Contemporary Narrative Therapy

Lindsey Hampson, D Clin Psy, is a clinical psychologist, systemic family practitioner (intermediate) and accredited UKASFP solution-focused practitioner. She has over 27 years’ experience of working as a psychologist both in the National Health Service and the private sector. Lindsey is a visiting lecturer at the Lancaster University Doctorate in Clinical Psychology training course where she lectures on narrative therapy.Chris Hoff, PhD, LMFT, is a narrative therapist, educator, and founder of the California Family Institute in Orange County, CA. He is host of The Radical Therapist podcast and teaches widely on poststructural, relational, and creative practices in therapy. His current work explores chronotopes and futuring as new resources for navigating liminal spaces and composing lives otherwise.

“Contemporary narrative therapy: Maps and methods for collaborative practice offers a timely and deeply thoughtful reimagining of narrative practice for the accelerated, fragmented, and ethically complex world in which we live. It skilfully balances rigorous, teachable frameworks with an invitation to improvisation, honoring the legacy of narrative therapy while extending it into contemporary social, technological, and institutional realities. Hampson and Hoff position their work as escaping from “one-world” methodologies and explanations by stepping into the pluriverse. With rich practice examples and a strong ethical compass, it provides both a foothold for those newer to narrative ideas and generative provocations for experienced practitioners. Above all, it stands as a unifying contribution, resisting polarizations in the field and inviting creativity and collective responsibility.This volume offers both a practical guide and an ethical invitation to collapse the tension between structure and flexibility.”Sheila McNamee, PhD, Professor Emerita, University of New Hampshire “In this welcome addition to the narrative therapy literature, Lindsey Hampson & Chris Hoff consider the influence of technology, the pressures for so-called efficiency, and global shifts that influence problems that bring people to therapy. We particularly appreciate the ideas they offer on uniting the narrative community, suggesting that we can utilize both structure and improvisation, rather than seeing them as competing ways of practice. Their work revisits and extends ways of linking lives, which is so important in moving from a focus on individuals to one on communities of mutual support. We are happy that they address the dilemmas facing many of us in maintaining a narrative worldview and practice in structuralist workplaces.”Jill Freedman & Gene Combs“This exciting book takes you on an adventurous journey facing the challenges of our current time. The many stories, maps and questions will help you to become a ‘narrative jazz player’, collaboratively and creatively responding to the struggles people bring to therapy. Equipped with narrative principles and contemporary ideas as a compass and ‘mapped improvisation’ to navigate territories of uncertainty and ambiguity, this book reclaims therapy as a vibrant, ever-evolving craft. A must read in these turbulent times.”Sabine Vermeire, narrative and systemic psychotherapist, trainer and supervisor, Interactie-academie (Belgium), The Institute of Narrative Therapy (UK) and Dulwich center, (Australia). Author of ‘Unravelling Trauma and Weaving Resilience’.“Hampson & Hoff provide a fresh relational territory for counseling incorporating philosophies that move beyond structural, and often pathologizing, topographies to create responsive and collaborative conversations that further narrative practices. A must for counselors and educators hungry for practices that are theoretically grounded and innovatively elevated.”Lorraine Hedtke MSW, ACSW, PhD, Author of Love in the Face of Grief

• 1. New Maps for Changed Terrain: Contemporary Theorists and Narrative Therapy 2. Futuring the Present :Liminal Space, Defuturing, and Scenarios in Narrative Therapy 3. Relational Identity, Emancipating Identity, and Embracing Identity Flux 4. Disrupting Hierarchies of Knowledge and Strengthening Collective Wisdom: The ‘Consulting Your Consultants’ Scaffold 5. Cogs in the Machine: Holding Onto Hope Working Within Systems 6. Working Narratively Within ‘Structuralist Regimes 7. Narrative Therapy and Standardised Assessment: How do we stay true to narrative amid classification and stratification? 8 Doors That Open, Time That Bends: A Chronotopic Approach to Narrative Practice Staying True to Narrative amid Classification and Stratification