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Reimagining Multiculturalism: A Contemporary Narrative Approach
What if, rather than focusing on presenting problems, symptoms, diagnoses and other traditional approaches to working with clients, we embraced a culturally democratic approach that invites clients to speak on behalf of their own healing? Discover how to go beyond listening and emphasizing, and learn how to collaborate with clients using their existing strengths, traditions and heritage.
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With multicultural psychology becoming increasingly prevalent in university programs, and a mandatory component of continuing education for many licensed professionals, author, educator and clinical psychologist, Travis Heath, PhD, invites us to consider that if everyone’s doing multicultural awareness, then maybe nobody’s doing multicultural awareness.

What if, rather than focusing on presenting problems, symptoms, diagnoses and other traditional approaches to working with clients, we embraced a culturally democratic approach that invites clients to speak on behalf of their own healing?

In this 3-video series featuring clinical sessions with three clients, you’ll learn how to explore the dominant stories that have shaped your clients, co-author powerful counter stories that connect clients to more than just their individual selves, and encourage clients to live a life that's in accordance with their own preferred identities. In his work with Vinodha, Beverly and Ian — all of whom are experiencing adversity — Heath demonstrates a unique blend of traditional and contemporary Narrative Therapy techniques that prioritize people over problems. You’ll see how he opens his initial sessions using questions that ask them to identify their core values, quickly getting to the heart of who they are and what brings them into the room.

Throughout the sessions key elements such as Heath’s creative use of language, unconventional use of session notes, and open authenticity are called out and elaborated upon through rich discussions and voiceover commentaries. You’ll discover a spirit of practice that you can use to help ensure your own core values are showing up in your work with clients.

In this 3-volume video series, Heath will show you how to:
  • Craft questions that privilege the client’s language, and lead to deep understanding of who the client is and what brings them to the room
  • Shift the therapeutic conversation from symptoms and suffering to one of strengths and resilience
  • Use Narrative techniques to align clients more fully with their core values and preferred identities
  • Develop counterstories that challenge repressive systems and empower clients to choose how they interact with these systems
  • Use curiosity to deconstruct problem-saturated stories, and examine how the client’s responses to problems may or may not serve them 
  • Create a culturally democratic space that honors valued aspects of culture and relationships, and invites clients to speak on behalf of their own healing

     

What therapists are saying…

“It is inspiring to watch Travis leading inquiries in to what he refers to as 'the foundations and strength of their moral character'. He eloquently demonstrates how he comes to know people as distinct from the Problems that challenge them. I believe this to be unique to Contemporary Narrative Therapy practice.”
— David Epston, Co-Originator of Narrative Therapy with Michael White
“If you are tired of therapy as usual and its ever increasing scrutiny and adoration of all things self: self-love, self-compassion, self-worth, self-care, etc., look no further. In this video series, Dr. Travis Heath demonstrates how Contemporary Narrative Therapy can help people escape from the pathologizing ways of thinking and relating to themselves, their lives, and the lives of others. Additionally, Dr. Heath challenges common ideas and approaches to multiculturalism and expertly demonstrates the decolonizing aims of Narrative Therapy.”
—Thomas Carlson, PhD, Professor & Branch Director, Alliant International University-San Diego; Editor, Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy
“Travis Heath reinvents ethnocentric, mainstream therapy. He rebels against manualized, interventionist, and normalizing therapies. Travis engages therapy from an spirited ethics that materializes through intentional storytellings. He facilitates a transformative conversational partnership with people as a context for weaving stories of healing, beginning with people's narratives about their moral character, and their responses to racisms and discriminations.”
—marcela polanco, PhD, Professor, San Diego State University
“These interventions come at a time when “therapy” may need to be rescued from quick fixes, problem-solving, coaching, advising, validating, or helping clients according to inchoate conflations of what happens in therapeutic encounters. By focusing instead on ‘the pillars that make up who they (clients) truly are.’ Travis Heath’s reimagining multiculturalism through Contemporary Narrative Therapy techniques will be useful for educators and clinicians alike. This work brings back Carl Rogers’ unique sense of empathy in a rapidly changing world.”
—Carlos M. Del Rio, PhD, Associate Professor, Bellevue University
“Travis Heath brings a multicultural perspective to his sessions. By doing so, he is able to work with clients to connect with their ancestorial heritage – including outstanding discussions about racism and how it influences a person's behaviors – to ultimately tie in self-reflection with an emphasis on the importance of asking ourselves how our backgrounds, and the stories we tell, contribute to our mental health. This volume was thought-provoking, informative, and very special to as a therapist and educator. It will benefit so many!”
—Yancy L. Cruz, Assistant Professor, Southern Illinois University
In Depth
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Disclosures
This three-volume video series offers viewers a rare opportunity to sit in session alongside Travis Heath, PhD as he guides his clients through the creative and collaborative process of re-storying. By crafting questions grounded in solidarity, curiosity, and with an acute sensitivity to their racial and cultural histories, Heath prepares viewers at all levels to appreciate the many nuances of working with clients with non-dominant identities.

