Looking Back on Dangerous Stories 2026
From October 1 to 3, California Family Institute hosted Dangerous Stories: A Therapy Salon at the Beckman Center in Irvine. It brought three keynotes, a full slate of workshops, art, improv and a little dancing. Here's a look back, with thanks to everyone who made it.
By California Family Institute
Three days of keynotes, workshops, art, conversation, and a little dancing at the Beckman Center in Irvine.
From Thursday, October 1 through Saturday, October 3, 2026, California Family Institute hosted Dangerous Stories: A Therapy Salon at the Beckman Center of the National Academies in Irvine. We set out to make something more than a conference: a gathering where mental health meets culture, art meets activism, and healing meets the hard questions we are often afraid to ask. Now that the rooms are quiet again, we want to look back on what we made together and thank everyone who was part of it.
Three Mornings, Three Keynotes
Each day opened at 8:30 in the Auditorium, with everyone together in one room.
- Thursday: The salon opened with Decolonial Healing. Living Otherwise. from marcela polanco, PhD, LMFT, a family therapist and professor in the MFT program at San Diego State University whose narrative and decolonial practice draws on Latin American feminist scholarship.
- Friday: Catherine Liu, a cultural critic, professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Irvine and author of Traumatized: The New Politics of Public Suffering, gave Trauma and Transference.
- Saturday: Chris Hoff, PhD, LMFT, founder of California Family Institute and creator of the Cultural Architecture framework, gave the final keynote: Beyond Therapy: Cultural Architecture and the Future of the Field.
The Workshops
After each keynote, the salon split between the Auditorium and the Huntington Room for 90-minute workshops. Our thanks to every presenter who brought their work into the room:
- Thursday: Larry Zucker, LCSW, with Helping Couples Reclaim the Relationship They’d Meant to Create; J D’Arrigo, PhD, with Who has the Right to Mandate Living?; Courtney Olinger, PsyD, LMFT, with I’m Not Going to Give You a Map: Wayfinding in Neurodivergent Worlds; and Heather Black-Coyne, LMFT, LAADC, with Unreasonable Curiosity; the Problem is Not the Problem.
- Friday: Will Sherwin, LMFT, with Notes from My Suicide Reading Project; Stacy Marsh, LMFT, with Eating Disorder Resistance and Recovery; and Charley Lang, LMFT, with First Couple Session.
- Saturday: Kamran Afary, PhD, and Pam Dunne, PhD, with Narradrama, Agency, and the Refusal to Normalize; Michelle Myers, M.S., PPS-SC, with Undercover Anti-Bullying Teams: Eliminate Bullying in as Little as 14 Days!; and Jonny Kosmo, LMFT, whose Scribbling Your Practice gathered us in the Auditorium on Saturday afternoon before the closing ceremony.
Our Own Clinicians on Stage
We were proud to see members of our own clinical team present alongside our guests:
- Jonathan Miranda, our Director of Operations, led A Human Experience, an experiential workshop that explored whether, after all the training and models, a therapist can still simply meet another person. Jonathan is a Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT #150199) at California Family Institute, supervised by Elizabeth Armstrong, LMFT #111154.
- Danny Livingston presented Reclaiming the Myth, which explored what narrative therapy, skilled at deconstructing grand narratives, owes people who long for a brighter future, and whether it is time to build a better myth. Danny is a Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT #153183) at California Family Institute, supervised by Chris Hoff, PhD, LMFT #53081.
- Danielle Samuels, PhD, presented The Poetics of Space in Therapy, which considered what happens when narrative therapy takes seriously the idea that the spaces and settings of our lives shape our experience, and that we shape them back. Danielle is a Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT #165534) and a Registered Associate Professional Clinical Counselor (APCC #23779) at California Family Institute, supervised by Elizabeth Armstrong, LMFT #111154.
- Casey Tucker and Mariia Shurkhal led Friday afternoon’s whole-salon plenary, The Way We Show Up, a live improv workshop that invited the room to watch the same scene met with anger, then with curiosity, then with calm. Casey is a Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT #147692) at California Family Institute, supervised by Elizabeth Armstrong, LMFT #111154. Mariia is a Marriage and Family Therapist Trainee at California Family Institute, supervised by Chris Hoff, PhD, LMFT #53081.
Art, Movement, and Repair
All three days, Dea Jenkins’ Library of Repair filled the Newport Room: a participatory textile installation about the space between what was and what is not yet. Each day began with a morning workshop, and drop-in hours followed, inviting anyone to stitch, weave and mend, adding to a communal archive built on the idea that repair works damage into the whole rather than erasing it.
Thursday ended in the Atrium with Heather Sprague of Sage Dance Co. leading Embodied Presence Through Dance, and yes, there was salsa.
What Carries Forward
The salon didn’t end on Saturday afternoon. Some of the conversations from Irvine are already continuing closer to home: our new women’s group grew out of conversations at this year’s salon.
Dangerous Stories is a benefit for California Family Institute: 100% of proceeds support our mission to bring sliding-scale therapy to Orange County families who need it most. In that way, the questions we asked together in Irvine come back to the therapy room here at home.
Thank you to our keynote speakers, presenters and artists, to the team at the Beckman Center, and above all to everyone who came, stayed curious, and made these three days a salon.
Want to hear about future salons? Visit the Dangerous Stories page.
