Re-embracing the Spirt of Adventure: Pedagogy, Stories and Contemporary Narrative Practice with Dr Travis Heath

In this episode we talk with Dr Travis Heath and discuss the book “Reimagining Narrative Therapy Through Practice Stories and Autoethnography by Travis Heath, Tom Carlson and David Epston.

The heart of the book is a re embracing of the spirits of narrative practice through the teaching and learning of this approach. Travis invites us to explore the essence of the model through autoethnography, practice & teaching stories It’s a deep dive into the core of its inventive origins from dedicated practitioners.

Travis is a licensed psychologist and is an Associate Professor at San Diego State University, where he serves as Chair of the Department of Counseling & School Psychology. Past work he’s been involved with looked at shifting from a multicultural approach to counseling to one of cultural democracy that invites people to heal in mediums that are culturally near. 

His most recent work involves incorporating the work of Black abolitionist scholars into psychotherapy, community healing, and uprising. His writing has 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, a co-created questioning practice called reunion questions, and community healing strategies. 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.” The book is part of the “Writing Lives” series with Routledge publishing. Travis has been fortunate to facilitate workshops and speak in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, India, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States.