swp/index.html You can contact Ronnie Swartz, the current director of the undergraduate social work program at 707.826.4562 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

 

Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, Texas, USA

We have a Masters Counseling Psychology and Marriage and Family Therapy programs, and our APA accredited program train our students from a brief postmodern perspective. We train our students in Narrative, Solution Focused, Collaborative, and MRI only. We have a live supervision training clinic and train in teams of six students with a supervisor. We utilise reflecting teams as well. We also have a second program for Marriage and Family Therapy at a satellite campus. The University website is: www.ollusa.edu, and for any enquiries please contact Bernadette H. Solorzano, PsyD, Associate Professor, phone 210) 434 1054, fax: 210) 434 1380, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

 

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