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In my current practice accompanying practitioners (in diverse fields of practice like filmmaking, therapeutic, research, writing, theatre etc) we are enjoying being part of co-creating practices that respond to the body-earth-mind split.

Investigating with people how bodies have and continue to be placed on a hierarchy - to whose benefit? And to what ends? Within this examining how the privileging of human bodies (and within this so many more divisive ways of ranking human bodies) can forcibly disappear more-than-human figures from community.

Intentionally making space and practices of welcome to more-than-human figures.

“The absolute distinction between the natural and the human that is so central to Western ways of thinking leaves no room for other-than-human beings to figure as protagonists in history or politics; at best, they can be treated as inert elements in particular ecological settings”

Amitav Gosh (2021)

The Nutmeg’s curse: Parables for a planet in crisis

I’m in awe of the tender moments in practice witnessing people re-appear treasured relationships with neighbouring bodies that have otherwise been excluded.

With filmmaking students we do this exercise of inviting a more-than-human figure who is present in the story to be invited into conversation. Refusing the role for more-than-human figures as ‘scenery’ or ‘place on which story is told’, filmmakers share how this has a significant impact on understanding decolonial possibilities for practice. They also share a sense of relief from lonely, individualised positions as they exchange and welcome more-than-human figures in as collaborators and guides.

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Il Condominio: Integrating Narrative Therapy and Somatic Practices. 

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Il Condominio: Integrating Narrative Therapy and Somatic Practices. 

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Hello everyone! I feel honored to be in conversation with you all in this space, intentionally designed for collaboratively opening up, exploring, co-creating, and re-authoring. Entering this space affects my physiology, thoughts, emotions, and writing. When I step into my own therapy room, my hope is to re-create a similar space for my clients.

In my private practice, I serve a diverse population, which often includes individuals who, like me, migrated to the U.S. from Italy or Europe. They reach out because of our shared cultural background, as they navigate various stages of their "migration of identity" (White, M. 2002). These clients may be experiencing guilt for leaving their family of origin and aging parents. They may be exploring past traumas for the first time, discovering how these experiences affect their current relationships. They might find themselves alone and isolated in a place where they do not yet speak the language, have not established a professional identity, or struggle to make friends and a new community. Some are navigating divorce, parenting alone, or dealing with a lack of adequate support. Many are women seeking empowerment. Whatever stage of their migration process they are in, they often arrive with confusion, despair, doubt, fears, and anxiety.

For the past five years, I have intentionally focused on integrating Narrative Therapy with somatic practices, primarily EMDR, IFS, and Brainspotting. I’ve found that bringing awareness to the body can be a powerful ally in navigating complex situations. Becoming aware of our bodies is a journey in itself—not as obvious as it may seem. Yet, focusing on strengths often feels accessible to most clients and, unsurprisingly, leaves them feeling empowered and hopeful. Some questions I might ask include:

Would it be okay if we took a minute to stay with what you just said? [After the client casually mentions a unique outcome or exception]

If it feels safe, close your eyes and notice: what comes up when you reflect on that?

What emotions or sensations are you noticing?

Where are you noticing them in your body?

While continuing to notice, please add a butterfly hug until the emotions or sensations no longer intensify.

Another practice I find exciting and helpful is integrating parts language in a narrative way. I see this as another method of externalizing, thickening the plot, and creating space for a multiplicity of identities.

In one session with an Italian client, she began referring to her parts using the Italian word il condominio (the condominium, where spaces are shared, needs are negotiated, and decisions are made together). As she was navigating tough choices, while dealing with uncomfortable emotions, and painful memories, the metaphor of the condominio brought shared laughter, a sense of humor, and lightness to our conversation. The image of the condominio added warmth, familiarity, manageability, and compassion for all the parts and emotions involved. The end result was a sense of ease that didn’t diminish the complexity of her situation but instead made it more accessible.

Since then, when appropriate, I’ve been using the metaphor of il condominio to introduce parts language to my clients. Whether or not they are Italian, many find the metaphor useful as they evaluate how getting to know their own condominio could be helpful for them.

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DALL·E 2025-01-07 19.14.17 - A lively scene of people communicating from balconies of a traditional Neapolitan condominium. The building features colorful facades with peeling pai

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Over the past few years, my practice has been doing a fair bit of relational co-therapy with couples and families. This is both an opportunity for mentoring and co-learning with other therapists and provides a unique environment for clients to have two therapists collaborating with them. For me personally, I have enjoyed this type of work with older couples who have been in a longterm partnership or marriage for a decade or more. Lately, we’ve gotten a lot of inquiries from couples looking to re-consider and re-imagine their relationship as they become parents, “empty nesters”, enter retirement, or deal with the effects of aging.

