How to Read Re-Authoring the World: The Narrative Lens and Practices for Organisations, Communities and Individuals PDF
Re-authoring the World: The Narrative Lens and Practices for Organisations, Communities and Individuals, invites readers to a transformational way of being in the world. It translates the Narrative Therapy approach and practices for people outside the therapeutic context that are interested in shifting the stories of their own lives as well as the communities and organisations that they work in.The book invites readers out of docility and complacency into active participation and accountability of the worlds that they are connected to.This book provides different portals into understanding, and you can roam about in the chapters you are interested in. If you do not want to read the whole book, you can read short descriptions of the different parts at the start of each section.“Narrative approaches to learning, counselling, coaching and therapy signal a break with the traditional focus on pathology, and instead provide a powerful way in which to focus on growth and aspiration. Chené Swart has created practical ways in which this discipline is turned from concept and philosophy into practice and deeds.”The book has five parts:- Part one provides the background and context. It tells the story of how the Narrative ideas transform and inform one’s life and work, starting with one of my own stories.- Part two is the author’s description of the theory and concepts. It describes and unpacks the values and assumptions that inform the Narrative work.- Part three explores the practices and processes of the Narrative work.- Part four shows how the Narrative work is applied in coaching, leadership and consulting.- Part five delves into the transformational nature of the Narrative work.- Resource processes to make a stronger, more productive organisation.About the AuthorChené Swart is a writer, speaker and consultant for Transformations, a consulting company that provides services to small, medium and large businesses, communities, and educational institutions in South Africa, the US, Canada and the Bahamas. The company has been providing leadership development, training, diversity journeys, coaching, research, facilitation and consulting services to a diverse range of clients over the past eight years.In her work as an executive and life coach, consultant and trainer in Narrative practices, Chené co-creates transformational learning contexts and journeys. She invites and enables participants to rewrite and re-author the stories of their lives as individuals, communities and organisations where they feel stuck or trapped or where the stories they continuously tell are thin conclusions that do not honour the gifts, values and knowledges of these groups or individuals. These individual, communal and organisational alternative narratives open the possibility to write and live into a new preferred future. The key outcomes of these participative journeys are personal and communal agency, new ways of doing and being, and transformed lives.Through Transformations, Chené offers various workshops that apply Narrative practices in the contexts of leadership, stress management, consultancy, coaching, diversity work, empowerment, conflict resolution, transformation processes and teambuilding. The workshops invite participants into these ideas and practices. Because she believes in the power of this work to transform lives, Chené also trains others to facilitate these workshops.Chené was born and raised by the ocean in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. She completed her doctoral degree in Practical Theology, specialising in pastoral therapy at the University of South Africa in 2006. She now resides in Pretoria.To learn how to bring Transformation’s workshops, coaching and consulting to your location, visit our website at www.transformations.co.za. You can reach Chené at chene@transformations.co.za.
