Journal December 2025 Release - Flipbook - Page 8
6
Against this political backdrop, I was happily married, and I worked part time at
Vista Psychiatric clinic in Pretoria. Trained as a registered, psychiatric and
maternity nurse, I preferred working in psychiatry. While nurses couldn't provide
therapy or influence patient treatment, we followed modern diagnostic criteria
and referred any irregularities to the psychiatrist. Psychiatrists are the team
leaders; nurses the support staff.
One day, I bumped into Prof Dirk Kotze at the clinic, who had recently returned
from Australia, where he studied with the narrative therapist, Michael White. Dirk
and his wife, Elmarie, decided to introduce narrative therapy to South African
students in Pretoria. I signed up for a short course the professor offered and
found it so inspiring that I then commenced an eight-year exploration into
storytelling as a form of therapy.
I became intrigued by the postmodern position of the therapist: as collaborator
and co-traveller rather than nurse with expert knowledge and the patient with no
power. Psychiatric nursing is a modern discipline and social science, while
narrative therapy is seen as a postmodern healing practice not vested in the fixing
or “healing” of the client. Narrative therapy honours the stories people choose to
live by. Central to this practice is the distinction between problem-saturated
stories, which are shaped by limiting narratives, and preferred stories that reflect
a person’s hopes, values, and unique ways of responding to life’s difficulties with
co-created multifaceted stories that the client chooses to live into.
Before I could join this course in narrative therapy, I needed to complete an
undergraduate degree before enrolling in the University of Pretoria's Master
Practical Theology with Narrative Therapy as praxis program. Five years after my
initial accidental meeting with Prof Dirk Kotze, I was sufficiently academically
qualified to enter the academic world of practical theology and narrative therapy
as a master’s student. At forty-five, optimistic about new opportunities, I
hummed “Nkosi Sikelele Africa”1 under my breath as I bought a rucksack and Doc
Martens, excited to celebrate my new student life. Like the rest of the “New
South Africa”, I had a new beginning.
1
Nkosi Sikelele Africa is South Africa’s national anthem.
An Apprenticeship in Extremis
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, December 2025 Release, p. 5-44.
www.journalnft.com
