Cultivating Healing Conversations: GHC at the Therapeutic Conversations Conference 23

In early October, the Gender Health Center was honored to participate in the Therapeutic Conversations Conference 23 held by the Vancouver School of Narrative Therapy right here in Sacramento, California. This international gathering of narrative community workers and practitioners was a vibrant convergence of healing, skill-sharing, and community care.

With presenters from across the globe, each workshop was intentionally designed to be interactive, skill-based, and grounded in practice. Attendees didn’t just learn about narrative approaches to healing and community work, they experienced it in real time. The sessions brought theory to life through storytelling, music, narrative letter poetry, reflection, and connection, centering the lived experiences of both facilitators and participants.

At the heart of the conference was a narrative principle that deeply resonates with our work at GHC:

“The person is not the problem, the problem is the problem.”

This understanding invites community members to see themselves beyond the challenges they face and to create pathways for healing that acknowledge the influences of space, place, and history.

A picture of the people attending the International Narrative Therapy Conference and engaging with the GHC staff panel.

The GHC team had the honor to present the history of the GHC and our anti-oppressive, narrative-based mental health training program, which forms an important component of our community-defined evidence-based practices (CDEP). We were also overjoyed to reconnect with former trainees, now practitioners, who continue to carry forward the values of healing justice and collective care in their work.

Original artwork by Rebecca Huval (@goodenoughsketching) of GHC's panel speakers (Charlie, Ari, and Dr. Malakai) with the following quote: "What we're trying to do is give people the creativity to create new worlds, and when you're given love it's easy to do that."

Leaving the conference, we felt renewed in our commitment to serve, listen, and co-create spaces of healing and joy. At GHC, we remain devoted to cultivating therapeutic conversations that honor identities, resist oppression, and center love in action because healing happens in community, and liberation grows through connection.