Journal Potuguese Release - February 2024 - Flipbook - Page 9
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attentive to the practices of power that oppress people and communities, our
practices are guided by an ethics of collaboration. Breaking the conventionality of
traditional therapies, narrative therapy revealed itself as a set of transformative
practices promoting liberation from forms of oppression that restrict possibilities
of existing with dignity. If we extended this article to include collective narrative
practices, we would have, in this sense, a variety of projects, innovative
methodologies and transformative practices.
I conclude by expressing gratitude not only to our masters who came to share
their experiences with us, but also, and especially, to the Brazilian professionals
who promoted our access to courses and workshops on therapy and other
narrative practices. I can't help but mention Maria Ângela Teixeira again, who
organized the first courses and workshops in 2005, introducing us to many
creative and inspiring narrative therapists that we would not have met, if it
weren't for her desire to expand these practices in Brazil. Such desire was shared
by some institutions such as INTERFACI (São Paulo-SP), Recycling Minds (Rio de
Janeiro-RJ), and Crescent (Vitória-ES). Through this article, I tried to honor them
by highlighting some of their contributions. As White and Epston (1992) wished,
our Brazilian narrative therapy culture has managed to keep the spirit of
adventure and, I believe, we have managed to enrich our lives and the lives of
others who have sought our help.
From the first islands of narrative therapy in our country, we built archipelagos
and today we can speak of a continent that offers us a support platform to create
and move forward, in our more than 20 years dedicated to learning and practicing
narrative therapy. I want to finish by highlighting that narrative therapy defined a
new identity for practitioners who embraced its purposes and ventured to delve
into a new conception of therapy. A practice that, far beyond the psi world, allows
us to stand against social injustices and abuses of power, as well as to resist
practices that subjugate identities, relationships and lives. But, above all,
narrative therapy helps to keep burning [...] “the flame of hope that lights up our
actions and fuels our belief that new and preferred worlds will always be possible,
in light of preferred and extraordinary stories that every person has. We just have
to build the scaffolding”. (Grandesso, 2008, p. 117)
Editors’ Note
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, February 2024 Release
www.journalnft.com