Narrative Drawing Intervention®️Institute
With the rapid increase in mental health problems in the urban population, effective psychological education and intervention work becomes our first priority.
Narrative Drawing Intervention Institute (formerly Hong Kong Institute for Counselling Professionals) was established in 2012. The Institute has the aim of promoting high quality psychotherapeutic services to people in need, through the development of professional, practical and systematic clinical intervention and counselling skills training to helping professionals in Hong Kong, Mainland China and overseas countries.
With the rapid increase in mental health problems in the urban population, effective psychological education and intervention work becomes our first priority. The Narrative Drawing Intervention team led by Dr. Monica Wong has trained more than ten thousand professionals in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Mainland China over the last decade. The Institute strives to continue with academic research, trainers’ trainings, therapist trainings, group & individual therapy services, product development, book publishing and other projects in the coming years. With this plan in our vision, the institute will continue to focus on the development of Narrative Drawing Intervention, an effective clinical psychological model, in response to the significant demand for mental health services in the society.
Narrative Drawing Intervention®️
A new clinical psychological model that combines art therapy and narrative intervention skills
Narrative Drawing Intervention®(NDI) is a new clinical psychological model that combines art therapy and narrative intervention skills, which draws on the research and teaching experiences of Dr. Monica Wong cultivated over the last decade. NDI focuses on drawing on the narratives of the stories behind the drawings created by clients, which aims to bring the subconscious into conscious, and separates the people and their problems. Just as the famous saying of Michael White, the founder of Narrative Therapy: “The person is not the problem. The problem is the problem.” When clients are able to externalize their problems, helping professionals can then walk hand-in-hand with them to enable self-understanding, self-acceptance and bringing their potential to the fullest. This ultimately leads to the rediscovering of inner strength, outer resources and hopes for the individual.
In the past two years, Dr. Monica Wong has conducted over one hundred systematic trainings, workshops and seminars around the world, and is committed to spread the spirit of NDI to more and more helping professionals in the world. Our long-term vision is to establish helping professional support teams in Hong Kong, Mainland China and overseas countries. Through the concept of ‘train the trainers’, we would like to keep passing the torch, and to fulfill our mission of ‘sharing love, transforming lives’.
The Making of NDI and NDI Volunteer Service
Between 2008-2016, Dr. Monica Wong went on 15 separate missions to areas worst hit by the Sichuan earthquakes to provide counselling services to our compatriots in need using art and narrative therapy. She also ran courses and workshops in local hospitals and universities free-of-charge, to equip local helping professionals to help victims heal. These years of invaluable experience in helping victims stricken by trauma has led Dr Wong to see the unique opportunity art and narrative therapy provides in healing the wounded mind.
From 2011 to 2015, Dr. Wong devoted herself to the study of NDI, and recruited a group of helping professionals, including psychologists, social workers and counsellors, with a breadth of clinical experience as research participants to apply NDI into their practice. Their comments and suggestions helped refine NDI into a versatile tool that specifically meets the needs of local psychotherapists and counsellors.
In 2013, Dr. Wong hosted the inaugural International Art Therapy Conference in 2013. Among the participants was Mr. Mark Obama Ndesandjo, the younger brother of then US President Barack Obama. In addition, the three-day international forum in Shenzhen, China was attended by experts in art therapy from over 20 countries, exchanging their knowledge and colourful cultures alike. The vision in the Chinese Proverb “The bloom of a hundred flowers” was truly realised in this magnificent event.
In 2014, the "By Your Side Psychological Support Program" ("By Your Side") sponsored by the Psycho-Art Therapy Association (PATA) was launched. The program, led by Dr Wong, was committed to serving local communities through psychotherapy practised with professionalism, aligning with the motto of the program of "spreading love and transforming lives".
In 2015, upon hearing the tragic news of the suicide of several school-aged children in Hong Kong, Dr. Wong and her team of volunteers began a campaign to educate parents, teachers and students on how to develop coping mechanisms to counteract the ever-increasing stressors that children face on a daily basis and prevent the tragedy of child suicide from happening again. Self-help tools incorporating elements from art therapy, educational psychology, clinical psychology, counselling and social work were delivered to students of all ages from primary school to university level, through a multitude of formats including didactic lectures, treatment groups and one-to-one psychological counselling services.
In 2015, Narrative Drawing Intervention®️ (NDI) was officially launched! The innovative psychotherapeutic model was first presented to world-renowned experts in the field of art therapy at the Australian Art Therapy International Forum. To provide a framework for other clinicians to easily learn and seamlessly incorporate NDI into their practice, Dr Wong authored the "Clinical Manual of Narrative Drawing Intervention®️". Developed over the course of four years, the manual systematically tackles the practical elements of NDI and guides the reader on how to integrate the core elements of NDI with their personal style of counselling.
In 2015, while NDI was still at its infancy, Dr. Wong was invited to speak to over 400 helping professionals at the International Forum on Art Therapy in Adelaide, Australia. The topic of her presentation was "The Application of Narrative Drawing Intervention on Adolescents with Autism".
In May 2016, Dr Wong organised the second iteration of the International Art Therapy Conference with the theme of “Love Knows No Boundaries”. Experts from over 20 countries attended this charitable event with proceeds donated to the Psycho-Art Therapy Association to help those in need of quality psychotherapy services in Hong Kong and Mainland China.
In 2017, the Narrative Drawing Intervention️®️ Institute was officially established in Hong Kong. In addition to training courses on NDI that Dr. Wong has rigorously refined over years, it also offers various supplementary courses and counselling services.
