Purpose of the course:
The need for pastoral care is growing exponentially in our society. This course has been developed to provide students with exposure to the practice of pastoral care. Students will be equiped to facilitate hope and healing in a wide variety of pastoral situations – situations which are telling in the Southern African societal context.
Outcomes:
* Integrated understanding of narrative pastoral therapy;
* Capacity to integrate pastoral theology and therapeutic skills in a meaningful and creative way in practice;
* Develop possibilities for students to operate in a pastoral therapeutic way within different specialization fields;
* To make a pastoral therapeutic contribution to the healing of communities.
Who may enrol?
The academic requirement for enrolment into this course is a matriculation excemption. Any Christian who is committed to complete the course with enthusiasm and who has a passion for care should enrol for this course. The student will be required to be open to personal growth and a reflection of accepted discourses. You are bound to change your views of being in the world and therefore you will have to be willing to change – even in your views of faith and belief. Candidates for the course love to study.
Note: Students who qualify to register for a Masters degree at the Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, should include this course as part of a structured Masters degree in Practical Theology specialising in Narrative Pastoral Counselling. Such students contact the Department of Practical Theology (Prof Julian Müller) for an admission exam and register, pending the outcome, for a Masters degree at the University of Pretoria
Structure and duration of course
This is a two year course. During this period students will be attending 3-hour seminars for 36 weeks per year at the Coram Deo Pastoral Centre in Pretoria. As from the second semester of this course, one hour of each contact session will be dedicated to practical counselling sessions. Students will also be required to submit three essays and a portfolio of evidence in the form of a personal journal which will be compiled over the duration of the course for supervision purposes. Students who enrolled for the Masters degree will be required to participate for two semesters (2 & 3) in 3 hours per week sessions at the Coram Deo Pastoral Centre.
Dates:
7 February – November 2012: once a week (excluding school holidays)
February – November 2013: once a week (excluding school holidays)
Venue:
Coram Deo, Waterkloof Glen, Pretoria.
Price: R10 000 (R5000 per year)
(50% payable upon registration – R2500)
(Masters students register and pay for the course at the University of Pretoria)
Registration deadline: 25 January, 2012.
Registration address: P O Box 32002, Glenstantia, 0010;
Coram Deo Pastorale Sentrum, C/O Lea en Hugo Street, Waterkloof Glen.
Tel 012-998 8323, Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Minimum number of participants required per course: 25
COURSE CONTENT
Module 1: The narrative paradigm
* Discourses and deconstruction introduced
* The problem is the problem! Externalising in the pastoral conversation
* Unique outcomes and re-authoring lives
* Re-membering conversations, outsider witness practices and the reflecting team
* My personal narrative within a family context – a reflection.
Assignment 1: Discuss power discourses in pastoral counselling with reference to a case study (10-15 pages).
Module 2: Pastoral Theology
* Pastoral counselling: an overview of pastoral practice
* Encountering the holy in counselling: the spiritual in pastoral conversations
* Pastoral care situated within the practical theology discourse
* An introduction to post-foundational theology
* Theology that subjugates: power discourses in the theology narrative
Assignment 2: My theology story: a personal reflection on pastoral care and theology (10-15 pages).
Module 3: A narrative approach to marriage and relationship counselling
* A narrative reflection on relationships
* Marriage discourses
* Divorce and recovery
* Gender and sexual discourses
* My relationship story: discourses, the “absent, but implicit” en re-membering
Assignment 3: Develop a narrative model for one of the aspects of relationship counselling discussed in this module with reference to a case study (10-15 pages)
Module 4: A narrative approach to child therapy
* An introduction to child therapy
* Interweavings of the narrative paradigm and creative media like clay, ceramics, painting and collages in child therapy.
Assignment 4: Come and present a child therapy narrative, indicating how artistic media have been utilised in the therapy process.
Module 5: Therapy in the case of physical and sexual abuse – a narrative approach
- An introduction to counselling in cases where sexual and other forms of abuse created problem saturated identity stories.
Assignment 5: Indicate how you used a narrative approach to facilitate the development of an alternative identity story in the case of any form of abuse – physical, emotional or sexual.
Module 6: Trauma and Grief Therapy – A narrative approach
- An overview of the development of a narrative approach to trauma and grief therapy or loss therapy with reference to some of the thoughts developed by Michael White.
Assignment 6: Develop your own approach to trauma or loss therapy and indicate how the voice of the narrative approach and social constructionism became evident in your model.
Module 7: Therapy and dependance stories – addiction in dialogue with narrative therapy
- A discussion of dependance and addiction as problem narratives
- Development of a therapeutic approach to deconstruct this problem story
- A narrative approach to addicition discourses with special reference to planning for the liminal phase of change.
Assignment 7: Discuss an addiction story and refer to the discourses woven into this narrative. Illustrate this by referring to a case study.
Module 8: Group work – therapy and change work in communities and groups
- A discussion of how the narrative paradigm can facilitate work within groups and a community dialogue.
Assignment 8: Describe a group project where you utilised the narrative approach by making use of the framework for research on the Coram Deo website.
COURSE LEADER: Dr Francois Wessels.
Other lecturers: Dr Chené Swart, Me Marietjie van Loggerenberg, Me Erika Marais, Dr André Botha, Me Rietjie van Blerk, Me Essie Raath.
