Valuing Our Values: Short Stories of Revitalizing Traditional Work Contexts by Reclaiming Collaborative Practices

Many ideas that came out of the Galvanizing Galveston conference of 2016 centered around enlivening therapy and therapists who practice in collaborative ways using a range of therapy models. Part of the discussion involved making the value of these practices known to clients, colleagues, and administrators in settings that typically privilege more traditionally diagnostic and prescriptive practices. Often, therapists report that this experience can seem isolating and disheartening. In this article are eight brief stories from students in a doctoral family therapy program, describing their experiences and activities in bringing their collaborative approaches into traditional settings, and the positive reactions they have perceived. The authors speculate about possibilities for making these kinds of experiences and actions more widely known, with the aims of having a positive influencing in these contexts and rejuvenating our own practices.