Following the earthquake in Jiuzhaigou County, Sichuan in 2017, Dr Wong launched the "By Your Side" program in partnership with a Provincial Hospital in Sichuan. The program focused on delivering one-on-one psychotherapy sessions for affected children using NDI. Since then, Dr. Wong and her team have provided NDI-based counselling to a wide range of target groups including children with special needs, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities and autism, as well as their parents across different settings in Hong Kong and the Mainland. Additionally, NDI-based group counselling was used for elderly dealing with bereavement.
In October 2018, Indonesia was devastated by a series of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. Dr Wong led a team of volunteers to the worst hit areas and brought the “By Your Side” campaign she started in 2017 to those in need. While in the country, Dr Wong was invited by the Indonesian government to give lectures and workshops at the education bureau and universities to train local helping professionals, equipping them to aid the oft-neglected reconstruction of the spirit after a devastating natural disaster.
As the founder of NDI®️, Dr. Wong has been invited by the Ministry of Health of Singapore, the Government of Indonesia, Bihar University in India, The School of Psychology Nepal, California State University, California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University and the University of Torreón, Mexico to give speeches and lectures on NDI®️.
In 2019, the Wong Hiu Hung Narrative Drawing Intervention®️ Institute (NDI-I) began rolling out in Mainland China, opening NDI centres in Chengdu, Sichuan, Shenzhen, Guangdong and Yinchuan, Ningxia. In just six years since its inception, NDI has gained widespread recognition from scholars both at home and abroad, with research projects on the topic springing up across Mainland China. Most notably, NDI was the subject of postgraduate theses at the Department of Sociology of Inner Mongolia University of Technology. Additionally, the Southwest University of Science and Technology (City College) in Sichuan set up an NDI Psychological Research Centre to provide specialised training to helping professionals and facilitate research into NDI, with the aim of making NDI more available to those in need. Moreover, Dr. Wong is actively seeking to expand the use cases of NDI by bringing it to major hospitals, social welfare institutions, universities, primary and secondary schools and various communities, both at home and abroad in order to build a community around this invaluable therapeutic tool consisting of helping professionals from all walks of life.
In November 2019, Dr Wong organised the third International Art Therapy Conference in Beijing, China themed “Harmony in Diversity” in collaboration with the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. This vibrant event was a celebration of diversity and a continuation of the mission set out in 2013, of promoting knowledge and cultural exchanges among professionals in the field of art therapy from across the globe. This conference also set the stage for a new generation of NDI scholars from across China, including Beijing, Hong Kong, Chengdu, Wuhan, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Yinchuan, Hohhot, etc. to present their ideas to experts in the field, highlighting the broad applicability of NDI. Their presentations included applications of NDI in special groups such as SEN children and adolescents, patients with long-term illnesses, students of all ages and juvenile offenders. Proceeds from the conference was again donated to helping those in need in Hong Kong, India, Nepal and Indonesia.
In addition to chairing her third successive International Art Therapy Conference, Dr. Wong renewed her partnership with the world-renowned Dr. Cathy Malchiodi to give a series of workshops, themed “When East Meets West in Art Therapy”, at Peking University. The pair had previously been invited to lecture together at the Ministry of Health of Singapore in October 2017. Later in 2019, the NDI-I was proud to organise a series of master classes delivered by acclaimed experts Dr. Cathy Malchiodi and Mrs. Cornelia Elbrecht to helping professionals from across the globe who gathered in Beijing. The seeds of collaboration in the field of art therapy planted in 2013 were in full bloom in 2019 with the vibrant exchange of ideas among scholars and experts from over 30 countries.
In November 2019, the "By Your Side" campaign expanded beyond China, Hong Kong and Indonesia with its launch in Nepal to provide psychotherapy for victims of human trafficking. With the goal of “training the trainers”, workshops were held to introduce Expressive Art Therapy and NDI to local psychologists and helping professionals, as well as those from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan.
Hot on the heels of its success in Nepal, the "By Your Side" campaign launched in India in December 2019. In addition to teaching NDI®️ at the Graduate School of Psychology, Bihar University, Dr Wong and her team of volunteers also visited different NGOs in Kolkata and Bodhgaya to provided much needed group counselling and psychological support services to orphans and marginalised groups including drug addicts and women in slums.
Since its foundation, the mission of the "By Your Side" campaign had been to promote mental health with the central tenant of “spreading love and transforming lives” without prejudice to political affiliation or religion. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, people from all walks of life have been affected by the virus and lockdown measures, both mentally and spiritually, and there was huge demand for public psychological counselling services. The "By Your Side" campaign Organizing Committee decided to from an elite team of experiences counsellors and set up an online psychotherapy clinic to provide free counselling services to people in their hour of need.
In July 2021, Dr Wong collaborated with the renowned artist Prof. Zhu Yunguang to present her clinical experience to experts from across the globe at the International Congress of Psychology. The presentation received excellent reception and most notably, a clinical psychologist based in the UK expressed interest in applying NDI to his humanitarian work in helping children and adolescents overcome their psychological traumas in Uganda, Africa.
In 2022, the NDI-I will continue to deliver quality courses in NDI, with a new partnership focused on training psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses. We are also excited to add two new offerings to our already strong course line-up to train more helping professionals and serve a wider population – the ‘Train the Trainers’ Certificate Course on Narrative Drawing Intervention and ‘The Lazy Parents’ Parenting Course
