Journal December 2025 Release - Flipbook - Page 13
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I chose to orient myself around the co-research metaphor both because of
its beguiling familiarity and because it radically departed from conventional
clinical practice. It brought together the very respectable notion of research
with the rather odd idea of the co-production of knowledge by sufferers
and therapist. What made this possible, in the first instance, was a
thorough-going externalizing conversation, one in which the problem was a
problem for everyone – and here I included myself. Here’s where I parted
company from the disinterested ethnographer. This has led, and continually
leads, to practices, to discover a ‘knowing’ in such a fashion that all parties
to it could make good use of it. Such knowledges are fiercely and
unashamedly pragmatic.” (From empathy to ethnography section, para. 7)
Joanna taught me first-hand the effect of our words on one another. She was
quick to pick up and point out my ‘nursing’ voice wanting to offer suggestions and
shared a story about something her art therapist said that had distressed her and
pushed her to the edge, resulting in her most recent attempt on her life. The art
therapist had apparently suggested that Joanna was toxic and that she should be
divorced from her family for them to be safe. It soon became clear that Joanna
was not the toxic one, but that the art therapist’s “well-meaning” advice had been
devastating to Joanna’s gentle heart. Joanna’s core values centred around light,
love, and laughter. BUT I was confused. If Joanna opposed violence in our society,
why was it ok for her to harm herself?
Her story
Joanna was thirty-four years old when we first met. She is a white Afrikaans
woman, married to Pieter. They had two near-adolescent children. They chose to
live outside the hustle and bustle of the city and settled on a picturesque, rustic,
small holding.
In her birth family, Joanna was the eldest, with a younger brother. Their father
was jovial, outgoing, and sociable, while their mother was more reserved.
Joanna’s mother saw herself as educated and classy with a postgraduate degree
in German. Her children and their academic success were very important to her.
Joanna told of growing up in a “perfectly normal” home where her father was the
head of the household and her mother the caregiver. At times, her father drank
too much and became abusive. He was “the captain of the ship”; they even
An Apprenticeship in Extremis
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, December 2025 Release, p. 5-44.
www.journalnft.com
