Background
Dr Stephen Madigan holds two Masters Degrees in Counseling (MSW, MSc) and a Doctorate Degree in Couple and Family Therapy.
Stephen is the recipient of numerous academic and therapeutic awards, teaches narrative therapy workshops worldwide, and is the youngest Canadian to receive a PhD in Couple and Family Therapy.
After completing his Doctoral Studies in Marriage and Family Therapy in the USA, Stephen returned to Canada to open the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy through Yaletown Family Therapy during the Spring of 1992. His YFT clinic was the first Narrative Therapy Training facility in the Northern Hemisphere.
Stephen has apprenticed, worked and written alongside a number of the world's most innovative therapists. He continues to publish widely and travels to teach professional workshops to therapist’s, psychologists, nurses and psychiatrists in many countries around the world (see workshop schedule). His narrative therapy work and practice ideas are regularly quoted in a wide variety of international publications and books.
Stephen is a lifetime member of Family Mediation Canada, a Supervisor for the Canadian / American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT), sits on the Scientific Committee for the International Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (IFTA), a member of the American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA), a faculty member of the Taos Institute and Tilberg University in the Netherlands, and a long time Advisory Board member to Australia's Dulwich Centre International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work.
Stephen has recently written the new primer on Narrative Therapy for the for the American Psychological Association (APA), along with a 'live session' set of six DVD's highlighting his narrative therapy work. His past 'live' narrative therapy demonstrations for the international video series ‘Family Therapy with the Experts’ were the highest selling video tapes of all time and - these are currently studied by thousands of psychotherapists and students worldwide.
Stephen's therapeutic experience includes working as the (exclusive) contracted therapist for Vancouver’s Hollywood North Film and Television Industry’s 5,000 union members, actors and directors for 13 years. In addition, he has also consulted to and practiced with numerous school boards and universities, torture and trauma centre's, alcohol and drug treatment centre's, child and youth care facilities, government mental health agencies, AIDS and HIV programs, legal and financial firms, executive health centres and with numerous inpatient eating disorder programs across North America.
Stephen recently took five months out of his schedule to hire and train the Housing First ACT Team for the Mental Health Commission of Canada's new $110 million research project researching the relationships between homelessness, urban mental health and alcohol and drugs.
Stephen's therapy is resource focused, resolution based and offers long term healthy results. Your individual, family and couple concerns are in very experienced hands. (see references)