Re-Dreaming Healing through Narrative and Story
Lecture and Workshop with Visiting Scholar Catherine Olweny
* Wednesday, July 15 | 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm PDT
Join us at Commonweal or on Zoom
$20 suggested donation, no one turned away
___
Bringing with her the traditional Aboriginal practices of dadirri—a sacred practice of deep listening, reflection, stillness, and connection to the land—and yarning—a conversational practice used by indigenous Australians to share knowledge, stories, and culture—Catherine Olweny will talk about ways that art and narrative techniques allow difficult experiences to be shared. Catherine has been using narrative therapy with doctors and other healthcare workers to help them describe the unique experiences and challenges faced in remaining empathetic and whole-person focused in today’s healthcare system. In this workshop, Catherine will share the work she is discovering and building upon during a 45-minute lecture. Following that, she will lead us in a short experience of narrative therapy, in which we can begin to explore and repair our own stories of illness and healthcare. | Image credit: AdobeStock
___
Dr. Catherine Olweny is Commonweal New School’s Visiting Scholar in July 2026. She is a consultant paediatric anaesthetist at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, where she has worked since 2009. She has special interest in the prevention and management of procedural anxiety and distress and the prevention of medical trauma. She incorporates hypnosis, Visual Thinking Strategies, the humanities, narrative, and the imagination into her work, which has allowed her to shift the way she teaches language and communication in healthcare contexts.
Catherine studied medicine at Flinders University of South Australia. She was awarded Fellowship of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) in 2009 and Associate Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators (RACMA) in 2023. She has a Master of Arts, French Studies, and a Master of Counselling. In 2017 Catherine trained in hypnosis in Paris, eventually completing a diploma in clinical hypnosis at the South Australian Society of Hypnosis in 2018. She has since incorporated hypnosis based advanced communication into her everyday practice as an anaesthetist. She practices as a registered counsellor and clinical hypnotherapist, providing therapy to paediatric patients with chronic pain, anxiety and emotional regulation challenges. She also provides supportive counselling and hypnotherapy to senior medical sta[, international medical graduates, doctors in training and medical students. More recently Catherine trained as a Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) facilitator and coach. Her interest in VTS stemmed from a search for experiential methods to build clinician tolerance for uncertainty.