Collective narrative practices

in response to trauma

David DenboroughDulwich Centre Foundation

• Welcome

• Introducing key principles throughexample of working with an individual in anisolated context – how can collectivenarrative practices be used in this context?

• Collective documentation of skills andknowledges

• Linking storylines and songlines

• Tree of Life: an approach to working withvulnerable children

Key principles:

• To find a way to richly acknowledge thereal effects of the hardship/abuse

• To listen for double-storied accounts –storyline of hardship AND storyline of whatpeople give value to (responses tohardship, skills and knowledge)

• To link lives and experiences to some sortof collective

• To enable individuals, groups,communities to make a contribution to thelives of others

Nine years old, nine years young

Nine years old

Nine years young

First locked up in a boys’ home

40 years on

Looking back now

I don’t know how that kid survived

Was just life at nine

Just had to adapt

Just had to cope

Find ways to get by in the institution

They did things to him

He did not want to do

He knew it was wrong

He knew it then

When he was nine years old

Nine years young

First locked up in a boys’ home

40 years on

Looking back now

I don’t know how that kid survived

Was just life at nine

He knew he had to keep it quiet

Make sure his parents did not know

But 40 years on it’s time for speaking

He knows

• To conceive of the person/people meetingwith us as representing a social issue

• To enable the person/people to join acollective endeavour in addressing, insome local way, this social issue

• To enable people to speak through us notjust to us

1. The name of a special skill, knowledge,practice or value that gets you or your familythrough hard times

2. A story about this skill, knowledge, practice orvalue, a time it made a difference to you orothers

3. The history of this skill, knowledge, practice orvalue: how long has this been with you, whodid you learn it from/with?

4. Is this linked in some way to collectivetraditions (familial/community) and/or culturaltraditions? Are their proverbs, sayings,stories, songs, images from your family,community and/or culture with which theseskills and knowledges are linked?

Ibuka: ‘Remember’National association of genocide

survivors in Rwanda

KaboyiBenoit

‘the invention of unity in diversity’Paulo Freire (1994, p.157)

Pedagogy of hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the oppressed.

New York: Continuum.

‘communitas’ Victor Turner

a shared sense of unity amongindividuals which …

‘preserve individual distinctiveness’

‘is not a merging in fantasy’

do not depend on ‘in-group versus out-group’ opposition

Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure.New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Producing and documenting a ‘socialmemory’ of resistance and sustenance:

‘They will remember that we were soldbut they won’t remember that we were

strong. They will remember that wewere bought, but not that we were

brave’

William Prescott

• Listening for the shared values,the self-transcending ideals, thatare implicit within survivors’expressions of anguish

• Noticing and acknowledgingways in which survivors havecarried on these ideals

• Making it possible forsurvivors to name theseshared ideals

• Inviting survivors to tell storiesabout the social histories of theseideals, where they come from,and with whom they are shared

• Creating contexts in whichsurvivors can contribute to theperpetuation of these sharedideals

Yia Marra: Good stories

that make spirits strong

The Tree of Lifenarrative

approach: bornfrom a

collaborationbetween REPSSI

and DulwichCentre Foundation

and betweenNcazelo Ncube &

David Denborough

Key principles:

* ‘Riverbank’ position* People always respond* Implicit in responses are skills,abilities and special knowledges* There is always a social history tothese* Rich story development

Part One- Drawing a Tree of Life

- Riverbank position

Roots: Where we come from– rich textual heritage

Ground:Where we live, what we do each day

Trunk: Our skills, values- what people value/care about

- think collectively- through the eyes of others

- trace the histories- rich stories

BranchesOur hopes, dreams & wishes

- combination of big hopes andsmaller

- self, family, community- hopes have a history (trace them!)

Leaves: Those who are specialto us

- Alive or no longer living

FruitsWhat those special people have

given to us

SeedsGifts we wish to give to others

Part Two: Forest of life- Moving from individual to

collective

Part Three: The storms of life- Collective disclosure

- Externalising the problem

Part Four: Celebration,certificates & song

Enabling contribution

Dulwich Centre Foundation

www.dulwichcentre.com.au

dulwich@dulwichcentre.com.au

www.narrativetherapylibrary.com

Find us on Facebook