Narrative Training Program
The NTI training program includes a variety of courses that people can take individually as part of a certificate program, or to further nurture a relationship with the Narrative Worldview. Each course helps participants grow their understandings of the Narrative Worldview and its implications in various helping contexts. The training progression is designed to help people develop their narrative skills through practice, more practice, and more practice.
Our courses are highly intimate and supportive learning environments. Learning is made available through transcripts, videos, live demonstrations, and experiential exercises. We cannot wait to stand alongside your ongoing interest and commitment to the Narrative Worldview, narrative therapy and social justice!
What Is Narrative Therapy? (1 day)
Focus: Narrative Worldview and Practice Examples
Description: This training is for people who are interested in learning about the radically respectful and collaborative approach to helping called “narrative therapy.” You will come away with a beginning understanding of the Narrative Worldview and its social justice orientation. Examples of narrative therapy are shared to demonstrate how the worldview can be put into practice. From this day, you will have a good sense of whether pursuing further narrative training is appealing to you.
Next offering:
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Friday, April 4, 2025; learn more here
Narrative Therapy in Practice (2 Days)
Focus: Externalizing and Re-authoring Narrative Practice
Description: This skill-based, two-day training is for people interested in learning how narrative therapy ideas are put into practice in therapeutic settings. This course explores externalizing practices and skills in the context of deconstructing and re-authoring therapy conversations. Clinical examples and experiential exercises will help support participants’ learning. Participants can expect to learn how narrative practitioners work to help people separate their lives from problems and identify new steps they can take that fit with their hopes and values. After this course, you can further your skill development through NTI’s Narrative Certificate Program which begins annually each fall.
Next offering:
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Friday, June 6, and Saturday, June 7, 2025; learn more here
Narrative Certificate Program (September to May)
Focus: Professional Narrative Identity
Description: The year-long Narrative Certificate Program is for people interested in developing a rigorous personal understanding of the Narrative Worldview and its social justice ethics and practices. The goal of this course is to help participants establish a solid foundation for their professional identity and preferred ways of helping. Drawing from participants' personal and professional lived experiences, the course emphasizes an experiential-learning philosophy and community-building orientation. There is an expectation that participants will have had some formal introduction to the Narrative Worldview and narrative therapy practices, such as “What Is Narrative Therapy?” and “Narrative Therapy in Practice”, or the equivalents, prior to the course. This program is currently offered online. Completing this Certificate Program qualifies individuals for our one-year Next Steps and Linking Lives Programs.
Next offering: September 2025 to May 2026; registration will open in spring 2025.
Next Steps for Narrative Learning, Practice and Consultation Program (September to May)
Focus: Furthering Professional Narrative Identity, Practice, Consultation about clinical work
Description: The year-long Next Steps Program is for people interested in nourishing their narrative practitioner identity and preferred ways of helping by building on the Certificate Program. Next Steps offers more exposure to the ideas that inform the Narrative Worldview, with particular attention to practicing skills and consultation on your clinical practice. Like the Certificate Program, Next Steps draws from participants' personal and professional lived experiences, emphasizing a peer experiential-learning philosophy, conversational teaching style, and community-building orientation. Completion of a year-long narrative training program or an equivalent and a current clinical practice as a narrative therapist, in any setting, are required for registration.
Next offering: TBD
Linking Therapists' Lives Through Shared Practice: A Narrative Consultation Group (September to June)
Focus: Building Community around Shared Purposes and Values in relationship to clinical work
Description: The year-long Linking Lives Program is for people interested in building community around shared purposes and values, informed by the Narrative Worldview, with a focus on presenting and witnessing one another’s clinical work. Participants will be invited to present a piece of a conversation (through video, audio, transcript, notes). Narrative practices and ethics will inform how we witness and reflect on one another’s work. The intention is to witness the therapist (not the client) in the context of their work and privilege what matters to the therapist. Completion of a year-long narrative training program or an equivalent and a current clinical practice as a narrative therapist, in any setting, are required for registration.
Next offering: Fall 2025; registration will open in spring 2025.