Some questions we are finding useful are:

How have their values and priorities shifted over the years since they first met?

What roles have they played in the relationship and is there interest in adopting new, more preferred roles?

What attitudes and norms have changed in the culture around them that are influencing how they think of their relationship now (i.e. living apart, “gray divorce”, ethical non-monogamy, decoloniality, etc.)

What do they want their relationship to look like now?

Co-therapy lends itself very well to Narrative reflective practices where the two therapists can turn to one another and share their wonderings in front of the clients, ask each other questions, and link lives. Additionally, I ran across articles a couple of years ago on Open Dialogue practices that has helped to clarify my intentions and practices.

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Lately, I have been reflecting on my work with autistic individuals over the last 24 years. In my current vocational instructor work, I have had a chance to witness some of the kids I worked with years ago, now very much grown. I am in awe that I get to see how someone's life in unfolding 20 years later. It has me reflecting on some of the "old perspectives" that I very much have grown out of. A lot of those old perspectives left the person out of making decisions and sometimes continues to do so. I am struck mostly by the ways that ableism and neuro-normativity have prevailed in so many spaces. I am yearning for (and working hard to create) spaces where neurodiversity is centered and honored.

Some considerations I sit with are:

Who is this space catering to?

Is this space allowing the person to be who they are OR is it inviting them to depart from who/how they are?

What is important to the person I am speaking/interacting with? How will I know?

What are the indications that the person is comfortable? What allows for greater comfort? (body comfort, context/environment/sensory comfort, mind/thinking/learning comfort, speaking/sharing ideas comfort, relationship/interaction/shared space comfort just to name a few)

When I am speaking with my therapy clients, the excitement continues to be within the conversations/interactions where their preferences get discovered, centered, or re-claimed. In reflecting, the simplest, yet most powerful questions, continue to be

What do you like about this?

What do you not like about this?

and perhaps Who is this serving/benefitting?

These questions has proven to often be the spark to agency.

*A bit on the autism infinity symbol: From https://brainwave.watch/autism-infinity-symbol/

The Symbolism Behind the Infinity Shape

The form of the infinity symbol, with its continuous loop, symbolizes cycles and connections. For many, it reflects the ongoing journey of self-discovery, learning, and growth experienced by individuals on the autism spectrum. It emphasizes the importance of understanding and accepting differences rather than viewing them as deficits.

The infinity loop conveys a sense of unity. It signifies that while experiences may vary, there is a shared connection among those who identify as autistic. This interconnectedness fosters community, empathy, and support, essential elements for individuals navigating the complexities of autism.

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"What is love? A theatre project with girls in the girl of contexts of sexual exploitation." Sabine Vermeiere

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"What is love? A theatre project with girls in the girl of contexts of sexual exploitation." Sabine Vermeiere

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'CHELSEA’S BLUES: A documentary of hope about growing up in youth care' by Danny Keuppens

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'CHELSEA’S BLUES: A documentary of hope about growing up in youth care' by Danny Keuppens

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'Genograms at the kitchen table' by Sabine Vermeire

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'Genograms at the kitchen table' by Sabine Vermeire

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The city jewel project

For years, I am on a search for what can be valuable in conversations and therapeutic journeys we have with children, adolescents but also adults who had painful, often traumatic experiences in childhood. Often they have lost connection with their bodies, their emotions and their sense of self… just as their responses have been understood in often single-storied, negative ways. The many efforts, relational involvements and so, their hard work in trying to go on often have not been recognized. Their pain and suffering often got individualized and decontextualized. They also lost connections with the important people in their lives and the communities they belong to. They get trapped in time or as some said ‘frozen’ in time (in stories of the past or present or future). Their sense of agency, belonging and coherence or continuity is lost.

How to put their experiences and stories at the center in a way that it is manageable?

How not to do over what has been done a thousand times?

And how not reproduce dominant discourses that keep them trapped in single stories and time?

How to invite them from the very start as active participants, co-researchers, co-directors of our journeys and becoming a ‘collective investigate and learning community’?

