Elizabeth Buckley, LICSW, facilitates this narrative therapy training.
Days: 5 Fridays monthly in 2026: 2.27, 3.27, 5.1, 5.22, 6.12
CEs: 15 for eligible participants
Time: 9:30 am to 12:45 pm Eastern Time convert to your time Zone here
Location: Live in Burlington and simultaneously live on Zoom
Narrative Therapy: Expanding What’s Possible in Practice
DESCRIPTION:
Participants will explore more fully the complex and practice enriching ideas of narrative therapy. We require that participants have some exposure to narrative therapy ideas so we can strengthen your current practices, building on your knowledge base.
Each class includes discussing key ideas, demonstrating practices so students can learn in a granular way, then inviting participants to practice techniques so they can more fully implement the concepts in their work. Practice will include those that are helpful in working with children, adolescents, and adults in both individual and family work.
We will explore together what’s possible when implementing the following narrative therapy practices: remembering, the failure conversations map, stuffed consultant work, therapeutic documents, re-authoring and outsider witness practices. You will expand and deepen your current practice, building knowledge to support your work. We will utilize readings, class discussion and many experiential exercises to make this an interactive and revitalizing class.
Our meetings will include special focus on how narrative ideas connect to social justice initiatives and anti-racism work, in particular. A minimum of three hours will be spent focusing on anti-discriminatory and anti-racist narrative therapy practices.
Elizabeth Buckley, LICSW
Instructor: Elizabeth Buckley, LICSW(she/her) is a social worker and family therapist with more than 25 years of working with children and families. Betsy is a professor at Salem State School of Social Work supporting students as they do their internships. She also consults to mental health and child protection agencies. Betsy specializes in using narrative therapy and helping supervisees and agencies think through strengths based, solution focused, safety organized practice. She has an independent practice in North Andover, MA. Betsy has been teaching about narrative therapy in academic, post-graduate, workshops, and community-based settings since 1998..
Statement of Need:
Many practitioners have been introduced to narrative therapy and are drawn to its focus on collaboration and meaning making with the people we serve. A brief introduction to narrative ideas is generally not enough for people to feel confident putting these ideas into practice in a robust way. This narrative therapy training course will take introductory ideas and expand on them to enhance your practice.
Learning Objectives for the Narrative Therapy Course: Expanding What’s Possible in Practice
interviewing practices and demonstrate these in class with their colleagues
2) Participants will be able to articulate the theoretical underpinnings of the Narrative approach as they influence the practice of therapy.
3) Participants will describe three ways they will integrate Narrative therapy approaches in
their current practice and develop a plan to sustain these changes.
4) Participants will identify how their cultural beliefs and context interact with people
who are different from them and create techniques for being in accountable
cross-cultural practice, including anti-racism work.
5) Participants will be able to describe how they will further align their practice more
closely with their preferred values.
6) Participants will demonstrate how they can help those they serve to examine
and deconstruct failures in their lives to enhance understanding of their values.
Target Audience
This training is designed for helping professionals interested in the principles and practices of narrative therapy, including, but not limited to, social workers, mental health counselors, and marriage & family therapists. The program serves the needs of helping professionals with little to a moderate amount of formal narrative therapy training who are interested in deepening their knowledge, enhancing capacities for providing therapy, consultation, supervision, teaching, training, and administrative roles.
Cost
- Registration: The cost for individual registration $395. Early registration is $360. February 7, 2026 is the early registration deadline. Payment plans are available.
- CEs: additional cost of $40 for eligible professions. Complete CE information below.
- Black Therapists Rock and all BIPOC clinicians are eligible for an equity discount of 25% by using the code EQUITY in the online registration form. NEAFAST Members are eligible for a 15% discount using the code NEAFAST.
- Please note: you must register for the narrative course as a whole to maintain the integrity of the learning group.
- Contact us for more information.
Additional Information
Participants MUST attend 100% of the program to earn the 15 CEs approved for social workers, mental health counselors and marriage and family therapists:
- Therapy Training Boston is approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6707 for Mental Health Counselors. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Therapy Training Boston is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
- Application for social work continuing education credits has been submitted. Please contact us at Therapy Training Boston for the status of social work CEU accreditation.
- This activity has been certified by the New England Association for Family and Systemic Therapy, Inc., for professional continuing education. Certification #214541496-B (In person) and #214541496-A (Zoom)
- Check with your state board to see if our CE approvals work for your license.
- Read detailed information about CEs.
No refunds are available for cancellations by participants regardless of the reason or time frame. If participants cancel 30 days or more prior to the event beginning, they may apply the fee to a future program. Workshops may be cancelled by Therapy Training Boston if minimum enrollment requirements are not met or in the case of other unexpected circumstances. If this occurs, a full refund will be provided.
Commercial support and conflicts of interest: There is no commercial support for this program.
Appreciation from Past Participants of Betsy’s Narrative Therapy Training Course
“As always, I find the TTB trainings to be of higher quality than other trainings. I particularly enjoyed the extended, every other week format of this training. It was a great break from the regular work day routine. I felt the participants were thoughtful and enhanced the workshop. Excellent training! Thank you!” -Kim Waggoner, LICSW
“Appreciated this workshop and the mini-community that was formed.” -Kate Elliott Mayers, LICSW
“This was so fantastic! The experiential part of this course was super helpful and I do feel I’ve learned valuable new skills to employ in my practice..” -Amanda Reed, LMHC
“The course was very helpful and engaging. The instructor was interesting and knowledgeable about Narrative Therapy. Course participants added to the discussion through role play and discussion and small group exercises. Narrative therapy theory is unique and complex. Although I have participated in other courses on this topic, I learned additional information in this class. Future courses could build and expand on this material..” -Amy Michaels, LMFT
“I appreciated the content of the training as well as the group of people who attended. It was nice to connect with others in the field and learn from them. Betsy is very knowledgeable about the content, and she is a good teacher. ” -Charyti Reiter,LICSW
“Big appreciation to Elizabeth for embodying the frameworks of narrative therapy in the teaching process.” Maddox Sprengel, LICSW