Life Story and Case Study Symposium
February 18th 2011
8.45 am – 4.30 pm | Massey University,Turitea Campus
Speakers Biography
Rachel Selby
School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work
Massey University
Rachael Selby, Ngati Raukawa and Ngati Pareraukawa, is an oral history researcher and chair of the National Oral
History Association of New Zealand. She has been recording Maori women's stories for the past two decades,
memories of life in the 20th century, of activities which past generations undertook on a daily basis which are now
seldom undertaken. She has encouraged younger people to interview their grandparents and to ensure that the
recordings are high quality and archived for future generations and researchers. Rachael is a kaiawhina at te
Wananga-o-Raukawa and a senior lecturer at Massey University. She co-edited a collection of papers for the
National Oral History Association in 2005: Maori and Oral History. In 2010 she co-edited Maori and the
Environment: Kaitiaki published by Huia Publishers. Rachael is a senior lecturer at Massey University.
Andy Lock
School of Psychology
Massey University
Andy Lock was born in obscurity at 7lb 3oz, of Welsh, Irish, Dutch and English descent. His childhood ambition was
to be a first-class cricketer, but he ended up at university where he studied Chemistry, Botany and Zoology,
somehow emerging with a degree in Psychology. This intellectual pedigree probably explains his antipathy to
post-modernism and things of such ilk, like social constructionism. He is a registered kunekune breeder, and his
current ambition is to get a potato-cut into the Tate Gallery.
John McLeod
John McLeod is Emeritus Professor of Counselling at the University of Abertay Dundee, Scotland. He is the author of
An Introduction to Counselling (4th ed., Open University Press, 2009), Case Study Research: in Counselling and
Psychotherapy (Sage, 2010), and Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy (with Mick Cooper, Sage, 2010), as well
as books and articles on wide range of issues in counselling and psychotherapy. He is committed to the
development of culturally-sensitive, pluralistic and flexible approaches to counselling, and to the value of research
and systematic inquiry as a means of enhancing practice.
David Epston
David Epston studied at the universities of Auckland, British Columbia, Edinburgh and Warwick in anthropology,
community development and social work (family therapy). He originated, along with Michael White, what has
come to be known as narrative therapy. He has published extensively on the subject and his best known books
are:
White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends, which has been translated in to 12 languages;
Epston, D., & White, M. (1992). Experience, Contradiction, Narrative and Imagination;
Freeman, J., Epston, D., & Lobovits, D. (1997). Playful Approaches to Serious Problems: Narrative Therapy with
Children and their Families;
Maisel, R., Epston, D., & Borden, A. (2004). Biting the Hand that Starves You: Inspiring Resistance to
Anorexia/Bulimia.
Down Under and Up Over: Travels with Narrative Therapy was released in 2008 along with book chapters in the
Sage Handbook of New Approaches to Business and Organizations and Critical Feminist Approaches to Disordered
Eating.
David was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (D.Litt.) in 1996 from John F. Kennedy University and
the special award for 'Distinguished Contribution to Family Therapy' from the Australian and New Zealand Journal
of Family Therapy (2002) and 'Distinguished Contribution to Family Therapy Theory and Practice' from the
American Family Therapy Association (2007).