Serious playfulness and playful seriousness off the beaten track proved to be a particularly valuable antidote to dominant discourses of how one should deal with all these challenges and obstacles.

Using all kinds of art forms and creative ways, I try to go on a quest together with these children, youngsters in order to find new openings. We make meaning and actions fluid again, we reconnect and interweave past, present and future and facilitate new actions. The icing on the cake of such processes is that they also eventually culminate in relational and social recognition and constitute a form of social action in which peers, significant people involved and the community become linked in solidarity.This last year I got really excited by a powerful collective artwork, symbolising childhood trauma and resilience and offering vital recognition for childhood trauma survivors on journeys of recovery.

There has been created a beaded string 95 metres long at 4 metres high at an important Square in Brussels, Belgium with 650 beads made in papier machée (each one about 20cm diameter!) About 150-200 children, young people, and adults were interviewed and invited over the last year to create and put together their own mini-bead kit (a bead representing the painful experiences in the past, the grief or suffering in their lives; another bead representing their responses or ways of keep on going, skills & knowledge, wisdom to hold on to and also one bead representing their resources, team of support... or whatever they liked. All these beads were brought together and will be hung in the artwork upcoming summer. A day in October all participants, as well as carers, people involved but also politicians came together to inaugurate the artwork. A goosebump moment!

This project will be repeated for 5 years and the strength of beads will keep on growing. There is also a website were each bead, the naming of the bead and the stories linked to it can be consulted as a

kind of archive for other children, youngsters and adults. https://cityjewel.org/jewel/

During a trip to Borneo, I discovered a global tradition around beads that represents, symbolizes and

documents experiences and stories. This inspired me to use beads with youth in youth care. Bead necklaces form a lifeline, where each bead represents a multilayered story populated by people, places, encounters…. Through this path, young people can get a grip on and experience coherence through their life stories. Each important moment, both joyful and painful, is given a tangible place in their bead necklace.

Young people with traumatic pasts often feel they no longer have any influence over their own lives and relationships. When we collect beads together, step by step they regain common threads, what they want to keep close to them and what they want to leave behind- in their life story. This process not only helps to restore their “sense of agency,” but also acknowledges their efforts to survive. The layering and many facets of these stories helps them re(dis)cover a richer, multicolored identity.

Acknowledgement of their suffering is considered crucial. Noticing their experiences relationally and socially create the possibility of regaining a place in society. The City Jewel project responds to this by making visible the multifaceted stories of survivors of childhood trauma.

The City Jewel project, in which children, youth and adults with childhood trauma work together to create a work of art,

focuses on recognition. The survivors create beads that represent their pain, resilience and sources of support. These beads are not just works of art, but a kind of containers of the stories young people

carry with them. The project breaks the silence around childhood trauma and invites everyone, young and old, to participate. The message is clear: “I am not alone.” This approach emphasizes the importance of acknowledging, giving meaning and making visible again their efforts to cope and their sources of support, thus making trauma no longer the only thing that defines survivors.

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What stories are passed down from one generation to the next? How are these stories renegotiated through changing contexts? How do these stories make a home in adult children of immigrants or refugees (primary population I work with)? What gets lost, what remains, and what parts of these stories are altered when influenced by a Western gaze?

Notions of ‘acts of bravery’ have made their way into multiple conversation spaces. I’m drawn to the ways that many of the adult children of immigrants or refugees I work with are taking it upon themselves to influence the stories that have been passed down to them on more healing terms by scaffolding ‘acts of bravery’, which inevitably means different things to different people. In light of these conversations, I’ve been particularly intrigued by the tension between honoring AND disrupting the stories bestowed to us. What does it mean to honor our families and ancestors while also expanding possibilities of what it means to live life on fuller terms? What might we have to grieve? What might we recover that was once misplaced? What might we fertilize and make new? These questions lead me to appreciating our efforts in living as moments in time which connects us to our past and possible futures.

Some other questions that have been guiding my practice are:

Why is it important for you to be ‘brave’ in this way? Who else might this be important to? How might this be valuable for your lineage or ancestry?

In what ways does enacting these ‘acts of bravery’ connect you to something bigger than you, something beyond you as an individual, perhaps to something in the collective?

What might resurrecting intergenerational wealth mean to you beyond the singularity of wealth as money?

Alas, it seems I have responded to the question with more questions. Thank you Narrative Therapy for never failing to tickle my heartstrings with wonder. Looking forward to joining and being in conversation together.