Photo & Portrait: Grace Gelder
Poh Lin Lee
Poh is a Chinese Malaysian Australian social worker who brings together a thoughtful and intricate practice based on her experience and knowledge as a narrative therapist, co-researcher of trauma, writer, teacher, film protagonist and creative consultant.
Poh has been engaged in therapeutic co-research with people and communities responding to themes of experience such as family and state violence, displacement (from rights, land, home, body, identity, relationships), liminality and reclaiming practices of preference and capability. Poh worked alongside people seeking asylum through the film project with Gabrielle Brady, Island of the Hungry Ghosts (2018).
Poh works alongside people engaged in creative practices, processes and projects weaving and designing narrative informed consultations and workshops to make visible possibilities in ethics, authorship, collaborative practice, audience/witness engagement and socio-political action.
Poh is a teacher for the International teaching faculty of Dulwich Centre, an honorary clinical fellow of the School of Social Work, University of Melbourne and a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Latin American Journal of Clinical Social Work. Poh is a sessional workshop facilitator for KHM Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Germany and VCA Film and Television, Australia. Poh recently mentored for the Cologne Young Filmmakers Program (2021) and Attagirl for female and non-binary filmmakers (2021).
Poh is a Chinese Malaysian Australian social worker who brings together a thoughtful and intricate practice based on her experience and knowledge as a narrative therapist, co-researcher of trauma, writer, teacher, film protagonist and creative consultant.
Poh has been engaged in therapeutic co-research with people and communities responding to themes of experience such as family and state violence, displacement (from rights, land, home, body, identity, relationships), liminality and reclaiming practices of preference and capability. Poh worked alongside people seeking asylum through the film project with Gabrielle Brady, Island of the Hungry Ghosts (2018).
Poh works alongside people engaged in creative practices, processes and projects weaving and designing narrative informed consultations and workshops to make visible possibilities in ethics, authorship, collaborative practice, audience/witness engagement and socio-political action.
Poh is a teacher for the International teaching faculty of Dulwich Centre, an honorary clinical fellow of the School of Social Work, University of Melbourne and a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Latin American Journal of Clinical Social Work. Poh is a sessional workshop facilitator for KHM Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Germany and VCA Film and Television, Australia. Poh recently mentored for the Cologne Young Filmmakers Program (2021) and Attagirl for female and non-binary filmmakers (2021).
Current Projects
Photography and Narrative Therapy
A collaboration with Grace Gelder bringing our two fields together in unique workshops. Regardless of your field of practice these workshops invite a playful and curious inquiry through the lens of timely themes.
Storying Experience Cards
A set of cards and audio exercises to engage imagination, embodied experience and storytelling. For people who are drawn towards tactile and engaged art. For people engaged in creative or therapeutic endeavours that wish to step closer to articulating and sharing lived experience through story. To read more or access the audio exercises click here.
Exchanging Moments Series
In edit.
During 2020 and in response to the strange ever-changing landscape of COVID-19 Poh began to invite practitioners (filmmakers, artists, story tellers, therapists and other creative practices) to meet briefly and intimately at the crossing of practice through short videos based on narrative therapy outsider witnessing practices. The invitation was to notice, what we connect to, where it transports us in our memories, stories, thoughts, experience and meanings in relation to our own practice. In responding we take up an active role as witness, we receive someone’s story and exploration and we also contribute back. Back and forth, across and around we go, weaving threads of community, conversation and connection.
To see more projects that Poh is currently consulting on click here.
A collaboration with Grace Gelder bringing our two fields together in unique workshops. Regardless of your field of practice these workshops invite a playful and curious inquiry through the lens of timely themes.
Storying Experience Cards
A set of cards and audio exercises to engage imagination, embodied experience and storytelling. For people who are drawn towards tactile and engaged art. For people engaged in creative or therapeutic endeavours that wish to step closer to articulating and sharing lived experience through story. To read more or access the audio exercises click here.
Exchanging Moments Series
In edit.
During 2020 and in response to the strange ever-changing landscape of COVID-19 Poh began to invite practitioners (filmmakers, artists, story tellers, therapists and other creative practices) to meet briefly and intimately at the crossing of practice through short videos based on narrative therapy outsider witnessing practices. The invitation was to notice, what we connect to, where it transports us in our memories, stories, thoughts, experience and meanings in relation to our own practice. In responding we take up an active role as witness, we receive someone’s story and exploration and we also contribute back. Back and forth, across and around we go, weaving threads of community, conversation and connection.
To see more projects that Poh is currently consulting on click here.
Publications
Lee, P.L. (2018). Narrative Practice and Sandplay: Practice-based stories of collaboration with people seeking asylum held in mandatory detention. Journal of Systemic Therapies June 2018, Vol. 37, No. 2: 1–16.
available here: https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/jsyt.2018.37.2.1
La Revista Latinoamericana de Trabajo Social Clínico
La Práctica Narrativa y la Caja de Arena: Prácticas Basadas en Historias de Colaboración con Personas que buscan asilo y que están en detención obligatoria por MNTCW, BSW. Poh Lin Lee
Lee, P. L. (2017). Narrative conversations alongside Interpreters: A locally grown outsider-witness practice. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (4), 18–27.
Danish translation by Dansk Forening for Systemisk og Narrativ Terapi og Konsultation available here section 1 & section 2
Lee, P. L. (2013). Making now precious: Working with survivors of torture and asylum seekers. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (1), 1–9.
available here: https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/jsyt.2018.37.2.1
La Revista Latinoamericana de Trabajo Social Clínico
La Práctica Narrativa y la Caja de Arena: Prácticas Basadas en Historias de Colaboración con Personas que buscan asilo y que están en detención obligatoria por MNTCW, BSW. Poh Lin Lee
Lee, P. L. (2017). Narrative conversations alongside Interpreters: A locally grown outsider-witness practice. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (4), 18–27.
Danish translation by Dansk Forening for Systemisk og Narrativ Terapi og Konsultation available here section 1 & section 2
Lee, P. L. (2013). Making now precious: Working with survivors of torture and asylum seekers. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (1), 1–9.