Advanced: Focus

Areas of Focus

  • Narrative Strategies in Clinical Practice

    Learners will build skills that can be used for day to day clinical practice, such as eliciting and responding to stories from patients and families, counseling techniques from narrative therapy, the use of therapeutic writing, bibliotherapy, and poetry prescriptions, and narrative-based supervision groups.

  • Creative and Reflective Writing for Healthcare Providers

    Narrative-Based Medicine begins, of course, with narrative – a way of knowing based on literary practice and attention. Whether interested in fiction, memoir, poetry, essays, drama, or some new form, learners will engage in intensive practical classes and workshops where they can share their work and take it further collaboratively and with expert guidance.

  • Storytelling through the Arts and Humanities

    A variety of forms and modalities, such as movement and presence, visual arts, photography, theatre, and music will be explored in a series of exciting workshops. Gallery visits, improvisation sessions, mindfulness practice, and other immersive, practical, hands-on experiences offer a unique approach to narrative-based medicine and the opportunity to radically re-imagine healthcare practice through new ways of attending, reflecting, and creating.

  • Ethics, Equity, and Inquiry in NBM

    Expand your understanding of ethical issues in NBM, and learn narrative strategies to promote equity in healthcare, and narrative approaches to inquiry. Topics may include: narrative bioethics, narrative advocacy, and narrative in qualitative research.

Learners can focus on one area or mix and match to create their own learning path by exploring topics of interest or those most relevant to their practice. Upon completion of a total of 40 hours of electives and 20 hours of independent study work (in addition to successful completion of the Foundational Certificate), learners are eligible to receive the Advanced Certificate, which will recognize their achievement in Narrative-Based Medicine.

Note: NBM workshops, short programs, special sessions and activities may be taken as stand-alone offerings. Learners interested in applying these offerings to an Advanced Certificate must complete the Foundational Certificate in Narrative-Based Medicine in addition to meeting the requirements for the Advanced Certificate.