Your Life, Your Story

Keynote Breakfast with Dan Gediman, Executive Producer, This I Believe
Thursday, May 23, 2013, 8:00 am - 10:00 am - Harre Union/Valparaiso University

Your attendance today supports mental health programs benefiting the Northwest Indiana Community.

What do you believe?
The 4th Annual Living Health, Balance & Hope Symposium, Northwest Indiana's largest mental health conference, will help you tap into your answer! Using the inspirational power of storytelling, breakfast keynote presenter Dan Gediman, Executive Producer of the popular radio/web/book series, This I Believe, walks you through a step-by-step process exploring a central belief or core value that guides your daily life. This year, Porter-Starke Services brings This I Believe to our community, naming it the "The Inspiration Project." By participating, your story joins thousands of other essays written by people, both famous and unknown, from around the world. A day designed to motivate and inspire!

Narrative Therapy Workshop: Engaging with Life Stories
Presented by Jill Freedman, MSW - 10:30am - 5:30pm
Narrative therapy is based in the notion that we make meaning of our lives through stories. We actively construct our particular paths through these stories as we interact with others and deal with everyday life. When people come to therapy feeling restricted by these stories, our work involves facilitating the experience of other possibilities. Narrative therapy helps people develop alternative stories that are more empowering, more satisfying, and offer hope. Through discussion, demonstration and exercises, today's session covers:

• Thinking in terms of the narrative metaphor
• A brief consideration of post-structuralism and its implications for therapy
• The role of socio-cultural discourses in problems people bring to therapy
• Engaging in externalizing conversations
• Asking questions that invite experiential involvement in preferred life narratives
• Weaving between action and meaning-making in our questions
• The use of documents in thickening preferred stories and including others
• The importance of community and insider knowledge in developing and supporting preferred stories

Register by Wednesday, May 15! Free & Instant Online Registration at www.porterstarke.org

• Full Day Conference, 8:00 am - 5:30 pm, $125
  • Keynote Breakfast + Lunch + Narrative Therapy Workshop
• Partial Conference, 10:30 am - 5:30 pm, $100
  • Narrative Therapy Workshop + Lunch
• Keynote Breakfast, 8:00 am - 10:00 pm, $35