Heath’s clinical demonstrations focus on three unique individuals whose histories, challenges, and stories of courage and resilience are as varied as the complex and intriguing circumstances of their lives.

In Volume 1, we meet Vinodha, a successful professional woman of Indian descent who grew up in several different countries, the result of which is a deep sense of rootlessness and marginalization. While others perceive her as strong, warm, and self-reliant, she struggles to identify and express deep and vulnerable feelings and needs, especially for connection. This conflict has made it difficult for her to feel truly “seen,” to express her preferred identity, and to live fully in a gratifying self-story. Through her work with Heath, Vinodha comes to appreciate how her strong sense of morality and spirituality have filled the gap left by her marginalized upbringing, forming the foundation of her preferred identity.

In Volume 2, we sit in on a session with Beverly, a retired African American woman who comes to Heath with no particular identified or presenting problem. Beverly has historically prided herself on intelligence, resourcefulness, and professional and interpersonal success. Yet the increasingly intimate conversation with Heath reveals the story of a person who has stood up to racism by being true to herself, even at the expense of feeling apart from others. While she has experienced what a traditional therapist might consider depression, Heath, instead, is more interested in the counter- stories that she has used to create a narrative of well-being and fulfillment.

In Volume 3, we learn about Ian, who is of Indian and Trinidadian descent, and who spent his formative years in Britain under the palpable weight of racism. Like Beverly, he presents with no ostensible problem. On an early-life trajectory to becoming a professional athlete, he sustained a severe injury and subsequent illness which robbed him of his dream. While using rugby as a way of feeling connected to others and gaining a foothold in a struggle against systemic racism, he became depressed and entertained self-destructive thoughts. Heath focuses on the strength of Ian’s character, and the courage he inherited from his ancestors, and uses incisive and creative questions to help Ian re-story his journey towards authenticity as one of perseverance, resilience, and service.

Learn the benefits of:

Conducting “wonderfulness interviews,” exercises at trying to discover who people are at their core. Rather than asking a new client the traditional question “what brings you here?” these interviews identify clients’ strengths of moral character (the root of who they really are) and the values they hold.
  • Learn who the client is, their preferred identity, and what resources they have put up against the challenges in their life
  • Mitigate pre-conceived notions or pre-existing psychiatric labels that may color how they get to know the clients
  • Clients learn that living in accordance with their core values promote good mental health
Privileging the client’s own language. Stories are the foundation of how we understand ourselves and our world, and language is at the heart of stories. By using the client's own words to dig deeper into the stories, their experiences are validated and clients are recognized as the experts in the own lives.
  • Questions, observations, and subtle plays on words can help mold powerful counter-stories
  • Seeing their own word in clinical notes rather than psychiatric language empowers clients 
Watch how Heath uses these approaches to learn about his clients and help them co-author new and representative stories. He opens his initial sessions using questions that ask clients to identify their core values. With Vinodha, Beverly and Ian, he quickly gets to the heart of who they are and what brings them into the room.

Throughout the sessions key elements such as Heath’s creative use of language, unconventional use of session notes, and open authenticity are called out and elaborated upon through rich discussions and voiceover commentaries. You’ll discover a spirit of practice that you can use to help ensure your own core values are showing up in your work with clients.

Length of Series: 5:38:54

English subtitles available

Travis Heath, PhD, is a licensed psychologist and has been in community practice for nearly two decades. His scholarship has included looking at shifting from a multicultural approach to counseling to one of cultural democracy that invites people to heal in mediums that are culturally near. Other writings have focused on the use of rap music in narrative therapy, working with persons entangled in the criminal injustice system in ways that maintain their dignity, narrative practice stories as pedagogy, and a co-created questioning practice called reunion questions. He is co-author, with David Epston and Tom Carlson, of the first book on Contemporary Narrative Therapy released in June 2022 entitled, “Reimagining Narrative Therapy Through Practice Stories and Autoethnography.” He has presented his work in 10 countries to date. 

Travis Heath was compensated for his/her/their contribution. None of his/her/their books or additional offerings are required for any of the Psychotherapy.net content. Should such materials be references, it is as an additional resource.

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