Attachment Narratives and the Art of Therapeutic Playfulness: In conversation with Sabine Vermeire

The Systemic Way

In this episode we speak with systemic and narrative psychotherapist, Sabine Vermeire who discusses in detail her approach to working with children, young people and their families and carers using an attachment narrative approach to nurture belonging and open up therapeutic possibilities. We discuss Sabine's wonderful paper "No child is an island: from attachment narratives towards a sense of belonging" (2021) and take a deeper look at her process, hearing about her approach, theory, case examples and her passion and joy for her inspiring work.
Paper reference:
Vermeire, S. (2021). No child is an island: from attachment narratives towards a sense of belonging. Journal of Family Therapy, 43(3), 414-425.
New book link:
https://amzn.eu/d/ejZxV8L

Unravelling Trauma and Weaving Resilience with Systemic and Narrative Therapy: Playful Collaborations with Children, Families and Networks (The Systemic Thinking and Practice Series)

Bio:
Sabine Vermeire has a Master’s degree in Psychological and Educational Sciences and graduated as a Systemic Psychotherapist (Interactie-Academie) and as a Narrative Therapist (Institute of Narrative Therapy). As a member of staff at the Interactie-Academie, a training center for systemic psychotherapy and counseling in Antwerp (Belgium), she works as a trainer, psychotherapist and supervisor in systemic, narrative and collaborative therapy. She is experienced in working with children, youngsters and families in challenging contexts like attachment problems, violence, abuse, psychiatric problems and trauma. She wrote several articles and book chapters on these subjects.

For more than thirty years she worked with disadvantaged children, youngsters and their families. She strongly believes in the values they hold and together with them keeps on searching for ways to go on. What challenges her is to talk and work with young people and their parents or carers without reproducing abuse or violence in the conversations and still create possibilities in a collaborative way when speaking becomes difficult. This brought her the previous years on a quest finding ways of “talking off the beaten track” and work in creative ways. She use both interviews, reflecting team processes, witnesses and footage in her work.

She is president of the Narrative, Dialogical and Collaborative Collective of The Low Lands (Belgium and The Netherlands) that organizes international conferences, workshops and other activities to share, develop and expand narrative, dialogical and collaborative practices, theory and gathering together as a community.

Sabine wrote several books and articles (in English and in Dutch). A few of them in collaborations with the children or families she works with.