Webinar Recording: Brief Narrative Interventions in Outreach and Crisis Settings
For Community Social Services
Frontline and healthcare workers regularly encounter clients facing deeply rooted challenges like substance use, mental illness, and trauma. Under pressure, even the most ethical and skilled professionals may unknowingly fall into blame-based thinking, which can damage trust and reduce the effectiveness of care.
This webinar offers a practical, strengths-based alternative: narrative therapy’s concept of externalization, which teaches us to separate the person from the problem. Drawing on real-world examples, Brian will show you how to apply this approach in your daily practice—building stronger, more collaborative relationships with clients and improving health outcomes.
By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Describe the core principles of narrative therapy, including the concept of externalization.
- Apply the externalization technique to real-world healthcare and outreach scenarios.
- Strengthen therapeutic relationships by shifting from a blame-based lens to a collaborative, client-centered approach.
- Recognize how narrative therapy can support ethical, strengths-based responses to complex challenges like substance use, depression, and the opioid crisis.
About the presenter
Brian Dean Williams is a registered clinical counsellor and approved clinical supervisor. Brian has worked on the frontlines for 28 years with folks struggling with mental health, substance use, housing, and marginalization. He has worked in the downtown eastside in Vancouver, and in small First Nations (Indigenous) communities. Brian’s main modalities are narrative therapy and Buddhist psychology, although he also draws from other collaborative forms of counselling and community work. He has taught at Correctional Services of Canada, Raincity Housing, Vancouver Coastal Health, the Kitasoo Xai’xais First Nation, and many more. Brian lives on the traditiona