Presenter:
Ottar Ness, cand. polit, family therapist at Trondheim Family Counselling Office,
and PhD cand. Taos Institue-Tilburg University PhD Program

Join Ottar in his presentation of his PhD research where Norwegian Family Therapists will develop and optimize the therapeutic use of Johnella Bird’s conversational practices in couples counseling. He will introduce you to the practices of this renowned New Zealand therapist, who has developed a collaborative, linguistically-oriented, and resource-focused therapy out of the Narrative Therapy tradition. She teaches that therapeutic politics, where collaborative meaning making is central, helps to circumvent the potential for therapists imposing their meanings on clients. This involves inviting clients into what she calls a “relational consciousness”, to help them move beyond either/or thinking when that creates problems in relationships. The research focuses on the experiences of family therapists through all phases of learning Bird’s practices, up to an including learning from client feedback.