CYCWAM conference June 2023
How much fire do you have: creating meaningful conversations through metaphors with youth
Presenters: Swati Bhatt and Olga Shmelova
Summary:
The dominating psychiatric approach in mental health field has created a discourse that threatens youth’s identity. The clinical approach to mental health struggles tends to avoid helping youth to make sense of their experiences and responses to them; rather it rushes to provide diagnosis that become internalized labels in youth’s minds and can confuse them. Those diagnosis take over youth’s identity and become the barriers in achieving psychological wellness. In this workshop we will explore how using metaphors can help to shift away from a depersonalizing clinical approach and de-construct the youth’s perception of themselves. The attendees will have an opportunity to explore and experience an alternative approach to learning youth’s life stories.
